The Philosophy Book
Page 18
Berkeley tries to answer this question by claiming that our perceptions are never, in fact, in error, and that where we go wrong is in the judgements we make about what we perceive. For example, if an oar half-submerged in water looks bent to me, then it really is bent—where I go wrong is thinking that it only appears to be bent.
However, what happens if I reach into the water and feel the oar? It certainly feels straight. And since the oar cannot be both straight and bent at the same time, there must in fact be two oars—one that I see and one that I feel. Even more problematic for Berkeley, however, is the fact that two different people seeing the same oar must in fact be seeing two different oars, for there is no single, “real” oar “out there” that their perceptions converge on.
"An idea can be like nothing but an idea; a color or figure can be like nothing but another color or figure."
George Berkeley
Optical illusions are impossible, for Berkeley, since an object is always as it appears to be. A straw submerged in water, for example, really is bent, and a magnified object really is larger.
Can a tree fall over if there is nobody present to observe it? Objects only exist while they are perceived, according to Berkeley. However, the tree can fall over—because the tree, and the rest of the world, is always perceived by God.
The problem of solipsism
An inescapable fact of Berkeley’s system, therefore, seems to be that we never perceive the same things. Each of us is locked in his own world, cut off from the worlds of other people. The fact that God has an idea of an oar cannot help us here, for that is a third idea, and therefore a third oar. God caused my idea and your idea, but unless we share a single mind with each other and with God, there are still three different ideas, so there are three different oars. This leads us to the problem of solipsism—the possibility that the only thing I can be certain of existing—or that may in fact exist—is myself.
One possible solution to solipsism runs as follows: since I can cause changes in the world, such as raising my own hand, and since I notice similar changes in the bodies of other people, I can infer that those bodies are also changed by a “consciousness” inside them. The problem for Berkeley, though, is that there is no “real” hand being lifted—the most a person can do is be the cause of the idea of his own hand rising—and only their idea, not another person’s. I, in other words, must still rely on God to supply me with my idea of another person’s hand rising. Far from supplying us with empirical certainty, therefore, Berkeley leaves us depending for our knowledge of the world, and of the existence of other minds, upon our faith in a God that would never deceive us.
"All the choir of heaven and furniture of earth—in a word, all those bodies which compose the frame of the world—have not any subsistence without a mind."
George Berkeley
GEORGE BERKELEY
George Berkeley was born and brought up at Dysart Castle, near the town of Kilkenny, Ireland. He was educated first at Kilkenny College, then at Trinity College, Dublin. In 1707 he was elected a Fellow of Trinity, and was ordained an Anglican priest. In 1714, having written all his major philosophical works, he left Ireland to travel around Europe, spending most of his time in London.
When he returned to Ireland he became Dean of Derry. His main concern, however, had become a project to found a seminary college in Bermuda. In 1728 he sailed to Newport, Rhode Island, with his wife, Anne Foster, and spent three years trying to raise money for the seminary. In 1731, when it became clear that funds were not forthcoming, he returned to London. Three years later he became Bishop of Cloyne, Dublin, where he lived for the rest of his life.
Key works
1710 Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
1713 Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous
See also: Plato • Aristotle • René Descartes • John Locke • Immanuel Kant • Georg Hegel
INTRODUCTION
During the Renaissance, Europe had evolved into a collection of separate nation states, having previously been a continent unified under the control of the Church. As power devolved to separate countries, distinctive national cultures formed, which were most obvious in arts and literature, but could also be seen in the philosophical styles that emerged during the 17th century.
During the Age of Reason there was a very clear difference between the rationalism of continental Europe and the empiricism of British philosophers, and in the 18th century philosophy continued to center on France and Britain, as the Enlightenment period unfolded. Old values and feudal systems crumbled as the new nations founded on trade gave rise to a growing urban middle-class with unprecedented prosperity. The richest nations, such as Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands, established colonies and empires around the world.
France and Britain
Philosophy increasingly focused on social and political issues, also along national lines. In Britain, where a revolution had already come and gone, empiricism reached a peak in the works of David Hume, while the new utilitarianism dominated political philosophy. This evolved alongside the Industrial Revolution that had started in the 1730s, as thinkers such as John Stuart Mill refined the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and helped to establish both a liberal democracy and a framework for modern civil rights. The situation in France, however, was less stable. The rationalism of René Descartes gave way to a generation of philosophes, radical political philosophers who were to popularize the new scientific way of thinking. They included the literary satirist Voltaire and the encyclopedist Denis Diderot, but the most revolutionary was Jean-Jacques Rousseau. His vision of a society governed on the principles of liberté, egalité, and fraternité (liberty, equality, and fraternity) provided the battle cry of the French Revolution in 1789, and has inspired radical thinkers ever since. Rousseau believed that civilization was a corrupting influence on people, who are instinctively good, and it was this part of his thinking set the tone for Romanticism, the movement that followed.
In the Romantic period, European literature, painting, and music became preoccupied with an idealized view of nature, in marked contrast to the sophisticated urban elegance of the Enlightenment. Perhaps the key difference was the way in which the Romantics valued feeling and intuition above reason. The movement took hold throughout Europe, continuing until the end of the 19th century.
German Idealism
German philosophy came to dominate the 19th century, largely due to the work of Immanuel Kant. His idealist philosophy, which claimed that we can never know anything about things that exist beyond our selves, radically altered the course of philosophical thought. Although only a few years younger than Hume and Rousseau, Kant belonged to the next generation: his major philosophical works were written after their deaths, and his new explanation of the universe and our knowledge of it managed to integrate the approaches of rationalism and empiricism in a way more suited both to Romanticism and to Germanic culture.
Kant’s followers included Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, who together became known as the German Idealists, but also Schopenhauer, whose idiosyncratic interpretation of Kant’s philosophy incorporated ideas from Eastern philosophy.
Among the followers of Hegel’s rigid Idealism was Karl Marx, who brilliantly brought together German philosophical methods, French revolutionary political philosophy, and British economic theory. After writing the Communist Manifesto with Friedrich Engels, he wrote Das Kapital, arguably one of the most influential philosophical works of all time. Within decades of his death, countries across the world had set up revol
utionary states on the principles that he had proposed.
Meanwhile in the US, which had overthrown British colonial rule and established a republic based on Enlightenment values, an American culture independent of its European roots began to develop. At first Romantic, by the end of the 19th century it had produced a homegrown strand of philosophy, pragmatism, which examines the nature of truth. This was in keeping with the country’s democratic roots and well suited to the culture of the new century.
IN CONTEXT
BRANCH
Epistemology
APPROACH
Scepticism
BEFORE
350 BCE Aristotle makes the first reference to a child’s mind as a “blank slate”, which later became known as a tabula rasa.
1690s John Locke argues that sense experience allows both children and adults to acquire reliable knowledge about the external world.
AFTER
1859 John Stuart Mill argues against assuming our own infallibility in On Liberty.
1900s Hans-Georg Gadamer and the postmodernists apply sceptical reasoning to all forms of knowledge, even that gained through empirical (sense-based) information.
Voltaire was a French intellectual who lived in the Age of Enlightenment. This period was characterized by an intense questioning of the world and how people live in it. European philosophers and writers turned their attention to the acknowledged authorities—such as the Church and state—to question their validity and their ideas, while also searching for new perspectives. Until the 17th century, Europeans had largely accepted the Church’s explanations of what, why, and how things existed, but both scientists and philosophers had begun to demonstrate different approaches to establishing the truth. In 1690 the philosopher John Locke had argued that no ideas were innate (known at birth), and that all ideas arise from experience alone. His argument was given further weight by scientist Isaac Newton whose experiments provided new ways of discovering truths about the world. It was against this background of rebellion against the accepted traditions that Voltaire pronounced that certainty is absurd.
Voltaire refutes the idea of certainty in two ways. First, he points out that apart from a few necessary truths of mathematics and logic, nearly every fact and theory in history has been revised at some point in time. So what appears to be “fact” is actually little more than a working hypothesis. Second, he agrees with Locke that there is no such thing as an innate idea, and points out that ideas we seem to know as true from birth may be only cultural, as these change from country to country.
Revolutionary doubt
Voltaire does not assert that there are no absolute truths, but he sees no means of reaching them. For this reason he thinks doubt is the only logical standpoint. Given that endless disagreement is therefore inevitable, Voltaire says that it is important to develop a system, such as science, to establish agreement.
In claiming that certainty is more pleasant than doubt, Voltaire hints at how much easier it is simply to accept authoritative statements—such as those issued by the monarchy or Church—than it is to challenge them and think for yourself. But Voltaire believes it is vitally important to doubt every “fact” and to challenge all authority. He holds that government should be limited but speech uncensored, and that science and education lead to material and moral progress. These were fundamental ideals of both the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, which took place 11 years after Voltaire’s death.
Scientific experiments during the Age of Enlightenment seemed to Voltaire to lead the way toward a better world, based on empirical evidence and unabashed curiosity.
VOLTAIRE
Voltaire was the pseudonym of the French writer and thinker, François Marie Arouet. He was born into a middle-class family in Paris, and was the youngest of three children. He studied law at university, but always preferred writing, and by 1715 was famous as a great literary wit. His satirical writing often landed him in trouble: he was imprisoned several times for insulting nobility, and was once exiled from France. This led to a stay in England, where he fell under the influence of English philosophy and science. After returning to France he became wealthy through speculation, and was thereafter able to devote himself to writing. He had several long and scandalous affairs, and travelled widely throughout Europe. In later life Voltaire campaigned vigorously for legal reform and against religious intolerance, in France and further afield.
Key works
1733 Philosophical Letters
1734 Treatise on Metaphysics
1759 Candide
1764 Philosophical Dictionary
See also: Aristotle • John Locke • David Hume • John Stuart Mill • Hans-Georg Gadamer • Karl Popper
IN CONTEXT
BRANCH
Epistemology
APPROACH
Empiricism
BEFORE
1637 René Descartes espouses rationalism in his Discourse on the Method.
1690 John Locke sets out the case for empiricism in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
AFTER
1781 Immanuel Kant is inspired by Hume to write his Critique of Pure Reason.
1844 Arthur Schopenhauer acknowledges his debt to Hume in The World as Will and Representation.
1934 Karl Popper proposes falsification as the basis for the scientific method, as opposed to observation and induction.
David Hume was born at a time when European philosophy was dominated by a debate about the nature of knowledge. René Descartes had in effect set the stage for modern philosophy in his Discourse on the Method, instigating a movement of rationalism in Europe, which claimed that knowledge can be arrived at by rational reflection alone. In Britain, John Locke had countered this with his empiricist argument that knowledge can only be derived from experience. George Berkeley had followed, formulating his own version of empiricism, according to which the world only exists in so far as it is perceived. But it was Hume, the third of the major British empiricists, who dealt the biggest blow to rationalism in an argument presented in his Treatise of Human Nature.
Hume’s fork
With a remarkable clarity of language, Hume turns a sceptical eye to the problem of knowledge, and argues forcibly against the notion that we are born with “innate ideas” (a central tenet of rationalism). He does so by first dividing the contents of our minds into two kinds of phenomena, and then asking how these relate to each other. The two phenomena are “impressions”—or direct perceptions, which Hume calls the “sensations, passions, and emotions”—and “ideas”, which are faint copies of our impressions, such as thoughts, reflections, and imaginings. And it is while analyzing this distinction that Hume draws an unsettling conclusion—one that calls into question our most cherished beliefs, not only about logic and science, but about the nature of the world around us.
The problem, for Hume, is that very often we have ideas that cannot be supported by our impressions, and Hume concerns himself with finding the extent to which this is the case. To understand what he means, we need to note that for Hume there are only two kinds of statement—namely “demonstrative” and “probable” statements—and he claims that in everyday experience we somehow confuse the two types of knowledge that these express.
A demonstrative statement is one whose truth or falsity is self-evident. Take, for example, the statement 2 + 2 = 4. Denying this statement involves a logical contradiction—in other words, to claim that 2 + 2 does not equal 4 is to fail to grasp the meanings of the terms “2” or “4” (or “+” or “=”). Demonstrative statements in logic, mathematics, and deductive reasoning are known to be true or false a priori
, meaning “prior to experience.” The truth of a probable statement, however, is not self-evident, for it is concerned with matters of empirical fact. For example, any statement about the world such as “Jim is upstairs”, is a probable statement because it requires empirical evidence for it to be known to be true or false. In other words, its truth or falsity can only be known through some kind of experiment—such as by going upstairs to see if Jim is there.
In light of this, we can ask of any statement whether it is probable or demonstrative. If it is neither of these, then we cannot know it to be true or false, and so, for Hume, it is a meaningless statement. This division of all statements into two possible kinds, as if forming the horns of a dilemma, is often referred to as “Hume’s fork.”
"In our reasonings concerning fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance. A wise man therefore proportions his belief to the evidence."
David Hume
Mathematics and logic yield what Hume calls “demonstrative” truths, which cannot be denied without contradiction. These are the only certainties in Hume’s philosophy.