History of Philosophy in the 17th & 18th Centuries

Berkeley 1: Seminar

Options for dualism

What is the relation between materiality and mentality?

Descartes: interactionism

Malebranche: occasionalism

Leibniz: pre-established harmony

Is there another?

Berkeley's argument contra Locke appealing to our ignorance about how materiality produces mentality

Locke defends the common view that our mental experience constitutes evidence for the reality of the material world, but concedes that we haven't a clue about how materiality generates mentality.

Berkeley says if we are ignorant in this way, we have no basis for thinking that our mental experience evidences the existence of a material world.

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Last revised 11:01:05