George Berkeley (1)Rezensionen

This was a pretty interesting treatise on skepticism (and the only philosophy book I've ever read with a "twist"). Worth reading, even if you're not a philosopher, because it's very simple and relatively terminology-free. Lots of fun, very erroneous arguments also.

I remember following Berkeley's logic, more or less, and being not quite ready to agree with him.

Três diálogos muito bem escritos, em um embate divertido entre um imaterialista (idealista), defendendo a bizarra posição do autor (ser é ser percebido, tudo que existe, existe dentro de mentes), contra um curioso e incomodado materialista recalcitrante. Philonous emprega todas as variações da pentelhação "tudo é correlacionado", "tudo é para nós", "não há como pensar algo fora do pensamento, porque ao fazê-lo, estamos pensando o fora para nós, dentro do pensamento", enquanto mostra que um empirismo radical leva a negar a matéria, a existência exterior à mente, e afirmar Deus, a mente que a tudo percebe. (o que para os padrões atuais, soa, é claro, como "negar o pensamento científico")

12/12/21

Berkeley's alterations to justify the world's causes and effects by appealing to God is pitiful and contradicts his whole ontological argument. A couple of questions regarding his idea of transcendental being suffice to poke holes through his system and invalidate his whole philosophy: If God is truly transcends our senses, how could we possibly know that he perceives the world around us? How could a transcendental God even perceive anything despite the fact that it is flawless and ineffable? Berkeley's argument is extremely weak and unconvincing, it is no wonder that few have taken him seriously throughout the ages.

Një libër klasik i kritikës së shkencave. Duke kërkuar shkaqet e gabimeve dhe vështirësive në shkenca, Berkeley na paraqet tablonë më komplete dhe sintetike të doktrinës së tij filozofike. Botuar për herë të parë në maj të 1710, Traktati nuk u çua kurrë deri në fund nga Berkeley por gjithmonë ai e ka konsideruar atë si një vepër të përfunduar. Ky Traktat, tërësisht i strukturuar rreth parashtrimit e vërtetimit të tezës imaterialiste, u le një vend shumë të gjerë përgjigjeve ndaj kundërshtimeve që në mënyrë të pashtjelluar apo fare të hapur përmbahen në teza të ndryshme filozofike të epokës.

https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Berkeley/vision.htm from Essay toward a new theory of Vision
As we see distance, so we see magnitude. And we see both in the same way that we see shame or anger in the looks of a man. Those passions are themselves invisible, they are nevertheless let in by the eye along with colours and alterations of countenance, which are the immediate object of vision: and which signify them for no other reason than barely because they have been observed to accompany them. Without which experience we should no more have taken blushing for a sign of shame than of gladness.

ER-1

Coleção Os Pensadores: Tratado sobre o princípio do conhecimento humano; três dialogos entre hilas e filonous em oposição aos céticos e ateus;
David Hume: Investigação sobre o entendimento humano; ensaios morais politicos e literarios.

An important book of philosophy by an 18th century Irish bishop. Only in our library because it belonged to Padre John Foote, VC. Gift of Barry Van Duden.

Me gustan los filósofos a los que se les entiende todo, como este. Quiere llegar al máximo número de personas posible, y sabe que para eso tiene que ser muy claro y avanzar muy despacio, copiando indisimuladamente el modelo de los diálogos platónicos. Comprendo que quizá para el autor esto sea mortificante, pero el lector vulgar lo agradece mucho. Así que un punto para este señor.

El segundo punto es el pensamiento original. Cuando todo a su alrededor se orienta al desprecio de la religión y al materialismo, Berkeley defiende la religión como algo perfectamente razonable, y lanza la tesis de que solo existe lo que se percibe. Eso sí, no soy yo solo el que percibe; sin duda, hay cosas que yo no percibo pero sí perciben otros, y en última instancia todo lo existente es "percibido" de algún modo por Dios. Pero lo que yo no pueda percibir no me interesa, y esto incluye especialmente las abstracciones y las "ideas" que son la base de las ciencias teóricas.

Y todo esto me gusta porque es algo distinto. A estas alturas de siglo XXI, uno ya está harto del materialismo y del idealismo racionalista. La vida es razón, sí, pero también mucho más. Berkeley lo comprendió cuando la modernidad apenas estaba iniciando su vuelo, y hoy se lo debemos reconocer con todo el respeto.

Out of Spinoza, Locke, Descartes, Hume and Berkeley, I certainly found Berkeley the most interesting; but, then, I am into Idealism, so it is to some degree understandable and indicates my bias really. Out of 17th-early 18th century philosophers, Berkeley intrigues me as much as Leibniz does. I might, if I were to expand philosophy to include quasi-mystical writers of the same era, include Swedenborg, Hutchinson, Boehme and Sterry.
Berkeley has often been misrepresented as being a philosopher that denied the existence of matter in the sense of real external objects. This is definitely not accurate. Some of his statements are ambiguous and can be wrenched from context and made to look like he supported the non-reality of the outside physical world, but, really, he denied the existence of matter in the philosophical sense of a substrate made up of abstracted accidents and qualities. Like other Idealists going back to Plato, Berkeley believed in a universal Spirit or Mind that necessitates that all reality is perceived and cannot exist apart from this perception. It is an interesting theory when one notes that quantum mechanics supports the notion that reality at the particle level does seem to presuppose an observer. It seems that there may be very current scientific support for Berkeley's supposition on some level.
It does seem that in the concluding remarks that Berkeley supports some kind of pantheism; at least, some of his statements appear to strongly support that reading. Pantheism I do not support, so I have some reservations about Berkeley's philosophy, but it is well worth studying at least. It is also interesting that Berkeley appears to have anticipated the pseudo-spiritual abstract philosophy of German Idealists like Hegel; of course, while anticipating it he was also against any such marriage of spirituality with abstract knowledge systems.
As it stands, Berkeley was a worth while read and I may revisit this work in the future.

Skip it and read Hume, who says the same stuff more quickly, takes it further, and doesn't go god-mad. Or if you must have a taste, only suffer the first dialogue - it's downhill from there.

This doesn't feel like a dialogue: Berkeley has given his man Phil all the words and prepared thoughts he needs, and left his opponent only breath enough to ask the right questions, and say variations of "Oh gee Phil, I guess you're right! I must admit I have no thoughts really on that!". The first dialogue does present the strong argument for Idealism, and some very nice reasonable advice of trying to stay skeptical, not taking inferences too far, and not introducing superflous ideas where things can be given simpler explanations. He then forgets all that and brings his god into it; he believes all reality is only in our minds (could be!), and that things continue to exist when there are no people about, because everything is in the mind of god.

Read this for a college Phil course. Radical idealism definitely ain't my thing. I rebelled against it pretty strongly even then, when I didn't know enough to know why. My ultimate reaction to Berkeley and most other stuff in this philosophical vein is "Yeah... So?" I'm just too much of a throughgoing pragmatist to play along long enough to get much out of it.

Berkeley's Three Dialogues were written to present the author's philosophy in an easy to digest format, as his previous work containing these views did not have as big an impact as he had expected.
The gist of his philosophy is that matter does not exist, and the the universe consists solely of ideas and minds. Included within the categories of ideas are thoughts and sensations, which to exist must be present in the mind. The reality of external objects is not denied, only their existence is transferred from being material to being ideas in God's mind, which exist independently of us just like matter does. He argues that the objects that we perceive really exist, and are not illusions, but are dependent for their existence on God.
The dialogues are written in a similar way to Plato's Socratic dialogues, with one person trying to convince someone else of his opinions by using arguments such as thought experiments.

The first dialogue aims to prove that all we receive in way of information from the outside world is sensations, and that sensations are only ideas, and that ideas can exist only in minds. This last part I contend: ideas can surely exist outside minds (in a manner such as the Platonic forms), and this is evident in the mathematics, where truths are universal and eternal, and not dependent on empirical information. These truths would exist in a universe whether there was a God or humans or minds or not. Going on his premise that ideas can only exist in minds, and that they are external and have a real existence, Berkeley claims that all ideas are created by God, which he can then put into our minds. Several of the arguments against matter involve the premise that matter is extended, which he believes is necessary to a materialist world view. Yet, the atom could be viewed as a point (ie not extended), or as energy, with extension being an emergent property, which he does not consider. Another faulty premise in this chapter is that we perceive objects directly, that what we see is exactly what is there. The eye and the parts of the brain that process visual information interpret it to make sense of it, and extrapolate upon and embellish the data the eye receives before it is presented to consciousness. Berkeley does not realise this, and uses the apparent contradictions in what we see as evidence for the impossibility of matter, while in truth the brain can be responsible for making these illusions.
The second dialogue discusses the possibility of God using matter as an intermediate through which ideas are relayed, between being created by him and reaching us. This is argued against with the theory that God would not need to use matter as an instrument if he was omnipotent, and that matter could itself never be known to us except through sensations anyway, and so outside of sensations (which can only exist in the mind) there can be no evidence for it.
The third dialogue considers objections to this system of Idealism, and provides counters to them.

At the seat of it, this dialogue revolves around the mind body problem, which the author's philosophy would remove if it were right. We still do no know how and if mind emerges out of matter, how and if we have free will, and what the exact nature of matter is. If we deny the existence of matter, it solves these apparent problems, which Berkeley obviously thought about.
There are no logical arguments to prove that the essentials of Berkeley's philosophy are wrong, but he fails to do what he sets out to do, to prove that his philosophy is right, that matter does not exist.
There are multiple ways of interpreting what we see around us, one is Berkeley's way, another is the “materialist” way, where matter only exists, and mind and ideas are reduceable to matter. Another interpretation of reality, which I would favour, is that matter is real (Scientific realism), and that ideas are also real (Platonic realism), and of a separate category. Mind appears to be an emergent property of matter (though not reducible to it, as it comes about from an interaction of matter and the laws of the universe, which are themselves immaterial, and possibly mathematical, thus analogous to ideas), and that science and philosophy will discover how this all works more precisely in the future, which is not to say precisely at all.

Those familiar with Norton's series of critical editions might be startled by the layout of this volume; since the critical essays precede the text, instead of following behind at a properly obsequious distance. Please do not be enticed into following this format. Turn immediately to the Principles, for if you start with the critical material you will likely never reach the promised land. Berkeley had many original things to say, and he was gifted with an excellent prose style. Neither, unfortunately, was passed along to all of his commentators; although I did particularly enjoy the essay "The place of God in Berkeley's philosophy", by J. D. Mabbott.

Have you ever been to one of those parties where, at about 1.30 a.m., some want-to-be intellectual who, like yourself, has imbibed too frequently and slept too infrequently, insinuates himself next to you and asks, "If a tree falls in the forest, when nobody is there to hear; does it make a sound?"

I must have something about me that draws these pseudo philosophers into my orbit because it has happened sufficiently often for me to develop a means of dealing with the situation. I simply reply, "Yes." and move in the opposite direction as fast as my booze befuddled legs will take me. Not elegant, not witty, but effective.

Why do I bring this up now? Because, this book is the written version of how that stupid question develops, if one doesn't deal with the inquisitor promptly, and firmly.

It is pleasing to note that three hundred years ago some twonk could seriously propose, as an antidote to the flawed argument of Locke, that material objects do not exist. All that exists is our perception of them, given by God. What is less pleasing is the thought of another drunken know-it-all reworking the thesis at the next party that I attend: perhaps I'll take this book, sit him (why is it always a 'him'?) down in a corner and delight for the rest of the night/morning in wicked thoughts of what the next poor sap to be cornered by him will get.

You will notice that I gave this book one and a half stars; this was for the excellent introduction by G.J. Warnock: were I to possess the intelligence to have taken his excellent précis of the thoughts of Berkeley and Locke and deduced that all further effort would be waste, I might have at least doubled the star content of the review. So, who's the fool?

“The Complete Angler is the only treatise written in dialogues that is worth a halfpenny. Many elegant dialogues have been written, (such as Bishop Berkeley’s Minute Philosopher,) but in all of them the interlocutors are merely abstract arguments personified, not living dramatic characters as in Walton, where everything is alive, the fishes are absolutely characterized, and birds and animals are as interesting as men and women.” Lamb in a letter to Robert Lloyd.

In his introduction, David Armstrong argues that Berkeley is studied because he was a trailblazer in philosophical thought, despite the fact that his assumptions are invalid. Berkeley actually made multiple attempts to convince others of his thesis, following this essay with a more casual style in his "Three Dialogues." I found Berkeley very difficult to read, mostly because the meaning of specific terms seems to shift throughout the argument. Perhaps better scholars than I are able to follow the flow. Nonetheless, I hold to the conviction that part of our advance in argument has come about through the use of more specific terms. The point with which I am most in agreement is more of an aside by Berkeley -- that man tends to over-complicate thinking and therefore loses the true meaning behind many things. Unfortunately, he seems to do the same within the pages after that point. Even if all of his points held, he results in a metaphyisical world that appears and disappears as we blink. Berkeley goes on to expound upon certain possibilities, such as God also perceiving that the objects exist and thus holding that they always exist.

FG-6

Volume 483 of Everyman's Library with dustcover intacts.