A SENSE OF HUME

Here is by now almost customary (albeit not necessary) selection of our philosopher’s-de-jour bon mots. In this latest case, this philosopher is David Hume. As always, his quotes come in blue, while my comments go in red.---

“Beauty is no quality in things themselves: it exists merely in the mind which contemplates them.”

It is difficult to agree with Hume that beauty is not a transcendent quality of aesthetically perfect things, but a case of subjectivity in the eye of the beholder, or a matter of perception, to remember Bishop Berkeley. In marginal cases this is probably the case, but aren’t there genuine “things of beauty,” not dependent on any temporal fads or peculiar cultural statements. One thing cannot be denied to Hume, though: he raises a very good and important question, even if presenting it to us in the form of an answer.

“Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.”

Superficially this is true, but what about the dangers of false ideology, and what about the gray area where religion meets philosophy? To put this more accurately, the difference between dangerous and ridiculous is in the severity of the political consequences of the error, rather than in the nature of the discipline where the error has been produced.

“When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.”

Not necessarily, of course, with regard to the first part, but obviously, and almost truistically, passion does induce a certain blindness which compromises judgment.

“Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.”

I would substitute the word governed by the word brainwashed, to sharpen the sting, because there is little or no cure for the brainwashed, but the cure for the governed is always a revolution, or to put it in a modern setting, a regime change.

“It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom.”

This is a very famous adage of Hume, and one can normally agree with this, provided all other things being normal.

“The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny; flattery to treachery; standing armies to arbitrary government; and the glory of God to the temporal interest of the clergy.”

Almost truistic, but very much worth quoting.

“Truth springs from argument amongst friends.”

This is probably the best known quote of Hume, but usually omitting “amongst friends,” and almost never quoted with proper attribution.

“Eloquence, at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but addresses itself entirely to the desires and affections, captivating the willing hearers, and subduing their understanding.”

Once again this boils down to the triumph of passion over reason. The next quote makes it clear.---

“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.”

See the previous quote, and my comment to it. What makes it different, of course, is Hume’s paradoxical claim of desirability of this situation, which is, naturally, consistent with Hume’s anti-rationalist critique of all philosophy and philosophers.

“And what is the greatest number? Number one.”

Splendid! One cannot possibly argue with that. And, surely, expounding on it would be disrespectful to the reader.

This is the end of the Hume series.

HUME'S ETHICS

 

Although ethics may not be the most interesting part of David Hume’s philosophical legacy, still merely to mention its principal points may be important for forming a fuller picture of him as a comprehensive thinker. Moreover, Hume’s own opinion of his legacy is evident on this account. He calls his revised 1751 ethical treatise An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals “incomparably the best” of all his works. Even if we may not agree with him, we might at least treat his opinion with some respect. His attitude to ethics is further shown by the composition of his chief philosophical undertaking, the 1734-1737 Treatise of Human Nature. (Later in life, he kept returning to this masterpiece again and again, revising its three parts and publishing them under slightly different names.) The Treatise consists of three books: one, on Understanding. (Which is the cornerstone of his epistemology, whereas the other two, on Passions and Morals, clearly address ethics. Thus, ethics in the Treatise trounces epistemology by two to one!)

Having already become acquainted with Hume’s epistemology, and with its main conclusions, needless to say, we should expect some consistency from him in his ethics, and we do get it.

Putting serious limitations on reasoning in his epistemology, Hume pushes reason out of morality virtually altogether. There are two dominant sources of our morality, according to him: custom and our passions. In his 1748 Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, he explicitly states:

Custom, then, is the great guide of human life. (Section 5 #1) Considering that morality is the foundation of any human life (in the sense that our life is determined either by ethics, or by the absence thereof), custom, being imbued with cultural ethics, propels the ethical component to guide our life. I am surprised that this aspect of Hume’s ethics usually escapes the attention of his commentators, who prefer to focus on Hume’s other source of morality, which is our passions. The role of custom in Hume’s ethics, in my opinion, must never be diminished or neglected.

Concerning the other source of our morality, which motivates our actions, Hume finds it not in our reason, but in our passions:

Morals excite passions and produce or prevent actions. Reason itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason.

There is an interesting conclusion, concerning Hume’s repudiation of rationality (not just in epistemology or ethics, but in all philosophy, across the board!) near the end of Bertrand Russell’s Hume chapter in The History of Western Philosophy, from which great work we have been quoting on numerous occasions: “It was inevitable that such a self-refutation of rationality should be followed by a great outburst of irrational faith. The quarrel between Hume and Rousseau is symbolic: Rousseau was mad, but influential, Hume was sane, but had no followers (on this subject see my Rousseau series, which follows next). Subsequent British empiricists rejected his skepticism---without refuting it; Rousseau and his followers agreed with Hume that no belief is based on reason, but thought heart superior to reason and allowed it to lead them to convictions very different from those which Hume retained in practice. German philosophers, from Kant to Hegel, had not assimilated Hume’s arguments. I say this deliberately, in spite of the belief, which many philosophers share with Kant, that his Critique of Pure Reason answered Hume. In fact, Kant and Hegel represent a pre-Humian type of rationalism, and can be refuted by Hume’s arguments. Those philosophers who cannot be so refuted are those who do not pretend to be rational, such as Rousseau, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. The growth of unreason throughout the nineteenth century, and through what has passed of the twentieth (written around 1943) is a natural sequel to Hume’s destruction of empiricism.

This Russell’s conclusion is an extremely valuable perspective, which puts Hume’s legacy into the context of the world-historical development of Western philosophy. While it would be very silly to reproach Hume for “poisoning the stream” of rationalistic thought, his seminal importance for the course of philosophical development of Western Civilization is thereby duly acknowledged.

 

FRESH IMPRESSIONS AND FAINT IDEAS

 

Calling his philosophy true metaphysics, Hume is often accused of being disingenuous, in the sense that he is not a metaphysician at all, but a brutal destroyer of metaphysics. This accusation relies on the distinction between metaphysics and empiricism, where the former subsists on synthetic a prioris (leaping forward to Kant’s formidable but abstruse, and eventually faulty, defense of metaphysics), while the latter denies them altogether, as well as our ability to make reasonable conclusions based on generalizations of unexperienced phenomena. I believe that Hume is not completely disingenuous here, because he doesn’t really deny us our tool of induction altogether, but approaches it with greatest distrust, which may be interpreted as some sort of thoroughly skeptical “metaphysics.”

The gist of Hume’s epistemology lies between the concepts of impressions and ideas. An impression is the immediate result of our perception, the purely empirical unit, connecting the subject and the object without any need to complicate this connection with esoteric parameters. Having received an impression, through our memory and imagination, we are now capable of forming a certain idea, on the basis of our experience, and putting it in the context of other ideas, which we had previously formed.

Not surprisingly our impressions are always fresh, while our ideas are rather faint, this being a hurtful insult of sorts to our natural pride in our intellectual abilities as being superior to our sensual experiences (those in whom sensuality overwhelms rationality and spirituality are most certainly incapable of having any kind of opinion on these rather supra-sensual matters). But after some sober consideration, we can learn to live with it, in so far as we are content that empiricism is only a part of the picture, pushed upon us on a “dare,” but never the whole picture!

Apparently, all of Hume’s epistemology can be reduced to our digestion of impressions into ideas. (I think I am kind of improving on Hume here, as he sees this transformation more like copying, whereas I ascribe to it a more creative type of transformation. After all, we see mostly what we are interested in seeing, and in an unabashedly subjective way, so that the very impression of the object on our mind--- I don’t care how fresh it is--- may not even correspond to other people’s impressions of that very same object, and--- need I add?---even to the object itself, in the event that we mistake the object for something else.) Beside these ideas, we, allegedly, have no others in the immediate sense, but plenty of secondary ones, produced via the association of the primary ones with each other and all.

Do not be mistaken about it, Hume does not deny us the rational ability to use our judgment and draw some conclusions, even daring ones, from these associations. What he denies us, however, is the validity of most of our conclusions, provided they are not supported by direct observation and similar experience. Thus, he rejects all traces of causality in our conclusions. Apparently, he is a grandmaster of non-sequitur verdicts. If, say, our experience of A is always accompanied by our experience of B, it does not follow from this that our next experience of A ought to be judged as an experience of an actually unexperienced B. (I just adore such labyrinths of logic, do you?!)

Mind you, he does not deny the occurrence of for any reason unexperienced B, but only our assurance of it (which is exactly the implication of non-sequitur). In the example of the last entry (Hume’s Philosophical Cul-De-Sac) the fortieth student may well turn out an imbecile, for all we know, but it doesn’t follow from our thirty-nine such experiences that this will be the case. Another illustration can be given of a coin toss, which in the last five tosses has given us tails, which in no way should convince us that the sixth toss will also be tails. (As a matter of fact, the set probability theory in this case puts its money on heads!)

And finally, we may conclude (very significantly, for without this conclusion, we may fall into a grotesque misconception) that Hume is a well-reasoned subjectivist (and a considerable improvement on Berkeley’s subjectivism, at that!) judging from the following quote from his Treatise of Human Nature (Book I, Part III, Section VIII):

All probable reasoning is nothing but a species of sensation. ’Tis not solely in poetry and music we must follow our taste and sentiment, but likewise in philosophy. When I am convinced of any principle, ’tis only an idea which strikes more strongly upon me. When I am giving preference to one set of arguments above another, I do nothing but decide from my feeling concerning the superiority of their influence. Objects do not have discoverable connections together; nor is it from any other principle, but custom operating upon the imagination, that we can draw any inference from the appearance of one to the existence of another.

And now, once again, but in his own words, this is how Hume summarizes the most significant part of his philosophical legacy:

Nature, by an absolute and uncontrollable necessity, has determined us to judge, as well as to breathe and to feel; nor can we any more forbear viewing certain objects in a stronger and fuller light, on account of their customary connection with a present impression, than we can hinder ourselves from thinking, as long as we are awake, or seeing the surrounding bodies, when we turn our eyes to them in broad sunshine. Whoever has taken the pains to refute this total skepticism, has really disputed without an antagonist, endeavored by arguments to establish a faculty, which nature antecedently implanted in the mind, and made unavoidable. My intention then in displaying so carefully the arguments of that fantastic sect, is only to make the reader sensible of the truth of my hypothesis, that all our reasonings, concerning causes and effects, are derived from nothing but custom; and that belief is more properly an act of the sensitive, than of the cogitative part of our natures… The skeptic still continues to reason and to believe, even though he asserts that he cannot defend his reason by reason; and by the same rule he must assent to the principle concerning the existence of body, tho’ he cannot pretend by any arguments of philosophy to maintain its veracity. (Ibid. Book I, Part IV, Section II.)

I think that David Hume’s lofty place in the Pantheon of great thinkers is assured not so much because of his preference for a particular subject matter, as because with his choice of this subject matter he has been able to fill an important “open space” in an otherwise broken continuum of philosophical contemplations, providing a healthy food offering for human thought, in which most commendable service to humanity he has certainly excelled.

 

HUME'S EPISTEMOLOGICAL CUL-DE-SAC

[This entry begins the series on David Hume (1711-1776).]

As a preamble to my first Hume entry, I must right away rise to the defense of induction as a method of scientific and philosophical inquiry, which appears under attack from Hume’s severe criticism. However, it is important to understand that Hume’s discreditation of induction stands only in so far as reason alone is involved. Actually, the best support for logical induction lies not in the reason, but in the intuition, that is, in the irrational element of human thought. Thus, in the example of the opening paragraph below, we cannot rely on scientific conjecture without involving our intuitive sixth sense that will inform us whether or not it is more likely to have the last item of the set like all the others, or not at all, or else the odds of either this or that were dead even. Having said that obligatorily, lest I forget to say it later on, this is the end of our short, but philosophically significant preamble…

Ever since my memorable trip to Scotland in 1969, at the impressionable age of twenty-one, I have a little weakness for everything Scottish (granted that some of the most interesting Scots are actually Irish). This would have been a good enough reason for me to become interested in David Hume, had it not been a fact that I had already been interested in him from a past experience. While still in high school, an interesting challenge had been brought to my attention by one of my most helpful mentors, claiming to represent the gist of Hume’s philosophy. Imagine a school inspector coming into a class of students, and in alphabetical order starting calling them out, to test their learning levels. One by one, thirty-nine out of forty students fail his test, and the inspector gives up on the class, “reasonably” concluding that it is a class of failed students. Is he right to make such a conclusion? What if the fortieth student was a prodigy, the best not just at the school, but in the whole town, and, perhaps, even country, and the inspector had just missed this fact? Well, according to “science,” our inspector was right, having called upon what is called scientific induction, but, according to the Scottish philosopher David Hume, he was wrong, because thirty-nine misses in a row do not prove that the fortieth should also be a miss!

Therefore, what we call the scientific method is essentially unreliable, but were we to discard it on such an uncomfortable basis, we would have discarded much of scientific progress with it, which is something that we just cannot do.

Ironically, this has been perhaps Hume’s greatest achievement to rub our nose into the fact that our science rests on most questionable premises, but having been alerted to this fact, we now have to overrule him, and for a very good reason at that, because without such an overrule, without a reckless leap beyond cold logic, we ourselves should count ourselves as failures.

Having said that, here is Bertrand Russell’s valuable opening summary of the Hume chapter in his History of Western Philosophy:

Hume is one of the most important among philosophers, because he developed, to its logical conclusion, the empirical philosophy of Locke and Berkeley, and by making it self-consistent made it incredible. In a sense, he represents a dead end: in his direction it is impossible to go further. To refute him, has been, ever since he wrote, a favorite pastime of metaphysicians. For my part, I find none of their refutations convincing, but nevertheless I cannot but hope that something less skeptical than Hume’s system may be discoverable.

As for Nietzsche, he never liked British philosophy, anyway and Hume to him was no exception:

They are no philosophical race, these Englishmen… Hobbes, Hume and Locke [signify] a debasement and lowering of the value of the concept of philosophy for more than a century. It was against Hume that Kant arose, and rose. (Jenseits 252.) In the posthumous Wille zur Macht collection of Nietzsche’s notes, Hume is again contrasted with Kant, at the same time, putting Hume’s philosophical legacy into sharp focus: Hume had declared: There are no synthetic a priori judgments. Kant says: But there are! Those of mathematics! And if there are such judgments, perhaps, there is also metaphysics, a knowledge of things by pure reason! (#529)

Meantime, with all his dislike, Nietzsche is fair, in giving Hume his due: We have no sense for the causa efficiens: here Hume was right. (ibid. #550.)

Incidentally, Hume’s denial of the sense for the causa efficiens is in plain language his denial of our sense of causality, which indeed, if taken seriously, can play dirty tricks on us, like in the opening example of this entry, where from the experiential fact that thirty-nine classroom students have failed, causally follows the conclusion that the fortieth student must also be a failure. No wonder Nietzsche praises Hume for denying such causality!

Hume is called one of the greatest empirical philosophers of all time for a very good reason. He teaches us not to trust reason with its so-called innate ideas, nor reason’s most common tools, such as the presumption of causality. To make sure that the classroom example sinks in properly, our notion that the last student in the class is a failure does not come to us empirically, that is, from experience, but from conjecture, which we mistake for a rational conclusion. And, yes, Hume is right here,--- not in the sense that we must abandon induction, but that we have to be extremely careful with it, realizing that, in the final analysis, it is certainly unreliable.

From all of the above-said it follows (this time not causally, but common-sensibly!) that we ought to take a closer look at Hume’s theory; but, rather than overstuffing the present entry with too much stuff, it should make sense to do it in a separate entry, which follows. But before we leave, let us understand why Hume’s philosophical offering is indeed a veritable cul-de-sac. By convincingly denying our sense of causality any legitimacy, we are put into a position of either accepting our total incompetence to judge in this necessary manner, thus depriving ourselves of the most important tool of the scientific method, or, seeing this cul-de-sac, retreating from it altogether, leaving behind the traffic sign Not a Through Street!

BERKELEY ON FREEDOM AND A FEW OTHER THINGS

Here is a commendable personal selection of George Berkeley’s aphoristic gems, and the very first of them is already worthy of a separate entry built for its sake.

---“Others, indeed, may talk, and write, and fight about liberty, and make an outward pretense to it; but the free-thinker alone is truly free.”

This goes straight to the heart of my own thesis on free society and free thought, to the effect that these two are often inimical to each other, whereas the free-thinking spirit flourishes in unfree societies. Not that Berkeley adds something new to my construct, but he is enough of an authority to relate to, when promoting my thesis.

---“We have first raised the dust and then complain we cannot see.” (Principles of Human Knowledge, Introduction, 3.)

I would not stop right there, though. There are many persons of authority these days (as probably in all ages of human history), who deliberately throw dust in the public eye, to prevent it from seeing.

---“Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.”

What does it mean to be corrupt? It means to give and to receive “political” money on a regular basis, and to see nothing wrong in this practice. But wait, such is the nature of the American political process! No public official can be elected without the practice of wealthy donor donations, where the givers obviously expect a by no means impartial return on their investment. Here is classic corruption to you; its only difference from criminal corruption being that it is deeply ingrained in the political system, and thus decriminalized and institutionalized. See also this related dictum: “Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.” How true, indeed flattery and bribery are two intimately related engines of corruption!

---“The first and simplest emotion, which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.”

As my wife Galina Sedova likes to point out, “life [from her perspective] is an experiment.” Obviously, this is an emotional approach to life, as curiosity lies at the bottom of it. Indeed, Berkeley is so right!

--“When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents in the construction of the state will be of no service. They’ll become flatterers, instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.”

So, how does this thought transfer to the familiar political process? All aspiring politicians are of necessity victims to both evils: they prostitute themselves to the wealthy donors in order to get enough money for the election campaign, and then they prostitute themselves to the public, in order to get elected. The worst thing about it is that they seem to enjoy their prostitution business…

“It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.”

Wonderful! Here is the difference between the genius and the scholar, observed in the Genius section. This also reminds me of my apte dictum about the inconsistency of genius: only mediocrity is always consistent. Here is also the connection between rationality and irrationality: the admixture of the latter is an enemy of exactitude.

The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.

An important political triviality, which is not that trivial, after all, as a multitude of modern examples have amply demonstrated, not too long ago satirized by the self-inflicted ridicule of “mission accomplished.”

People will not look forward to posterity who will not look backward to their ancestors.

This is a good observation about the sense of history, which, once atrophied, affects the nation’s sense of the future in a most negative manner.

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.

It is true that a dramatic shift from democracy to tyranny is hard to leave unnoticed, whereas a gradual slide toward tyranny, particularly under reasonable pretexts and excuses, is seldom understood as such.

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.

Indeed, crying “freedom, freedom!” without qualifying it and setting its boundaries is a sure prescription for anarchy and chaos, conducive to civil war, as we are incessantly taught by current history in the making.

The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.

This is obviously a continuation of the previous one-liner, and the same comment as above is suitable here as well.

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

Bravo, Berkeley, for presenting the idea of the good enemy more than two centuries before Nietzsche.

Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.

But what if a great empire was built by great minds, but was later taken over by little minds? Say goodbye to greatness, America, having renounced the erstwhile elitism of the few for the mediocrity and littleness of the new age. The slide from the Alpine heights may take a while, but, alas, it is getting there. The Founding Fathers must be turning in their graves...

Thank you, Berkeley, for all this food for thought…

HYLAS AND PHILONOUS

 

To promote his theory of existence through perception, Berkeley uses the quite frequent, since Plato, form of the Dialogue,--- in his case, between a helpful curious questioner (Hylas) and himself (Philonous). Coming to see Philonous, right after the introductory greetings, Hylas asks the first leading question: “Can anything be more fantastical, more repugnant to Common Sense, or a more manifest piece of Skepticism, than to believe that there is no such thing as matter?” (Considering that the questioner’s name Hylas relates to the Greek word “hylos,” “matter,” the ironic undertone of the question cannot escape the reader.)

Now Philonous engages Hylas in a typical Socratic discussion, asking questions to which the other answers either yes or no.

“…In reading a book, what I immediately perceive are the letters; but mediately, or by means of these, are suggested to my mind the notions of God, virtue, truth, etc. Now, that the letters are truly sensible things, or perceived by sense, there is no doubt: but I would know whether you take the things suggested by them to be so too.” (Hylas: No.) “It seems then, that by sensible things you mean those only which can be perceived immediately by sense?” (Hylas: Yes.) “Doth it not follow from this that, though I see one part of the sky red, and another blue, and that my reason doth thence evidently conclude there must be a cause of that diversity of colors, yet that cause cannot be said to be a sensible thing, or perceived by the sense of seeing?” (Hylas: Yes.) “In like manner, though I hear variety of sounds, I cannot be said to hear the causes of those sounds?” (Hylas: No.) “The point then is agreed between us that sensible things are those only which are immediately perceived by sense. You will further inform me, whether we immediately perceive by sight anything besides light and colors and figures; or by hearing, anything but sounds; by the palate, anything besides tastes; by the smell, besides odors; or by the touch, more than tangible qualities… It seems, therefore, that if you take away all sensible qualities, there remains nothing sensible? Sensible things, therefore, are nothing else but so many sensible qualities, or combinations of sensible qualities?”

Having thus prepared the ground, Philonous launches his attack: “Doth the reality of sensible things consist in being perceived? or, is it something distinct from their being perceived, and that bears no relation to the mind?” But the brave Hylas is not ready to concede: “To exist is one thing, and to be perceived is another.” Philonous, however, finishes him off with this famous aquatic argument: “Suppose now one of your hands hot, and the other cold, and that they are both at once put into the same vessel of water, in an intermediate state; will not the water seem cold to one hand, and warm to the other?” To which Hylas concedes: “Well, since it must be so, I am content to yield this point, and acknowledge that heat and cold are only sensations existing in our minds.” Then, taking different senses one by one, Philonous proceeds to convince Hylas that whatever is immediately perceived is an idea, and it is an absurdity to seek any ideas outside the mind.

As the reader may have noticed, Berkeley’s argument sleekly jumps from reality to logic, just like Zeno the Eleatic makes a similar jump in his paradoxes, resulting in nonsense, which is obvious, but rather difficult to refute while remaining on those same logical grounds. And then, as soon as our discussion leaves the terra firma, where common sense is still with us to open our eyes to the presence of absurdity, reaching into the rarefied layers of the upper atmosphere, where thinking, like breathing, becomes more strained, our senses become somewhat blurred, and our argument loses its lifeline to the reality. Otherwise, how could we find Hegel, for instance, subscribing to some of the most outrageous of Berkeley’s absurdities? Here is Russell:

“Berkeley, as we have seen, thinks that there are logical reasons proving that only minds and mental events can exist. This view, on other grounds, is also held by Hegel and his followers. I believe this to be a complete mistake. Such a statement as there was a time before life existed on this planet, whether true or false, cannot be condemned on grounds of logic any more than there are multiplication sums which no one will have ever worked out. To be observed or to be a precept is merely to have effects of certain kinds, and there is no logical reason why all events should have effects of these kinds.”

Russell concludes his Berkeley chapter with this paragraph:

“It will be seen that… a mind and a piece of matter are each of them a group of events.” There is no reason why every event should belong to a group of one kind or the other, and there is no reason why some events shouldn’t belong to both groups; therefore some events may be neither mental nor material and other events may be both. As to this, only detailed empirical considerations can decide.

…One of my Apte Dictums says: Here is a philosophical riddle: God created nonsense, and saw that it was good… It gives two solutions: Solution 1: The Irrational is just as important as The Rational. And Solution 2: Find it at the end of my Berkeley series in the Magnificent Shadows. I hope that the reader understands its meaning now: Only the irrational, that is, nonsense, can lead us off the pedestrian track of thinking into the wild virgin country, where anything becomes possible, and where life becomes truly interesting, poetic, I can say. And, of course, George Berkeley, like a truly great philosopher, leads us into his own realm of nonsense, and that nonsense is good.

 

BERKELEY'S IDEA

 

There is a brainy quirk being told to the novices of science charades, to the effect that there can be no noise if there is no one there to hear it. Which should instantly bring the name of George Berkeley to our mind.

There was already another curious although perhaps totally irrelevant quirk concerning Berkeley in my past experience. When in my young years I first learned about his theory, I was somehow particularly impressed that he was a bishop, obviously unaware then of the fact that he wrote the definitive exposition of his theory in 1713 at the age of twenty-eight, which was long before he would become a bishop…

But enough of such quirks. The reason why I would like to connect Berkeley to the first conundrum is that the gist of his theory of ideas boils down to the statement that all matter exists by virtue of perception only. Take away our perception of it, and all matter will cease to exist.

There is a necessary clarification of this nonsensical theory to the effect that, of course, our earth and things on it exist without having to be perceived by us humans, because all Creation is already being perceived by God in perpetuity, and, in that sense, none of the material world owes its ultimate existence to us, but rather to its Creator. Thus, there will always be noise, as there is always the eternal Someone to hear it.

Well, even with this helpful clarification, this theory remains nonsensical to common sense. Yet, instead of calling George Berkeley a madman, or a charlatan, we call him a great philosopher, and we will surely keep calling him that for as long as philosophy as such endures. I do hope that my reader is no longer bewildered and does not want to ask why, as we have discussed this subject extensively throughout the previous pages. In philosophy it doesn’t matter what nonsense our philosopher utters (like, say, there is no way for Achilles to ever outrace the slowest turtle in the world, as long as it gets a head start and keeps moving), but the quality and nature of his (in this case, Zeno’s) arguments in support of it do matter, and these arguments are what determines the greatness of the philosopher. (There are numerous nuances to this rather coarse statement, but its essence is true.) There are also collateral discoveries, that happen to be made along the way, which often represent far higher values than the principal theme and argument of the discussion. We shall, therefore, seek the value of Berkeley’s arguments and collaterals, rather than the validity of his wacky theory, for the remainder of this entry.

George Berkeley’s (1685-1753) fame rests mainly on his two works (A Treatise Concerning The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], and Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (the first name is a play on the Greek word “matter,” and the second name means “Lover of the Intellect,” which is the name the author reserves for himself, in these Dialogues) [1713], both written and published in his twenties.

While talking about our need to distinguish the object from its perception, he introduces a new argument, identifying all things as bundles of sensible qualities, which somehow get intertwined together, enabling us to identify each such bundle with the particular object which it represents. But, because of the separation of perception from the object and placing the former with the perceiving subject who forms ideas on the basis of his perception, Berkeley’s theory has become known as subjective idealism, and it has had a great impact on the development of the empirical method of obtaining knowledge.

Thus, from Berkeley’s ostensibly most improbable fantasy follows a set of extremely practicable principles. One is that any knowledge of the world is to be obtained only through direct perception. Hence, the ideal form of scientific knowledge is to be obtained by pursuing pure de-intellectualized perceptions. Therefore, if individuals would pursue these, we should be able to obtain deepest insights into the natural world, and the world of human thought and action that is available to man. And finally, the goal of all science should be thus to de-intellectualize or de-conceptualize, and thereby to purify, human perceptions.

In his Parerga and Paralipomena, Schopenhauer writes of him: “Berkeley was, therefore, the first to treat the subjective starting-point really seriously, and to demonstrate irrefutably its absolute necessity. He is the father of idealism.”

(Curiously, compare Berkeley’s idea to Lenin’s definition of matter as “objective reality given to us in sensations.” Come to think of it, how far is Lenin’s objective materialism from Berkeley’s subjective idealism?..)

Need I add that Berkeley’s Idea had also given rise to a host of empirical philosophies, the foremost among them being that of David Hume (whose own series will be immediately following the Berkeley series).