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Berkeley's Ambiguity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2010

David A. Givner
David A. Givner
Affiliation:
University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus
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Extract

The subject of this study is an ambiguity which is deeply rooted in Berkeley's arguments against matter. By a is shift between two meanings of the term ‘sensible’, he is able to construct a simple “refutation” of matter. Berkeley then attempts to show that this argument is irrefutable. The ambiguity of the original argument is, however, contained in the train of supporting arguments. My purpose in bringing attention to this ambiguity is not just to reveal a mistake in Berkeley's arguments against matter. This particular mistake, I believe, deserves scrutiny not only because it is a mistake, but also because it explains the strategy and order of Berkeley's arguments against matter. Furthermore, if this explanation is correct, then some light can be cast on some puzzling features of Berkeley's philosophy.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , March 1970 , pp. 646 - 662
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1970

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References

1 Section numbers refer to Part I of The Principles of Human Knowledge. My quotations are from George Berkeley, Works, ed. A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop (London: Nelson, 1949), hereafter referred to as Works.

2 These two premises are also explicitly given in the Principles, (sec. 4). Thus the argument of this section is but a restatement of the argument of sec. 3.

3 What might first arouse suspicion is a possible shift of meaning between perceivable in (1. 1), where it would seem to mean ‘can be but is not necessarily perceived,’ and perceivable in (1.2), where it means ‘necessarily perceived’. But if ‘sensible thing’ in (1.1) has a sensationalistic meaning, then ‘perceivable’ in that premise means ‘necessarily perceived’, i. e. sensible things are necessarily perceived and, afortiori, can be perceived. Thus the meaning of ‘perceivable’ in (1. 1) is determined by the meaning of ‘sensible thing’. This term must, therefore, be shown to be ambiguous before any ambiguity can be detected in ‘perceivable’.

4 In an earlier argument against external sensibles, Berkeley appeals to the impossibility of abstracting a color from its being perceived. This alleged example of an impossible abstraction, like the case above, also assumes the impossibility of external colors and thus depends on the basic argument, (see sec. 5).

5 Also see Philosophical Commentaries, entry #265, in Works, I, 33.

6 This argument is considered at length by Marc-Wogau, Konrad, “Berkeley's Sensationalism and the Esse Est Percipi Principle”, Theoria, XXIII (1957), 27–36Google Scholar, and Fain, Haskall, “More on the Esse Est Percipi Principle”, Theoria, XXV (1959), 65–81Google Scholar.

7 See Principles (sec. 68–81) and the Second Dialogue of Three Dialogues, especially Works II, 317–226.

8 Luce, A. A., Berkeley's Immaterialism (London: Nelson, 1945), 82Google Scholar, and The Dialectic of Immaterialism (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1963), 89–90Google Scholar.

9 Berkeley's Immaterialism, 63–64 and The Dialectic of Immaterialism, 129.