by
Damien
F. Mackey
Bishop
George Berkeley is revealed by philosopher-scientist Gavin Ardley to have been a
most poorly misunderstood, and wrongly classified, philosopher of science and
mathematics.
Introduction
Some decades ago, Gavin Ardley
(RIP) very kindly posted me a copy of his marvellous book, Berkeley's
Renovation of Philosophy
(Martinus Nijhoff, 1968), in which he turned upside down virtually everything
that I had been taught about the Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher, George
Berkeley (1685 -1753).
Traditionally, bishop George
Berkeley - who is not highly regarded at all by champions of philosophia perennis - is placed alongside
such Age of Enlightenment philosophers as Locke and Hume, albeit with his own
unique brand of Empiricism.
For example (http://www.philosophybasics.com/philosophers_berkeley.html):
Bishop George Berkeley (1685 - 1753) was an Irish
philosopher of the Age of
Enlightenment, best known for his theory of Immaterialism, a type of
Idealism (he
is sometimes considered the father of modern Idealism).
Along with John
Locke and David
Hume, he is also a major figure in the British
Empiricism movement, although his Empiricism is
of a much more radical kind, arising from his mantra "to be is to
be perceived".
And again (http://www.iep.utm.edu/berkeley/):
George Berkeley was one of the three most
famous British Empiricists. (The other two are John Locke
and David
Hume.) Berkeley is best known for his early works on
vision (An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision, 1709) and metaphysics (A
Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, 1710; Three
Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, 1713).
….
Berkeley claimed that abstract ideas are the
source of all philosophical perplexity and illusion. In his Introduction
to the Principles of Human Knowledge he argued that, as Locke described
abstract ideas (Berkeley considered Locke’s the best account of abstraction),
(1) they cannot, in fact, be formed, (2) they are not needed for communication
or knowledge, and (3) they are inconsistent and therefore inconceivable.
In the Principles and the Three
Dialogues Berkeley defends two metaphysical theses: idealism (the
claim that everything that exists either is a mind or depends on a mind for its
existence) and immaterialism (the claim that matter does not exist). His
contention that all physical objects are composed of ideas is encapsulated in
his motto esse is percipi (to be is to be perceived). ….
[End of quotes]
According to Gavin Ardley
In Berkeley's Renovation of Philosophy, Gavin
Ardley paints an entirely different portrait of Berkeley as a most common sense
and realist philosopher, “one who strove to
seat philosophy once more on the broad human and common sense foundations laid
by Plato and Aristotle”. Berkeley, Ardley explains, has been misread, causing
his actual philosophical outlook to have been quite misunderstood
due to a misinterpretation of his dialectical method. For often Berkeley’s antithesis has been taken for his final synthesis, with the inevitably catastrophic
result: “… they select and abstract from the totality
of Berkeley, and miss the robust simplicity and universality of Berkeley’s
intentions”.
Ardley introduces his book as
follows:
In
this work I have endeavoured to see Berkeley in his contemporary setting. On
the principle that philosophy is ultimately about men, not about abstract
problems, I have tried to see Berkeley the philosopher as an expression of
Berkeley the man. When this is done, what is perennial in the philosophy may be
discerned in and through what is local and temporal. Berkeley then emerges as a
pioneer reformer; not so much an innovator as a renovator; one who set out to
rescue phi losophy from the enthusiasms of the preceding age; one who strove to
seat philosophy once more on the broad human and common sense foundations laid
by Plato and Aristotle. Critical studies of some of the more striking of
Berkeley's epistemological arguments are legion. They commenced with the young
Berkeley's first appearance in print, and have continued to this day. But
whether they take the form of professions of support for Berkeley, or of bald
refutations of Berkeley's supposed fallacies, or whether, like the contemporary
analytical studies of Moore, Warnock, and Austin, they are subtle exposures of
alleged deeply concealed logical muddles, they all tend to share one common characteristic:
they select and abstract from the totality of Berkeley, and miss the robust
simplicity and universality of Berkeley's intentions. It is the intentions
which control the whole, and give the right perspective in which to view the
various items.
[End
of quote]
After that it is a roller coaster ride towards
the discovery of an entirely new Berkeley and his vital contribution - not without
Ardley’s points of criticism here and there - to the philosophy of modern science
and mathematics.
Not least of Gavin Ardley’s achievements here
is his re-interpretation of Berkeley’s supposed principle of immaterialism, esse est percipi, along the lines of realism
and common sense. Earlier we read of the standard view of Berkeley in this
regard: “[Berkeley’s] immaterialism (the claim
that matter does not exist). His contention that all physical objects are
composed of ideas is encapsulated in his motto esse is percipi
(to be is to be perceived)”. Berkeley’s true view of this famous principle is well
explained also in the following review: “… everything that is perceived is truly
real and existing; it is, because it is perceived, esse est percipi”.
