The relation of Berkeley's later to his earlier idealism

Front matter

T7 e Relation of Berkeley's Later to His Earlier Idealism

BY

CARL V.' TOWER, A.M., Ph.D.,

Chapter I

§ I. INTRODUCTION.

On one of the pages of Berkeley's Commonplace Book, the author notes that "nothing can be a proof against one side of a contradiction that bears equally hard upon the other." One might be inclined to admit that a just estimate of the Berkeleian philosophy resolves itself into this reflection, if it were not that historical evidence decidedly favors a more positive interpretation. Unfortunately, the true appreciation of the attitude adopted toward Reality by a philosopher who, like Berkeley, is not a system-maker — scarcely a systematizer of philosophic conceptions — is often partially obscured by the fact that the positive construction placed upon his work by subsequent thinking sometimes emphasizes the negative element of his philosophy, and so isolates it from the course of later philosophical development. This is a truism, but its explanation simply is that the spirit of philosophy respects the system by which its course of development is for a time apparently arrested. When theory succeeds theory in rapid succession, the progress of thought is in single file. A feature, an aspect, is sufficient to constitute a farther step in advance. The value of the theory is merely extensive, while that of the system is. also intensive. The system serves always to recall the personality of the system maker, the theory is merged in its later outgrowths, apart from which it is abstract and featureless.

Berkeley was not the creator of a system. Rather was he a man with a theory of life, of morals, of Reality. Thus it is not surprising if, in his philosophy, the many definite tendencies in the direction of Empiricism have come to be regarded as almost the only positive elements in his conception of the world. 1 The history of philosophy makes evident the value of Berkeley as a link in the empirical succession from Locke to Mill, though with regard to his philosophy as a whole, it may likewise be said that Empiricism forms a negative rather than a positive element. The lines of thought followed by him in his earlier metaphysical undertaking are undoubtedly those which make most clearly and definitely toward the empirical views adopted by his successors. It

1 " In its best known form, as a factor in the history of philosophy, only an empirical idealism." Burt: "A History of Modern Philosophy T ' (1892).

was, perhaps, unfortunate for the later acceptance of the Berkeleian theory of immaterialism, in a form more acceptable to its originator, that the ' new doctrine ' found so ready an acceptance as to what have since been regarded as its essential features: The Cartesian dualism of thought and existence, so haltingly maintained by Locke 1 in his doctrine of substance, added to Berkeley's own nominalistic tendency and further sustained by his religious ' repugnance ' to an atheistical, unthinking ' matter', were the forces at work in the life of Berkeley, which early culminated in his view that, upon the existence or non-existence of abstract matter, there lay at stake the consistency of human reason with itself, and our only warrant for the objectivity of the ideals which human reason sets for itself. It may indeed be objected that these ideals, being so apparently of a theological cast, were the rocks and stubble which prevented the successful spading up of false notions und prejudices so vigorously begun. But as Berkeley does not lay claim to a philosophy without presuppositions, so neither does he regard the prepossessions of his opponents as in themselves obstacles to truth, provided only the motives underlying them be not inherently self-contradictory.

Whatever may have been the motive which determined Berkeley to become the promulgator of immaterialism, the discoverer himself seemed scarcely aware that the world was already ripe for his views. In the enthusiasm which formed the necessary accompaniment of the awakening consciousness of his mission in the world of philosophy, Berkeley was in part led to misconstrue the task which he had set for himself. Aware that he was to inaugurate a revolution in the current modes of metaphysical thinking, and mindful of the "mighty sect of men" which was to oppose him, the single problem of the existence or non-existence of matter assumed for him a size disproportionate to its true significance, in view of the other questions which an idealistic philosophy is called upon to solve. Immaterialism 2 is far removed from idealism in any positive and definite sense, though the former meant for Berkeley the latter, and accordingly upon the doctrine of the immateriality of matter — the first step in the idealistic progression which ensued, his early efforts are chiefly directed. The success which he attained in the clear and forcible series of arguments embodied in the Principles of Human Knowledge, was at the time grudgingly attested in comments, which, however, may best be expressed in the words of the more favorably disposed critic, Hume:

i Cf. T. H. Webb: "Veil of Isis," p. 12.

2 "It is the negative side of his philosophy to which— unfortunately, but naturally — he was led in his early works to give the greatest relative consideration." Morris: "British Thought and Thinkers'', p. 221.

Berkeley's arguments says he, "admit of no answer and produce no conviction." 1

" But the lessons in scepticism which Hume drew from them were foreign, not only to the spirit and intention of Berkeley, but in not a few instances, even in his earlier philosophy seemed directly opposed to the mould in which it was cast. Berkeley certainly overshot his mark in his too vigorous insistence upon the sensuous character of all that we know; and in consequence the objectivity of thought relations, which any idealism of value must in some sense lay claim to discover, appear, indeed, in his philosophy as a background, but highly colored with theological notions. His idealism, being a theory rather than a system, the various aspects which it assumes are external to one another; yet one form of idealism drops out of sight, rather than is premeditatedly abandoned for another. He runs the whole gamut of idealisms from phenomenalism to what is in the end very like Platonic Realism. There is something kaleidescopic about this progression, one cannot say that there is any true line of demarcation between the earlier and the later, although the fundamental difference is apparent. Berkeley never deepens his conceptions to the extent of fully ascertaining if they are in agreement or non-agreement with the propositions which form the starting point of his early position. 2 Thus there results a number of seemingly heterogeneous lines of thought which are, in great part, rather suggestions and beginnings in thought than steps in a course of logical development. If, then, our interpretation shall endeavor to determine the resultant of these lines of thought it ought to effect this, not by a process of subjectively balancing the evidence fo-r or against the earlier or the later theory as representative of Berkeley, but by taking such explicit utterances as he offers us in his general attitude toward philosophy other than his own. Berkeley has most frequently been regarded as an extreme Nominalist, and upon this basis largely rests the claim of Empiricism upon him as its representative. This Nominalism, whether of an extreme or, as some would have it, of a modified type, is best set forth in his discussion of Abstract

1 Works; Hume IV, p. 181.

2 ''We may be "inclined to wonder, "says Balfour in his biographical introduction to Berkeley's works, that a man who had done so much before he was thirty, had not done much more by the time he was sixty. * * * That he produced so little in his maturer years is doubtless due in part to temperament, and to the distraction of an unsettled and wandering life, but it must also be largely attributed to the almost total absence of intelligent criticism, either from friends or foes, under which Berkeley suffered throughout the whole period during which criticism might have aroused him to make some serious effort to develop or to defend the work of his youth." "The Works of George Berkeley,' edited by George Sampson,

Ideas, which constitutes his Introduction to the Principles of Human Knowledge, and it is accordingly with this work as a basis that we shall introduce the first of the topics in this discussion.

§ 2. ABSTRACT IDEAS.

(<z) Abstract Images.

The philosophical discussions and dialogues of Berkeley everywhere abound in figures, and the effect of his metaphors is sometimes to make one think that the Platonism of his later years was indeed the undercurrent of his life, for a time obscured by the new discovery which attracted him in his youth. The predominating figure which, in his early philosophy, serves to clothe his conception of the world is that of the analogy of human language to a divine language, which forms the interpretable system of nature. Our failure to interpret correctly this divine nature-language is in a large measure owing to our lack of appreciation of the true function of human language.

Now Philosophers have generally regarded the paradoxes and inconsistencies that reason is wont to encounter in its search for metaphysical truth as due to the inherent weakness of our faculties which, being finite, are unable to "penetrate into the inward essence and constitution of things" 1 in themselves infinite. But "it is a hard thing to suppose right deductions from true principles should ever end in consequences which cannot be maintained or made consistent." 2 Human reason, we should think, ought, if unhindered, to yield more satisfactory conclusions to the problems which it has it self raised, and "we should believe that God has dealt more bountifully with the sons of men than to give them a strong desire for that knowledge which he had placed quite out of their reach." 3

The errors to which the untrammelled exercise of reason has given rise have been attributed solely to the finitude of reason as such, and it has not yet been sufficiently pointed out that the most fruitful source of them is language. The flexibility of language, which adapts it to ordinary intercourse and the common business of life, becomes its chief difficulty when it is of necessity employed in the nicer discriminations of metaphysics. Here as everywhere the word is our master, or is likely to become so, if the relations which it bears to our reasoning be not definitely understood.

1 Introduction to the Principles of Human Knowledge, § 2.

3 Ibid.

Usually the word may be said to signify a conscious process; frequently, also, it does not. In the former case a conscious content is the equivalent of the word, in the latter merely a cerebral process. "Fear, love, hatred, admiration, and disdain, and the like, arise immediately in the mind upon the perception of certain words, without any ideas coming between " x — or, on the other hand the word may arouse as its equivalent a more or less definite idea. Language has thus other uses than that of arousing conscious processes by coupling a word with a particular definitely recognized conscious content or idea, since tne word may arouse to action or passion without the intervention of the idea. Thus we see that a word may stand for no idea at all, or it may stand for other particular ideas than that of which it serves as the sign in any particular instance.

But the adaptability of language to the demands made upon it by ordinary life render it impossible for a word, by means of a fixed definition, to correspond in every case to the same definite conscious content. The definition indeed serves to govern and restrict the corresponding idea to relation^ among other ideas to which the definition is also applicable; but it is not true that the word stands always for the same idea. The mistaken notion that every name has "one only precise and settled signification" 2 has occasioned the belief in abstract ideas or abstract notions from which has sprung much confusion in metaphysical thinking. Thus men have come to regard the concepts of qualities, or of beings, which include several coexistent qualities, as abstract ideas.

We are now in a position to see a little way into the difficulty which Berkeley finds with the ' abstract idea ' of his opponents. Without attempiing in this place to establish a rigid definition of the Berkeleyian idea, it may be noted that is is oftenest synonymous with the above acceptation of a particular, definite, recognizable content of consciousness. The freedom which Locke allowed himself in the definition of idea as, "whatever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks " 3 is a liberty which Berkeley does nothing to restrict. The two conditions which it seems are everywhere necessary to the idea are that it shall be (a) a content of consciousness, (b) recognized as a definite content of consciousness, i. e., perceived.

Now the abstract idea appears in Berkeley's eyes to be in the following anomalous position. As idea, it must be recognizable as a definite content of consciousness, but, as abstract, it must — so it is claimed — be different in kind from the particulars, out of which,

1 Principles of Human Knowledge; § 20 of Introduction.

2 Ibid, g 18.

3 " Essay concerning Human Understanding." Introduction, § 8 by observation of their common likenesses, the abstract idea has been formed. What Berkeley seems to say to his opponents in his polemic against abstract ideas is in effect this: 'You tell me that there are such things as abstract ideas — that besides the ideas of sense, the ideas of imagination, the ideas ''perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind," 1 the ideas of memory, ete., etc., you have also ideas from which all particulars are excluded, and which, though relating to the particular ideas that may be subsumed under them, are not themselves particular. But if these ideas for which you contend are anything at all, they are recognizable by you as definite conscious contents, and are thus particular, and, in so far, like the other particular ideas which you have. You can accordingly describe them, and, having recourse to introspection, you must surely discover that all you have are particular ideas. By some of these ideas you may indeed denote numbers of other particular ideas — but nowhere will you find the thing you call abstract idea.'

If the foregoing is a correct interpretation of Berkeley's thought about abstract ideas, it is easy to see that his difficulty with them lay in the unimaginableness of such things. An abstract image is, as Fraser says, manifestly absurd. 2 Taken in this sense it is doubtful if Locke — whom Berkeley seems to have chiefly in mind — ever seriously contended for such a thing. 3 On the other hand, if Berkeley be not understood to have thus misconceived the doctrine of his opponent as grossly as ever Locke misconstrued Descartes' 'innate ideas,' the distinction between his own view and that of the upholder of abstract ideas is far less than is often supposed. For Berkeley by no means denies the possibility of there being general ideas. All he denies is that there are general ideas or general notions taken in the above sense of abstract images. Let us see if Locke's own description of abstract ideas may serve further to explain Berkeley's difficulties.

Locke says: " The use of words then being to stand as outward marks of our internal ideas, and those ideas being taken from particular things, if every particular idea that we take in should have a distinct name, names must be endless. To prevent this, the mind makes particular ideas received from particular objects to become general; which is done by considering them as they are in the mind such appearances — separate from other existences, and the circumstances of real existence, as time, place, or

1 " Principles," § i.

2 Selections, p 19, note.

3 Like Berkeley, ''Locke has everywhere a sober dread of abstraction, and clings to the particular and concrete with a sense of the risk of losing the real in the emptiness of the universal." Locke's 'Essay'; Fraser's ed., vol. II, p. 101, note 2.

any other concomitant ideas. This is called abstraction, whereby ideas taken from particular beings become general representatives of all of the same kind; and their names general names, applicable to whatever exists conformable to such abstract ideas. Such precise naked appearances in the mind ,% — which Beckeley takes to mean images — " without considering how, whence, or with what others they come there, the understanding lays up (with names commonly annexed to them) as the standards to rank real existences into sorts, as they agree with these patterns, and to denominate them accordingly." 1 r

Now this passage in which the doctrine of abstraction is explicitly set forth, does not of itself particularly favor Berkeley's interpretation of Locke, but the subsequent use which the latter makes of abstractions in which e. g. the idea of extension is treated as something which we possess apart from the idea of that which is extended, and the idea of hardness apart from that which is felt — these, coupled with the passage immediately following the one we have just quoted, in which it is said that "the having of general ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and brute," induce Berkeley to think that the having of abstract ideas means the possession of a faculty the existence of which man is not able to verify by direct introspection of himself or by observation of the way in which objects come to be recognized in consciousness of a lower order than his own. In one of the dialogues there is to be found this passage: " I understand that the several parts of the world became gradually preceivable to finite spirits, endowed with proper faculties." 2 If this maybe accepted as a hint toward an indeal evolution or spiritual unfolding of nature, 3 it may be seen that Berkley would naturally rebel against the claim that man possesses a faculty so different in kind 4 from that belonging to animals of a lower order than himself, and so undesirable as an element of his own consciousness. The abstract idea, in the sense of abstract image — that indescribable something which is neither this nor that definite and particular thing, but which is set over against the other definite and imaginable contents of consciousness — an idea of this sort Berkeley claims it is impossible to frame.

(b) Universals.

It would be in a great measure to anticipate a discussion of the notion and its objects if we were at this point to dwell at length upon Berkeley's positive conception of universals. Yet a few

'Locke's Essay, Bk. II, Ch. XI, 9.

1 Ci Philonous", 3d dialogue.

3 Cf. also, "Siris," note 2 of Fraser's "Selection's," p. 343.

4 Intro, to "Principles," ^ 11.

words may be sufficient to show that with the abstract idea, in 'any other sense than that of abstract image, he finds no very great difficulty. He regards the abstract image as an absurdity because, although a content of consciousness different in kind from particu lars, it, however, always reduces itself to particulars which it professes not to be. "But," says he, "it is to be noted that I do not deny absolutely there are general ideas, but only that there are any abstract general ideas; for, in the passage we have quoted wherein there is mention of general ideas, it is always supposed that they are formed by abstraction after the manner set forth in sections 8 and 9," 1 which last "I do not think a whit more needful for the enlargement of knowledge than for communication." 2 "It is, I know, a point much insisted on that all knowledge and demonstrtttion are about universal notions, to which I fully agree; but then it does not appear to me that those notions are formed by abstraction in the manner premised — universality, so far as I can comprehend, not consisting in the absolute, positive 8 nature or conception of anything, but in the relation it bears to the particulars signified or represented by it; by virtue whereof it is that things, names, or notions, being in their own nature particular, are rendered universal."*

Thus it is not the claim that we are able to generalize experience by means of "universal notions" to which "Berkeley takes exception, but rather the claim, which rightly or wrongly he reads into Locke, "that those notions are formed by abstraction in the manner premised." And it is not so much the process of abstraction that he objects to as the hypostatization of the abstraction thus formed; for, thus hypostatized, it is the abstract image to which every element of particularity is denied. The abstract universal, in fulfilling its claim to be idea in consciousness, must have its sensuous aspect, and so must submit itself to the condition of being particular, 5 though a particular with a universal reference; but this necessary element of particularity is denied it by its claimants; hence the falsity and uselessness of such an idea. But it might be objected to Berkeley, this abstract universal has indeed a sensuous side, though the particularity of 'the idea does not necessarily follow from this, and consequently it is not what you claim it to be — an abstract image. Thus it is surely possible to form the idea of man in general which, in the meaning that it has for me, is

1 Introduction to Principles of Human Knowledge, § 12.

% i. e. As an inflexible quasi-entity in the form of abstract image, having no relation to the particular to which it is presumably applicable. 4 Introduction to Principles of Human Knowledge, § 15. £ v. note 2, p. 131 of this essay.

different from the particular fleeting images which accompany this abstract idea; and, as the latter has for me this universal meaning, it is in consciousness a something distinct from the particular. To this we might, in behalf of Berkeley, ask in reply: Why then is it not the case that, granted the same premises, we march straight to the same conclusions? If we differ in our reasonings, is it not because we differ in our experiences, and because, in consequence, the sensuous images, which are only the obverse of the universals we employ, necessarily have something to do with our conclusions? In the Commonplace Book, Berkeley instructs an imaginary reader as follows: "Let him not regard my words any otherwise than as occasions of bringing into his mind determined significations . . . I desire and warn him not to expect to find truth in any book or anywhere but in his own mind." Our assurance of truth, he seems to imply, is in the correspondence of the experiences of finite beings; and hence, if we would have truth we must not neglect the particular sensuous aspect of our experience, nor yet regard it as a hinderance to the universal which it bears within it. Not that we could ever attain truth by means of particulars which have no universal aspect, though every idea is indeed particular. "If we will annex a meaning to our words and speak only of what we can conceive, I believe we shall acknowledge that an idea, which, considered in itself, is particular, becomes general by being made to represent or stand for all other particular ideas of the same sort." The idea, then, which is in itself definite and particular, the image, and the conglomerate of particular experiences, has nevertheless a representative character in which may be seen the evaluation by the rational consciousness of the particulars which the image is taken to represent. That is, we are confined to particulars, Berkeley says; but particulars, at least some of them, have a universal reference, this universal reference consisting in simply recognizing that the general idea has no peculiarity which marks it off as the special property of any particular idea. 1 Thus the idea of a triangle is a general idea or notion, not "as if I could frame the idea of a triangle which is neither equilateral, nor scalenon, nor equicrural; but only that the particular triangle which I consider, whether of this or of that sort it matters not, doth equally stand for and represent all rectilinear triangles whatsoever, and is in that sense universal." 2

As a conclusion of the matter we may, I think, fairly interpret Berkeley as follows: In our thinking we are confined to particutars i. e., there are not in our consciousness universals existing as quasi-entities over against a number of particulars different from

1 Cf. later discussions of the notion; also note 2, p. — of this essay.

2 Introduction to the "Principles," £ 15.

them in kind. The human mind is of the nature of a republic rather than of a monarchical system. On the other hand, the particularity of the idea is not its only aspect; for the universality of certain of our ideas at least is as true and immediately recognizable as the particularity which belongs to them all. If this is a fair interpretation of Berkeley, as we read this doctrine in the Introduction to the Principles of Human Knowledge, I see nothing that can justify the belief that he assigns a prior right to the particular as against the universal. Rather does it seem to be a plea for the equal rights of the universal and the particular, as distinguishable features of the idea.

But the importance of Berkeley's defense of the particular, as against the asserted existence of a featureless abstraction, must not, on that account, be minimized. He is here as elsewhere more often the champion of the particular than of the universal; and the impetuosity of his attack upon the territory usurped by his opponent doubtless prevented him from seeing that his own defenses were hastily constructed, sufficient for the occasion only, but not of a character to withstand the carefully planned attacks of later thought. Thus it comes about that "his defective views on this subject perplex his whole philosophy." Dr. James McCosh, no very friendly critic, says: "he rejects, as I believe he ought, abstract ideas, in the sense of Locke, that is, in the sense of images of qualities; and he claims it is his merit that he gets rid of

grand abstractions but, while he has exposed the errors

of Locke, he has not established the positive truth Had

he taken as much pains in unfolding what is contained in ' considering ' a figure as triangular, and Peter as man, without considering other qualities, and what is involved in forming general propositions and reasoning about qualities, as he has taken to expel abstract ideas in the sense of phantasms, he would have saved his own philosophy, and philosophy generally from his day to this, from an immense conglomeration of confusion." 1 This is no doubt true; but it is not impossible that where, as in the case of Berkeley's philosophy, it is admitted on all sides that "an immense conglomeration of confusion " exists, a part of the confusion may be due to the neglect of certain strongly marked lines of thought in favor of others less prominent in his philosophy as a whole, but more clearly developed at certain stages of its progress. As Professor Wenley says: "Like Kant, Berkeley is not to be regarded in one aspect of his work only, and the same materials which viewed in a certain aspect, constitute in a large measure his value for philosophy should perhaps be viewed in another light, if we are to be true to the thought of the founder of idealism himself." 2

1 McCosh: "'Locke's Theory of Knowledge with a notice of Berkeley " in Criteria of Truth, p. 57.

2 "British Thought and Modern Speculation," in Scottish Review, Vol. 19.

Chapter II. Things And Ideas

In the beginning which we have thus made in our attempted determination of the general Berkeleian conception of the world, his view of abstract ideas has been given the first place as the epistemological motif of that idealistic attitude toward Reality which Berkeley inaugurated. Partly on account of the natural limitations attaching to human language, partly because of the negligence of metaphysicians, who do not always verify the correspondence between the terms which they employ, and definite concrete thoughts, without which words are mere stumbling blocks in the way of logical thinking — it has come about that a kind of spurious currency was brought into circulation, which has not been without its effect upon the metaphysics of the past. It is Berkeley's professed task to recall men to a more adequate appreciation of the meanings that underlie the terms by which they designate supposed existences. * ' Nothing, " says he, "seems of more importance toward erecting a firm system of sound and real knowledge, which may be proof against the assaults of scepticism than to lay the beginning in a distinct explication of what is meant by thing, reality, existence, for in vain shall we dispute concerning the ' real existence ' of things, or pretend to any knowledge thereof, so long as we have not fixed the meaning of those words." 1

In this enquiry with which Berkeley sets out there may be found at least some feeble anticipation of that later "voyage of discovery " which was to tax the energies of a mightier intellect than his own. '"Tis on the meaning and import of existence that I chiefly insist." The metaphysical question: what is Reality? Berkeley is the first to raise explicitly in the form, what is the meaning of Reality or rather, we may say, what assignable meaning can we give to that which we call Reality, i. e. by what ideas can we designate the Real ? The solution of this problem is partly foreshadowed in the very manner of stating the question itself. The Real must at least fulfill the negative condition of not being that which cannot be expressed or in some way verified in ideas. But then what are ideas ?