Berkeley and Material Things

I must contend that most people, likely every philosophy student, at some point in their lives have wondered whether what we perceive actually exists or if we are trapped in some virtual reality resembling "The Matrix." Can we be sure that the things we perceive actually exist? If not, can we justify the belief that they do?

In the following I intend to explain a view that George Berkeley criticizes in his "Of the Principles of Human Knowledge." Namely the view that external bodies exist outside of our minds, his argument against it, and the implications that he draws.

First we must contemplate the theory surrounding an external physical world.

What does this physical world consist of? I actually posed this question to my roommate and he responded, "Well everything around us I guess." That was the end of that. An obvious answer here is the physical world consists of the space around us, all of the objects within it, and each one of these objects having its own set of characteristics. Would you say this to be straightforward? Berkeley would not. For an idealist such as Berkeley, he denies the physical world. This is not to say that he denies the existence of anything at all, just material substances or material substratum. What Berkeley claims here is that the material things found spread throughout this so called physical world, may actually Ð''appear' to be there but in fact do not exist autonomously. Berkeley believed that the world we live in is not dissimilar from that of The Matrix. Only instead of a computer or machine generating the world we see, Berkeley believes it is God who has created an illusive world for us. The only things real to us are our experiences.

Since Berkeley denies the existence of a world of matter, what kind of things can we know to exist? Well for Berkeley, the existence of a thing lies in its ability to be perceived. Therefore our thoughts and ideas obtain their existence in being perceived. Better yet, our thoughts and ideas exist in being experienced. With this in mind, how can we be sure that something exists if we have not yet perceived or experienced it? Berkeley would say that we can not be sure of this. He claims esse is percipi, or to be is to be perceived. We can not say that something exists without first gaining an idea of it through perception. This leads to the claim that no unthinking thing can exist outside of the mind because to first say that it exists we must have an idea of it which we must gain through experience or perception, and this, as we know, happens within the mind. In understanding this it seems warranted when Berkeley says,

"For what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived, that seems perfectly unintelligible. Their esse is percipi, nor is it possible they should have any existence out of the minds or thinking things which perceive them" (Epistemology, 38).

Here, one such as Locke could say that the application of abstract ideas could explain the existence of things without their being perceived. However Berkeley quickly refutes this claim by explaining how our imagination can not bring to life anything beyond our ability to perceive, and is shown when he writes,

"My conceiving or imagining power does not extend beyond the possibility of real existence or perception. Hence as it is impossible for me to see or feel anything without an actual sensation of that thing, so it is impossible for me to conceive in my thoughts any sensible thing or object distinct from the sensation or perception of it" (Epistemology, 38).

To understand this, I challenge you to think of some Ð''abstract' thing that can not be perceived. Say for example a stone, deep in the forest that has never been seen. If you are able to imagine this than you have an Ð''idea' of it and it is not independent of perception or in any way abstract.

There are some who agree that ideas do not exist without the mind but claim that there are original things resembling our ideas that exist within unthinking substances outside of our minds. Well for Berkeley "an idea can be nothing but an idea." So he therefore asks, "whether those supposed originals or external things, of which our ideas are the pictures or representations, be themselves perceivable or no?" (Epistemology, 39). In considering the possible answers, if yes, then the objects you claim resemble our ideas are nothing but ideas themselves and if no, then Berkeley asks how any qualities can be attributed to something we can not perceive. Ultimately, Berkeley claims that extension, motion and figure (known as primary qualities), which some claim to exist without the mind, are undeniably associated with color, texture (known as secondary qualities and claimed to exist only in the mind) and can only exist within the mind. This is understood when Berkeley writes, "Without extension solidity cannot be conceived; since therefore it has been shewn that extension exists not in an unthinking substance, the same must also be true of solidity" (Epistemology, 40). More clearly, since primary and secondary qualities are undoubtedly associated ("can't even in thought be abstracted from") and secondary qualities exist only in the mind, then primary qualities must also exist only in the mind.

We now dive into what philosophers mean by material substance. "We shall find them acknowledge they have no other meaning annexed to those sounds but