Did Berkeley in the 18th century have any empirical evidence upon which to base his foresight of "modern subatomic physics" view of Matter? Or was his Idealism a> just intuition or b> expansion on Plato's metaphysics?The composition and nature of the stone is a matter for physical chemistry and physics. And it is nowadays well known that minute analysis of the stone reveals ever-smaller components or particles from which it is composed, until the sub-atomic level is reached, at which point the nature of the so-called components of matter, if that is what 'material substance' is supposed to comprise, becomes quite ambiguous. In fact modern sub-atomic physics has not done much to support the kind of 'argument' that Johnson is proposing. — Wayfarer
The biggest issue here is that, for whatever reason, we have some trouble (at least I do) in understanding how concretely existing things could be solely ideas. — Manuel
Science let it be known humans could have things, could do things, entirely on their own, or at least enough on their own to call into question isolated external causality of the Berkeley-ian “un-constructed” spirit type. — Mww
Did Berkeley in the 18th century have any empirical evidence upon which to base his foresight of the "modern subatomic physics" view of Matter? Or was his Idealism a> just intuition or b> expansion on Plato's metaphysics? — Gnomon
Science let it be known humans could have things, could do things, entirely on their own, or at least enough on their own to call into question isolated external causality of the Berkeley-ian “un-constructed” spirit type... — Mww
Science let it be known humans could have things, could do things, entirely on their own….
— Mww
Yes, but is it just modern science? — Leontiskos
I'm of the view that it was this emerging modern view of the universe that the good Bishop wished to oppose. — Wayfarer
"I answer, if by Nature is meant only the visible series of effects or sensations imprinted on our minds, according to certain fixed and general laws, then it is plain that Nature, taken in this sense, cannot produce anything at all" ~ Berkeley — Mww
At the basis of the whole modern view of the world lies the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena. — TLP 6.371
I’m not sure he could do otherwise, could he? — Mww
. Objects are recognised by us as kinds and types - this is where Kant comes in - and without that recognition, which is part of the process of apperception, then they would be nothing to us. Experience presents itself to us in the form of ideas. — Wayfarer
So am I right in thinking that for you idealism consists more of our cognitive apparatus making order our of a type of chaos (but there is some sort of "noumena" to begin with)? — Tom Storm
Materialism… even at its birth, has death in its heart, because it ignores the subject and the forms of knowledge, which are presupposed, just as much in the case of the crudest matter, from which it desires to start, as in that of the organism, at which it desires to arrive. For, “no object without a subject,” is the principle which renders all materialism for ever impossible. Suns and planets without an eye that sees them, and an understanding that knows them, may indeed be spoken of in words, but for the idea, these words are absolutely meaningless.
On the other hand, the law of causality and the treatment and investigation of nature which is based upon it, lead us necessarily to the conclusion that, in time, each more highly organised state of matter has succeeded a cruder state: so that the lower animals existed before men, fishes before land animals, plants before fishes, and the unorganised before all that is organised; that, consequently, the original mass had to pass through a long series of changes before the first eye could be opened. And yet, the existence of this whole world remains ever dependent upon the first eye that opened, even if it were that of an insect. For such an eye is a necessary condition of the possibility of knowledge, and the whole world exists only in and for knowledge, and without it is not even thinkable. The world is entirely idea, and as such demands the knowing subject as the supporter of its existence. This long course of time itself, filled with innumerable changes, through which matter rose from form to form till at last the first percipient creature appeared,—this whole time itself is only thinkable in the identity of a consciousness whose succession of ideas, whose form of knowing it is, and apart from which, it loses all meaning and is nothing at all.
Thus we see, on the one hand, the existence of the whole world necessarily dependent upon the first conscious being, however undeveloped it may be; on the other hand, this conscious being just as necessarily entirely dependent upon a long chain of causes and effects which have preceded it, and in which it itself appears as a small link. These two contradictory points of view, to each of which we are led with the same necessity, we might again call an antinomy in our faculty of knowledge… The necessary contradiction which at last presents itself to us here, finds its solution in the fact that, to use Kant’s phraseology, time, space, and causality do not belong to the thing-in-itself, but only to its phenomena, of which they are the form; which in my language means this: The objective world, the world as idea, is not the only side of the world, but merely its outward side; and it has an entirely different side—the side of its inmost nature—its kernel—the thing-in-itself… But the world as idea… only appears with the opening of the first eye. Without this medium of knowledge it cannot be, and therefore it was not before it. But without that eye, that is to say, outside of knowledge, there was also no before, no time. Thus time has no beginning, but all beginning is in time.
Solidity and the notion of 'hard matter' does not exist independently of mind and so kicking the rock, breaking a toe are mental experiences. It is how consciousness appears when experienced from our perspective. The solid stone and the foot's impact upon it are examples of the ability of consciousness to create a coherent world of experience - held together in the mind of God. Or in the case of Kastrup - we are all participants or aspects of a 'great mind' which is the source of all reality. — Tom Storm
And the premise you stated [...] is arguably false, and clearly designed for the purpose of that refutation. It looks like a very clear cut example of begging the question to me. — Metaphysician Undercover
That's how arguments work. You design premises to reach a conclusion. — Leontiskos
(Some of my own philosophical arguments have been accused of something very like ‘begging the question’ – I concede the phrase was not used – simply because they were formally valid arguments for a conclusion the accusers thought was false. Their reasoning seems to have been something like this: if the conclusion of an argument can be formally deduced from its premises, then that conclusion is, as one might put it, logically contained in the premises – and thus one who affirms those premises is assuming that the conclusion is true. As R. M. Chisholm once remarked when confronted with a similar criticism, ‘I stand accused of the fallacy of affirming the antecedent.’) — Peter van Inwagen, Begging the Question
….on the one hand, the existence of the whole world necessarily dependent upon the first conscious being….
Berkeley may have been opposed to realism, but that doesn't mean religion is opposed to realism. — Leontiskos
If you can’t prove primary perceptible qualities in us are not ideas in an immediate principal perceiver, perhaps it can be argued…….what difference would it make to the human perceiving mind, if they were not? Was the idea of measurable distance implanted in my head as an idea belonging to some sort of prevalent, re: un-constructed, spirit, or does the idea belong to me alone, as a mere distinction in relative spaces? — Mww
…."matter"; that being the concept which Berkeley insisted we can dispense with. — Metaphysician Undercover
In my understanding "matter" is a concept employed by Aristotle to underpin the observed temporal continuity of bodies, allowing for a body to have an identity. — Metaphysician Undercover
….under Hegelian principles "matter" is still necessary as the kernel of content within the Idea. — Metaphysician Undercover
Enter science proper, and stuff gets real interesting.
In my understanding "matter" is a concept employed by Aristotle to underpin the observed temporal continuity of bodies, allowing for a body to have an identity.
What is "science proper?" — Count Timothy von Icarus
….on the one hand, the existence of the whole world necessarily dependent upon the first conscious being….
Each conscious being indeed maintains the form, the condition, of its world in accordance with its effects, but each conscious being isn’t his own world’s existential causality. — Mww
GEORGE PELL: Well, what is the reason that science gives why we're here? Science tells us how things happen, science tells us nothing about why there was the big bang. Why there is a transition from inanimate matter to living matter. Science is silent on we could solve most of the questions in science and it would leave all the problems of life almost completely untouched. Why be good?
RICHARD DAWKINS: Why be good is a separate question, which I also came to. Why we exist, you're playing with the word "why" there. Science is working on the problem of the antecedent factors that lead to our existence. Now, "why" in any further sense than that, why in the sense of purpose is, in my opinion, not a meaningful question. You cannot ask a question like "Why down mountains exist?" as though mountains have some kind of purpose. What you can say is what are the causal factors that lead to the existence of mountains and the same with life and the same with the universe. Now, science, over the centuries, has gradually pieced together answers to those questions: "why" in that sense.
That comment is true, but the "something" is not necessarily Matter, and may even be a form of Mind. If the notion of mental matter sounds odd or woo-woo, it's understandable. So, I'll try to explain, but Science and Philosophy tend to focus on opposite sides of this equation. Therefore, this post is a cross-over.I cannot pass through walls, something is there that is not solely mental. — Manuel
What I'm trying to say here is that the "appearance of solidity", and the sensation of weight, and the visual image of a rock, are all mental functions. If you see a gray mass, and you believe it to be solid & massive, you will refrain from kicking it. Unless, of course, you are trying to demonstrate that something is there "that is not solely mental". You know from personal experience that your mind/body requires a door in order to "pass through a wall". — Gnomon
Kinda agreed. I’d be more inclined to grant to the concept of matter the underpinning for spatial continuity allowing a body to have an identity. — Mww
While it's true that for Aristotle "matter is what stays the same," when there is change, the "matter" and "substance" of Berkeley's era had changed dramatically from their ancient or medieval usages. — Count Timothy von Icarus
The entire idea of "materialism" makes no sense from an Aristotelian framework. It would amount to claiming the whole world is just potency, with no actuality, and so nothing at all. But the term "matter" by Berkeley's era is more often conceived as a sort of subsistent substrate (often atomic) of which spatial, corporeal bodies are composed, such that their properties are a function of their matter (which would make no sense under the older conception of matter as potential). — Count Timothy von Icarus
"Idealism" ("eidos-ism") would also make no sense in the Aristotelian frame. — Count Timothy von Icarus
While it's true that for Aristotle "matter is what stays the same," when there is change, the "matter" and "substance" of Berkeley's era had changed dramatically from their ancient or medieval usages.
— Count Timothy von Icarus
I do not agree. Berkeley takes "matter" in very much the way of Aristotle. That's how he manages to conceive of substance without matter. — Metaphysician Undercover
In essence, Berkeley’s rejection of material substance is a critique of the early modern philosophers (specifically Descartes and Locke) who inherited and transformed Aristotelian metaphysics into the notion of a "material substratum." For Locke, material substance was posited as the "unknown support" underlying sensible qualities, but something inherently beyond perception, and of which we only receive impressions (the basis of Locke's representative realism). For Descartes, matter was res extensa, entirely lacking in intelligence and possessing only spatial extension, all of the functions of intelligence residing in res cogitans, the so-called 'thinking substance'. — Wayfarer
I agree with Count Timothy von Icarus. As I put it in an earlier post: — Wayfarer
I believe that Berkeley is actually demonstrating the incorrectness of this 'new' way of conceiving of "matter" by showing how these ideas that people have about "matter" do not hold up if we adhere to principles. — Metaphysician Undercover
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