Chapter II. — Transition Period, A Idealism
& Scepticism
1. BERKELEY.
This idealism, in which all external reality
disappears, has before it the standpoint
of Locke, and it proceeds directly from him.
For we saw that to Locke the source of truth
is experience, or Being as perceived. Now
since this sensuous Being, as Being, has
in it the quality of being for consciousness,
we saw that it necessarily came to pass that
in Locke's case some qualities, at least,
were so determined that they were not in
themselves, but only for another; and that
colour, figure, &c., had their ground
only in the subject, in his particular organization.
This Being-for-another, however, was not
by him accepted as the Notion, but as falling
within self-consciousness — i. e., self-consciousness
not looked on as universal, — not within
mind, but within what is opposed to the implicit.
George Berkeley was born in 1684 at Kilcrin,
near Thomastown, in the county of Kilkenny,
Ireland: in 1754 he died as an English Bishop.(1)
He wrote the “Theory of Vision,”
1709; “A Treatise concerning the principles
of human knowledge,” 1710; “Three Dialogues
between Hylas and Philonous,” 1713. In 1784
his collected works were published in London
in two quarto volumes.
Berkeley advocated an idealism which came
very near to that of Malebranche. As against
the metaphysic of the understanding, we have
the point of view that all existence and
its determinations arise from feeling, and
are constituted by self-consciousness. Berkeley's
first and fundamental thought is consequently
this: “The Being of whatever is called by
us a thing consists alone in its being perceived,”
i. e., our determinations are the objects
of our knowledge. “All objects of human knowledge
are ideas” (so called by Berkeley as by Locke),
“which arise either from the impressions
of the outward senses, or from perceptions
of the inward states and activities of the
mind, or finally, they are such as are constituted
by means of memory and imagination through
their separation and rearrangement. A union
of different sensuous feelings appears to
us to be a particular thing, e. g., the feeling
of colour, taste, smell, figure, &c.;
for by colours, smells, sounds, something
of which we have a sensation is always understood.”(2)
This is the matter and the object of knowledge;
the knower is the percipient “I,” which reveals
itself in relation to those feelings in various
activities, such as imagination, remembrance,
and will.
Berkeley thus indeed acknowledges the distinction
between Being-for-self and Other-Being, which
in his case, however, itself falls within
the “I.” Of the matter on which activity
is directed, it is no doubt in regard to
one portion allowed that it does not exist
outside of mind — that is to say, so far
as our thoughts, inward feelings and states,
or the operations of our imaginary powers
are concerned. But in like manner the manifold
sensuous conceptions and feelings can only
exist in a mind. Locke certainly distinguished
extension and movement, for example, as fundamental
qualities, i. e., as qualities which pertain
to the objects in themselves. But Berkeley
very pertinently points out inconsistency
here from the point of view that great and
small, quick and slow, hold good as something
relative; thus were extension and movement
to be inherent or implicit, they could not
be either large or small, quick or slow;
that is, they could not be, for these determinations
rest in the conception(3) of such qualities.
In Berkeley the relation of things to consciousness
is alone dealt with, and beyond this relationship
they do not in his view come. From this it
follows that it is only self-consciousness
that possesses them; for a perception which
is not in a conceiving mind is nothing: it
is a direct contradiction. There can be no
substance, he says, which neither conceives
nor perceives, and which is yet the substratum
of perceptions and conceptions. If it is
represented that there is something outside
of consciousness which is similar to the
conceptions, this is likewise contradictory;
a conception can alone be similar to a conception,
the idea to the idea alone.(4)
Thus, while Locke's ultimate point is abstract
substance, Being generally with the real
determination of a substratum of accidents,
Berkeley declares this substance to be the
most incomprehensible assumption of all;
but the incomprehensibility does not make
this Being into an absolute nullity, nor
does it make it in itself incomprehensible.(5)
For Berkeley brings forward against the present
existence of external objects only the inconceivability
of the relation of a Being to mind. This
inconceivability, however, is destroyed in
the Notion, for the Notion is the negative
of things; and this moved Berkeley and Leibnitz
to shut up the two sides in themselves. There
nevertheless remains a relationship of what
is “other” to us; these feelings do not develop
from us as Leibnitz represents, but are determined
through somewhat else. When Leibnitz speaks
of development within the monads, it is nothing
but empty talk; for the monads as they follow
in succession have no inward connection.
Each individual is thus determined through
another, and not through us; and it does
not matter what this external is, since it
remains a contingent. Now in relation to
the two sides of Leibnitz which are indifferent
to one another, Berkeley says that such an
“other” is quite superfluous. Berkeley calls
the other the objects; but these, he says,
cannot be what we call matter, for spirit
and matter cannot come together.(6) But the
necessity of conceptions directly contradicts
this Being-within-self of the conceiver;
for the Being-within-self is the freedom
of the conceiver; the latter does not, however,
produce the conceptions with freedom; they
have for him the form and determinateness
of an independent “other.” Berkeley likewise
does not accept idealism in the subjective
sense, but only in respect that there are
spirits which impart themselves (in the other
case the subject forms his own conceptions),
and consequently, that it is God alone who
brings to pass such conceptions; thus the
imaginations or conceptions which are produced
by us with our individual activity remain
separate from these others,(7) i. e. from
the implicit.
This conception gives an instance of the
difficulties which appear in regard to these
questions, and which Berkeley wished to escape
from in a quite original way. The inconsistency
in this system God has again to make good;
He has to bear it all away; to Him the solution
of the contradiction is left. In this idealism,
in short, the common sensuous view of the
universe and the separation of actuality,
as also the system of thought, of judgments
devoid of Notion, remain exactly as before;
plainly nothing in the content is altered
but the abstract form that all things are
perceptions only.(8) Such idealism deals
with the opposition between consciousness
and its object merely, and leaves the extension
of the conceptions and the antagonisms of
the empirical and manifold content quite
untouched; and if we ask what then is the
truth of these perceptions and conceptions,
as we asked formerly of things, no answer
is forthcoming. It is pretty much a matter
of indifference whether we believe in things
or in perceptions, if self-consciousness
remains possessed entirely by finalities;
it receives the content in the ordinary way,
and that content is of the ordinary kind.
In its individuality it stumbles about amid
the conceptions of an entirely empirical
existence, without knowing and understanding
anything else about the content: that is
to say in this formal idealism reason has
no content of its own.
As to what Berkeley further states in respect
of the empirical content, where the object
of his investigation becomes entirely psychological,
it relates in the main to finding out the
difference between the sensations of sight
and feeling, and to discovering which kind
of sensations belong to the one and which
to the other. This kind of investigation
keeps entirely to the phenomenal, and only
therein distinguishes the various sorts of
phenomena; or comprehension only reaches
as far as to distinctions. The only point
of interest is that these investigations
have in their course chiefly lighted on space,
and a dispute is carried on as to whether
we obtain the conception of distance and
so on, in short all the conceptions relating
to space, through sight or feeling. Space
is just this sensuous universal, the universal
in individuality itself, which in the empirical
consideration of empirical multiplicity invites
and leads us on to thought (for it itself
is thought), and by it this very sensuous
perception and reasoning respecting perception
is in its action confused. And since here
perception finds an objective thought, it
really would be led on to thought or to the
possession of a thought, but at the same
time it cannot arrive at thought in its completion,
since thought or the Notion are not in question,
and it clearly cannot come to the consciousness
of true reality. Nothing is thought in the
form of thought, but only as an external,
as something foreign to thought.
Notes:
1. Nachrichten von dem Leben und den
Schriften
des Bischofs Berkeley (in Berkeley's
philosph.
Werk. Pt. I. Leipzig, 1781), pp. 1,
45; Buhle:
Geschichte der neuern Philosophie,
Vol. V.
Sect. 1, pp. 86-90.
2. Buhle: Geschichte der neuern Philosophie,
Vol. V. pp. 90, 91; The Works of George
Berkeley,
Prof. Fraser's edition (Dialogues between
Hylas and Philonous), Vol. I. p.
264, seq. et passim.
3. Buhle, Geschichte der neuern Philosophie,
Vol. V. Sect. 1, pp. 92, 93; The Works
of
George Berkeley, Vol. I. p. 279 seq.
4. Buhle, ibidem, pp. 91, 92; Berkeley,
ibidem,
pp. 288 seq., 300 seq. et passim.
5. Buhle, ibidem, pp. 93, 94; Berkeley,
ibidem,
pp. 289, 308. seq.
6. Buhle: Geschichte der neuern Philosophie,
Vol. V. Sect. 1, pp. 94, 95; The Works
of
George Berkeley, Vol. I. pp. 308, 335.
7. Buhle, ibidem, pp. 96-99; Berkeley,
ibidem,
p. 325, seq. et passim.
8. Cf. Berkeley, ibidem, passim.
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