Common sense philosophy of Irish Bishop George Berkeley

by Damien F. Mackey 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”. The sorely misunderstood Bishop George Berkeley (2 March 1685 – 14 January 1753) is quite well represented here: https://iep.utm.edu/george-berkeley-philosophy-of-science/ George Berkeley: Philosophy of Science George Berkeley announces at the very outset of Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous that the goals of his philosophical system are to demonstrate the reality of genuine knowledge, the incorporeal nature of the soul, and the ever-present guidance and care of God for us. He will do this in opposition to skeptics and atheists. A proper understanding of science, as Berkeley sees it, will be compatible with his wider philosophy in achieving its goals. His project is not to rail against science or add to the scientific corpus. Quite to the contrary, he admires the great scientific achievements of his day. He has no quarrel with the predictive power and hence the usefulness of those theories. His project is to understand the nature of science including its limits and what it commits us to. A proper understanding of science will show, for example, that it has no commitment to material objects and efficient causation. Understanding this and other philosophical prejudices will undercut many of the assumptions leading to skepticism and atheism. In exploring the nature of science, Berkeley provides insights into several of the central topics of what is now called the philosophy of science. They include the nature of causation, the nature of scientific laws and explanation, the nature of space, time, and motion, and the ontological status of unobserved scientific entities. Berkeley concludes that causation is mere regularity; laws are descriptions of fundamental regularities; explanation consists in showing that phenomena are to be expected given the laws of nature; absolute space and time are inconceivable; and at least some of the unobserved entities in science do not exist, though they are useful to science. Each of these topics is explored in some detail in this article. …. [End of quote] But by far the best account of Berkeley has been given by Dr. Gavin Ardley, who reveals him as being a most poorly misunderstood, and wrongly classified, philosopher of science and mathematics. 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 philosophy 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”. http://online.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/abs/10.3828/MC.13.4.338?journalCode=mc George Berkeley’s common sense “The young Berkeley felt himself to be a man with a reforming mission. Philosophers of the past, and especially the mathematicians and physicists of the previous century, had, he believed, so mingled truth with error, that our educated knowledge of the world had become embarrassed with shameful contradictions …”. Gavin Ardley The following choice items from Gavin Ardley’s Berkeley’s Renovation of Philosophy (1968) have been taken from various chapters of the book as summarised at: https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/2107069944_Gavin_Ardley The Mysterious Universe When Berkeley admitted the relevance of common sense, he was introducing a notion of philosophical investigation diametrically opposed to the notion commonly accepted since Descartes. Under the Cartesian aegis we are directed to search for the clear and distinct, and to put aside all that is obscure, ill-defined, or in any way mysterious. Berkeley believed this search to be vain and illusory: These metaphysicians of the way of ideas and abstractions are not exploring the universe as it is; instead, they are fabricating a new universe composed of clear and distinct elements. They exclude mystery from their structure in the interest of clarity, but this clarity is worthless, and the construction a mere imposture. Berkeley observed that the quest for the clear and distinct generates its opposite: the other face of the clear and distinct is the non-entity, as witness the empty concepts of matter, absolute space, etc. A world rendered clear and distinct on the surface has, beneath that shining surface, the blankness or opacity of the irrational. The attempt to bring full light to one half of the world leaves the other in total darkness. In excluding mystery, these metaphysicians have thrust the world further away from us, rendered it paradoxical and absurd and ultimately unknowable. They have made an image of the world after their own likeness; and the image has feet of clay. …. The Two Kinds of Metaphysics From this preliminary review of Berkeley’s intentions we may better understand his words in praise of common sense. The Exact Sciences We have seen that in matters of education, pseudo-metaphysics has a positive, indeed indispensable, role in bringing our minds to maturity. The proviso being that the situation in which pseudo-metaphysics is allowed free play shall be one of antecedent strength and resilience. We have seen too that for a brief space Berkeley tacitly subscribed to this principle, as witness the dialectical composition of the body of the Principles and the Three Dialogues. But for a brief space only: elsewhere his attitude to pseudo-metaphysics tends to be simply negative and denunciatory; it is absurd and nonsensical, it encourages infidelity, it corrupts reason and common sense, and it hinders the progress of the sciences. The Analogy of the Grammar of Nature The ideas of sense, observes Berkeley, come to us with sufficient regularity to admit of an expectancy growing up by habit and custom, whereby on the occasion of one idea we anticipate another. The first idea is then the sign of the second: “Ideas which are observed to be connected with other ideas come to be considered as signs, by means whereof things not actually perceived by sense are signified or suggested to the imagination, whose objects they are, and which alone perceives them” (T.V.V. 39). If there be a great variety of such arbitrary signs, closely articulated together, they will constitute a language — artificial if it be of human devising, but if instituted by the Author of Nature, then a natural language (T.V.V. 40). The non-visual senses provide us with signs, but their variety and articulation are not (except to some degree for sound) of a sufficiently high order for the ensemble to be called a language. It is vision, above all, (and in a minor degree sound) which provides us with a natural language: “All signs are not language: not even all significant sounds, such as the natural cries of animals, or the inarticulate sounds and interjections of men. It is the articulation, combination, variety, copiousness, extensive and general use and easy application of signs (all which are commonly found in vision) that constitute the true nature of language” (Alc. iv, 12). Hence Berkeley can say boldly “Vision is the language of the Author of Nature” (T.V.V. 38), therein re-affirming the pioneer doctrine of the New Theory of Vision. “Upon the whole, I think we may fairly conclude that the proper objects of vision constitute an universal language of the Author of Nature, whereby we are instructed how to regulate our actions in order to attain those things that are necessary to the preservation and well-being of our bodies, as also to avoid whatever may be hurtful and destructive of them” (N.T.V. 147). Adding, on later reflection, sound as the junior partner of vision in this divine sensible language (T.V.V. 40). Berkeley’s Intentions The Berkeley of popular tradition, of learned jest and limerick, is an eccentric figure, a ridiculous and unworldly metaphysician. The Berkeley who emerges from his correspondence, and from a study of his adventurous career, is a very different figure; one of those rare characters of noble simplicity, such as Plato envisaged for his guardians; a robust down-to-earth man, eminently sober, practical, and judicious; an independent man, who hated cant and abject conformity; a man who delighted in the richness and variety of things, and sympathised with all sorts and conditions of men; a man of learning and piety, imbued with joyous reforming zeal and missionary enterprise; yet no visionary or anarchist, rather one who disciplined his abundant energies into the channels of enlightened common sense. The Problem of the Exact Sciences In these first chapters (I–IV) we shall be concerned for the most part with Berkeley’s critique of the exact sciences, and his reflections on human knowledge as they arose out of his reading of Locke and Newton. In fact, the young Berkeley had meditated a great deal about other philosophical issues, and had read other authors, notably Malebranche and Bayle (oblique references to these French philosophers abound in the Philosophical Commentaries, the Principles and the Three Dialogues), Nevertheless, it was on Newton’s natural philosophy that Berkeley concentrated his attention in the early published works; and to attain a conspectus of Berkeley’s endeavours it is appropriate to confine attention at first to this element. Later, we shall look at Berkeley’s work in a more ample setting. The Anthropocentric Character of Space, Time, and Motion The principle of immaterialism once established, not only are paradoxes immediately connected with the notion of matter eliminated, but many other paradoxes and distorted presentations, not at first evidently associated with matter, are found to dissolve away: “Matter being once expelled out of Nature, drags with it so many sceptical and impious notions, such an incredible number of disputes and puzzling questions —” (Pr. 96). Not least amongst these are the puzzles raised by mathematical physics regarding space, time, and motion. The Rôle of Common Sense The metaphysical extravagances of the Seventeenth Century provoked a reaction. Men such as Fenelon and Buffier in France, Berkeley in Ireland, Reid and his circle in Scotland, and, in a paradoxical way, David Hume, rose up to advance the claims of common sense.1 But they did so in radically different ways: and it soon became apparent that some of the proffered explications of common sense had within them vices similar to those which they were intended to extirpate. Berkeley’s Dialectic In a revealing jotting of his youth (apparently an addendum to the Note Books) Berkeley writes: “He that would win another over to his opinion must seem to harmonize with him at first and humour him in his own way of talking. From my childhood I had an unaccountable turn of thought that way.” (Works ix, p. 153). Mathematics and Nature The young Berkeley felt himself to be a man with a reforming mission. Philosophers of the past, and especially the mathematicians and physicists of the previous century, had, he believed, so mingled truth with error, that our educated knowledge of the world had become embarrassed with shameful contradictions (P.C. 679, Pr. Intro. 1). The problem was, how best to set it right, without incurring too much hostility and so bringing the reform to nought: “People will say, ‘I am young, I am an upstart, I am a pretender, I am vain …’” (P.C. 465). Great caution, therefore, must be exercised: “Mem.”, notes Berkeley, “Upon all occasions to use the utmost modesty. To confute the mathematicians with the utmost civility and respect. Not to style them Nihilarians, etc.” (P.C. 633). He resolved on the plan of correcting men’s mistakes without altering their language. “This makes truth glide into their souls insensibly” (P.C. 185).1 Accordingly, he adopted current popular terms such as “idea” and “in the mind,” but gave them new tacit meanings.2 The results of these tactics were not, on the whole, what the author intended. He had a few discerning readers, but for the most part he has been thought an ingenious sophist, a subjective idealist, or, latterly, a positivist and a forerunner of the positivistic interpretation of the sciences. Philosophical Scruples: Their Cause and Cure The illiterate bulk of mankind, observes Berkeley, walk the highroad of plain common sense (Pr. Intro. 1). They follow sense and instinct, and thus remain easy and undisturbed, because familiarity breeds accountability and comprehension. Illiterate men are not unreflective, but rather the reverse. They do not enjoy the benefits of literacy; but neither do they suffer from its evils. The illiterate bulk of mankind have never heard sceptical doubts voiced; or if they have so heard they shrug off such reasonings. Illiterate reflections may be eccentric; but they will not be absurd. The Potentiality of Common Sense Berkeley was not actuated by any sentimental attachment to common sense. Rather did he regard criticised common sense as something ultimately inescapable, try as we may. In men at their best the nature of common sense is most patent. But the force of common sense is most clearly exhibited at the opposite pole: that men at their worst and most perverse cannot escape it. They betray its presence at every moment in practice, (cf. VI, 3.) Long ago, Plato pointed to something analogous in his argument for the primacy of morality: robbers are immoral in their external dealings, but must perforce be moral in their internal dealings. (Rep. 351 f.) St. Augustine summed up the situation on one pungent phrase: “No vice, however unnatural, can pull nature up by the roots” (De Civ. Dei, xix, 12). The Role of Play in the Philosophy of Plato We are little accustomed in modern times to think of philosophy in terms of play. With few exceptions, philosophers in the last few centuries are conspicuous for their gravity. If a lighter touch enters their writings it is rather as a douceur with which to punctuate argument. To charge a philosopher with playing games is to condemn his activity as trivial and futile.