Berkeley on Ideas

George Berkeley holds that material things do not exist and that everything we experience are ideas. Two of the goals for this argument are to avoid materialism, which he thought led to Atheism, and to get rid of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities.

John Locke thinks primary qualities are mind-independent material things with extension, shape, motion; a cube is an example. Secondary qualities are mind-dependant things as color, sound, smell, and taste; that is, taste is not in the apple but in experience. But Berkeley says this distinction should not be made, as primary and secondary qualities cannot be conceived independently. Shape and color cannot be conceived independently, that is a cube cannot be conceived if it is colorless. How can Jones see a cube if it has no color? This means that to speak of material objects is meaningless as all objects are now mind dependant.

Berkeley says, for something to exist it must be perceived. Only a mind can perceive things and if something is not perceived we have no reason to believe it exists. For a table to exist it must be perceived; it must be seen, felt, or smelled, etc. So would Berkeley have Jones believe a table in a room only exists as only as long as Jones is looking at it? Berkeley says no because even if a person no longer perceives the table God perceives all things, and so we still have reason to believe it exists.

The claim that material things do not exist and are ideas, relies on the truth of two statements; the first is things such as cars, apples, tables, etc is perceived by sense. The second is something perceived by sense are ideas, so he concludes all things are ideas. If someone disagrees with the first statement, Berkeley says they must give an example of an object that is not sensed, if they cannot, the first statement stands. If someone disagrees with the second statement they would have to give an example of an object that does not rely on secondary qualities.

Berkeley also offers his master argument that is supposed to ground his view of a world of mind dependant objects. He asks if there is anything that can be conceived but is not perceived? Jones may imagine a table in a room that is unperceived, but Jones is imagining this scene, so it is still not mind independent. So if we can’t conceive of objects independent of the mind then we can’t and will not be able to experience them.

There are ideas that we can experience caused by God and there are ideas caused by Jones that can be only experienced by Jones. But if everything we experience are ideas how can Jones tell the difference between his ideas and ideas independent of him? Berkeley gives several reason of why he is sure this is not a problem. Ideas independent of Jones are caused by God and are distinguished by being orderly, coherent, and vivid. These things are characteristic of the world apart from our minds. Whereas our ideas are constantly fluctuating from one thought to another the world is supposed far more orderly. Coherency involves consistency in the world we experience, if Jones touched ice he would think it strange if it were hot. And the world is vivid with complexity and distinct objects that are difficult to imagine. These characteristics are supposed to distinguish our ideas and dreams from the external world.

Although Berkeley’s criteria for distinguishing objects from our mind from objects of the world usually works, it does not always seem to be the case. Berkeley seems to assume all people have a similar psychological makeup as his own, but I can imagine a person who has better imagination, vividness, and coherency than the world. I have experienced objects in dreams that are more vivid than similar objects in the world. People hallucinating describe objects as being more distinct and vivid. And sometimes the world is not as coherent as we suppose it to be, such an example is the world composed particles and waves, two seemingly inconsistent ideas; this is something one may accept in a dream but not in the supposed coherent world. As Berkeley seemed very sure we could distinguish independent and dependant ideas it seems this is not always the case.