The Empiricism of George Berkeley
George Berkeley (1685-1753) set out to correct what he thought were inconsistencies and errors in Locke’s philosophy, while remaining true to the basic platform of empiricism.
Both philosophy of Rationalism (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz) and Empiricism (Locke) rely on a basic concept of “substance” – the notion that there is an underlying set of attributes of things that remain unchanging.
Berkeley applied “Ockham’s Razor” to the idea of material substance so thoroughly that he disposed of it entirely.
This left him with a type of subjective idealism, the view that only minds and ideas exist.
Berkeley critiques Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities:
Primary qualities (shape, extension, etc.) for Locke, are inherent in the material substance that constitutes external objects, independently of the mind.
Secondary qualities (tastes, smells, colors) for Locke exist only in the mind.
Berkeley pointed out that the ONLY access to the primary qualities of objects is through the secondary qualities.The only way to know size, shape, location or dimensionality of an object is by feeling it and seeing it – through the secondary qualities of tactile, visual or auditory sensation.
Thus descriptions of “primary qualities” are nothing more than interpretations of “secondary qualities”. According to Berkeley, the mind performs a “translation” of secondary qualities into primary qualities. During this process we are still working with perception ONLY. – (To be is to be perceived).
To explain this “translation” of secondary into primary qualities, Berkeley draws a distinction between direct perception and indirect perception.
Direct Perception - Immediate, passive reception of basic sense data (Locke’s secondary qualities and simple ideas)
Indirect Perception – The interpretation of the sense-data (mediation)
When a child learns to read, the first thing encountered are “black squiggles on white background” – direct perception.
The child gradually learns to see the markings on paper as words loaded with meanings - indirect perception.
This distinction explained to Berkeley why we adultsperceive the world as groupings of things, rather than sense data. But the things in the so-called external world are really only collections of ideas that are philosophically analyzable into their component sense-data.
Nowhere in this account can the notion of “material substance” be found. All there is, all that we have, are minds and collections of ideas.
Berkeley’s subjective idealism holds that each of us lives in our own subjective world composed entirely of sense data. Once we learn language, we learn to “read” the sense data. Language also “bridges” the gap between our private worlds. It is the foundation of inter-subjectivity, our ability to communicate with each other by shared use of conventional symbols.
According to Berkeley, by using only sense-data and language, we can account for all possible human knowledge.
“ESSE EST PERCIPI” – To be is to be perceived, is the central tenet of Berkeley’s philosophy. The only exception to this, for Berkeley, is God, whose essence is not to be perceived. (The reason the room does not disappear when we walk out is because it continues to be perceived by God).
God, Berkeley says, is the guarantor of the laws of nature. For Berkeley (who was a bishop) God created sense data and minds that perceive them. The error of Locke’s representative realism is that he assumed that the mysterious “material substance” also exists, which in turn causes ideas.
Locke failed to see that representation IS reality. By eliminating the “middle man” of “material substance”, Berkeley believed that he had created a simpler (and therefore better) account of human knowledge.
The following graphic illustrates the differences between Berkeley’s idealism and Locke’s realism