Berkeley 1 Berkeley 1 'It is ... the actual receiving of ideas from without that gives us notice of the existence of other things, and makes us know, that something doth exist at that time without us, which causes that idea in us; though perhaps we neither know nor consider how it does it.' Essay, Bk IV, Ch. XI, Section 2.
'[It might be regarded as simply probable that] there are such things as bodies that excite their ideas in our minds. But neither can this be said; for, though we give the materialists their external bodies, they by their own confession are never the nearer knowing how our ideas are produced; since they own themselves unable to comprehend in what manner body can act upon spirit, or how it is possible it should imprint any idea in the mind. Hence it is evident the production of ideas or sensations in our minds can be no reason why we should suppose Matter or corporeal substances, since that is acknowledged to remain equally inexplicable with or without this supposition. ' Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, Section 19.
'Suppose - what no one can deny possible- an intelligence without the help of external bodies, to be affected with the same train of sensations or ideas that you are, imprinted in the same order and with like vividness in his mind. I ask whether that intelligence hath not all the reason to believe the existence of corporeal substances, represented by his ideas, and exciting them in his mind, that you can possibly have for believing the same thing? Of this there can be no question- which one consideration were enough to make any reasonable person suspect the strength of whatever arguments be may think himself to have, for the existence of bodies without the mind.' Principles of Human Knowledge, Section 21.
Berkeley thinks there are ideas, and minds (or spirits, as he sometimes says) to have them, but nothing else.
Ideas are completely dependent on the minds they exist in. For them, to be is to be perceived ('their esse is percipi ').
Berkeley:
'That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by the imagination, exist without the mind, is what everybody will allow. And it seems no less evident that the various sensations or ideas imprinted on the sense, however blended or combined together (that is, whatever objects they compose), cannot exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving them.- I think an intuitive knowledge may be obtained of this by any one that shall attend to what is meant by the term exists, when applied to sensible things. The table I write on I say exists, that is, I see and feel it; and if I were out of my study I should say it existed- meaning thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it. There was an odour, that is, it was smelt; there was a sound, that is, it was heard; a colour or figure, and it was perceived by sight or touch. This is all that I can understand by these and the like expressions. For as to what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived, that seems perfectly unintelligible. Their esse is percepi, nor is it possible they should have any existence out of the minds or thinking things which perceive them.
It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing amongst men, that houses, mountains, rivers, and in a word all sensible objects, have an existence, natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by the understanding. But, with how great an assurance and acquiescence soever this principle may be entertained in the world, yet whoever shall find in his heart to call it in question may, if I mistake not, perceive it to involve a manifest contradiction. For, what are the fore-mentioned objects but the things we perceive by sense? and what do we perceive besides our own ideas or sensations? and is it not plainly repugnant that any one of these, or any combination of them, should exist unperceived?' Principles of Human Knowledge, Sections 3,4.
Berkeley's gist is that all the arguments Locke uses to identify secondary qualities also identify secondary qualities.
Locke's arguments include:
'Let us consider the red and white colours in porphyry.Hinder light from striking on it, and its colours vanish; it no longerproduces any such ideas in us: upon the return of light it producesthese appearances on us again. Can any one think any realalterations are made in the porphyry by the presence or absence of light; and that those ideas of whiteness and redness are really inporphyry in. the light, when it is plain it has no colour in the dark?It has, indeed, such a configuration of particles, both night and day, as are apt, by the rays of light rebounding from some parts of that hard stone, to produce in us the idea of redness, and from others the idea of whiteness; but whiteness or redness are not in it at any time, but such a texture that hath the power to produce such a sensation in us.' Essay, Bk II, Ch. VIII, Section 19
We can imagine a black dog turning grey, but not losing its extension.
A piece of paper can lack smell but not size.
'The ideas of the primary alone really exist. The particularbulk, number, figure, and motion of the parts of fire or snow arereally in them,- whether any one's senses perceive them or no: andtherefore they may be called real qualities, because they really exist in those bodies. But light, heat, whiteness, or coldness, are nomore really in them than sickness or pain is in manna. Take away the sensation of them; let not the eyes see light or colours, nor the ears hear sounds; let the palate not taste, nor the nose smell, and all colours, tastes, odours, and sounds, as they are such particularideas, vanish and cease, and are reduced to their causes, i.e. bulk, figure, and motion of parts.' Locke, Essay, Bk II, Ch. VIII, Section 17.
'Ideas being thus distinguished and understood, we may be able to give an account how the same water, at the same time, may produce the idea of cold by one hand and of heat by the other: whereas it is impossible that the same water, if those ideas were really in it, should at the same time be both hot and cold. For, if we imagine warmth, as it is in our hands, to be nothing but a certain sort and degree of motion in the minute particles of our nerves or animal spirits, we may understand how it is possible that the same water may, at the same time, produce the sensations of heat in one hand and cold in the other; which yet figure never does, that never producing- the idea of a square by one hand which has produced the idea of a globe by another. But if the sensation of heat and cold be nothing but the increase or diminution of the motion of the minute parts of our bodies, caused by the corpuscles of any other body, it is easy to be understood, that if that motion be greater in one hand than in the other; if a body be applied to the two hands, which has in its minute particles a greater motion than in those of one of the hands, and a less than in those of the other, it will increase the motion of the one hand and lessen it in the other; and so cause the different sensations of heat and cold that depend thereon.' Essay, Bk II, Ch. VIII, Section 21
'Pound an almond, and the clear white colour will be altered into a dirty one, and the sweet taste into an oily one. What real alteration can the beating of the pestle make in any body, but an alteration of the texture of it?' Essay, Bk II, Ch. VIII, Section 20
(Descartes had argued: Secondary qualities only perceptible through a single sense.
Malebranche had argued: the perception of secondary qualities varied with the position of the observer, and so cannot be 'in' the object. E.g. a thing appears to have a different colour depending on the angle of perception, or the light.)
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