Did Samuel Johnson misunderstand George Berkeley?

kennethamy · # **49292** Tue 23 Feb, 2010 07:59 am

The famous story (in Boswell's Life of Johnson) that Samuel Johnson kicked a rock (or was it a stone?) and cried out, "Thus I refute Berkeley". Berkeley, of course, denied that there were any material objects. It is often said (with some condescension) that all this showed was that Johnson misunderstood Berkeley, and that what Johnson did was not a refutation of Berkeley's view. My question is whether this criticism of Johnson is correct. Why didn't Johnson refute Berkeley by kicking the stone or rock?

Pyrrho · # **49293** Tue 23 Feb, 2010 10:50 am

Johnson did not thusly refute Berkeley because Berkeley never said that one would not have various feelings and sensations. The sensation we call "kicking a rock" is not inconsistent with Berkeley's position, and thus does not refute Berkeley.

kennethamy · # **49294** Tue 23 Feb, 2010 11:31 am

Pyrrho;131419 wrote:

Johnson did not thusly refute Berkeley because Berkeley never said that one would not have various feelings and sensations. The sensation we call "kicking a rock" is not inconsistent with Berkeley's position, and thus does not refute Berkeley.

But we don't call kicking a rock a sensation. There may be a sensation of kicking a rock for all I know, but that was not what Johnson was talking about. He was talking about kicking a rock. Why do you think he was talking about his sensation?

Pyrrho · # **49295** Tue 23 Feb, 2010 11:51 am

kennethamy;131436 wrote:

Pyrrho;131419 wrote:
Johnson did not thusly refute Berkeley because Berkeley never said that one would not have various feelings and sensations. The sensation we call "kicking a rock" is not inconsistent with Berkeley's position, and thus does not refute Berkeley.
But we don't call kicking a rock a sensation. There may be a sensation of kicking a rock for all I know, but that was not what Johnson was talking about. He was talking about kicking a rock. Why do you think he was talking about his sensation?

"We" don't call it a sensation because "we" presuppose Berkeley to be wrong. Presupposing Berkeley is wrong does nothing to disprove him.

kennethamy · # **49296** Tue 23 Feb, 2010 11:55 am

Pyrrho;131450 wrote:

"We" don't call it a sensation because "we" presuppose Berkeley to be wrong. Presupposing Berkeley is wrong does nothing to disprove him.

But don't you think that even Berkeley would distinguish between the sensation of kicking a rock, and kicking a rock? Even he must have thought that we could be mistaken, and had the sensation of kicking a rock, and not done so; or, going the other way, kicked a rock and not had the sensation of kicking a rock. We all have done that. I imagine even Berkeley.

Zetherin · # **49297** Tue 23 Feb, 2010 12:19 pm

kennethamy;131371 wrote:

The famous story (in Boswell's Life of Johnson) that Samuel Johnson kicked a rock (or was it a stone?) and cried out, "Thus I refute Berkeley". Berkeley, of course, denied that there were any material objects. It is often said (with some condescension) that all this showed was that Johnson misunderstood Berkeley, and that what Johnson did was not a refutation of Berkeley's view. My question is whether this criticism of Johnson is correct. Why didn't Johnson refute Berkeley by kicking the stone or rock?

I think he did refute Berkeley, if Berkeley simply stated, "There are no material objects". His kicking demonstrated that an object was there. An object other than himself. The sensation of pain after kicking the rock is another matter entirely.

But I have not read thoroughly Berkeley's view, so I don't really know.

Pyrrho · # **49298** Tue 23 Feb, 2010 12:24 pm

kennethamy;131452 wrote:

But don't you think that even Berkeley would distinguish between the sensation of kicking a rock, and kicking a rock? Even he must have thought that we could be mistaken, and had the sensation of kicking a rock, and not done so; or, going the other way, kicked a rock and not had the sensation of kicking a rock. We all have done that. I imagine even Berkeley.

That sort of thing would be a matter of the other sorts of sensations one has. For example, with a phantom pain in a nonexistent limb, one could sense (visually, as well as other ways) that the limb was missing, and so one would judge the feeling of kicking a rock without the relevant limb to be a mistaken impression. But all of this is able to be rendered in terms that Berkeley allows, and so none of this can prove him wrong.

With the example of kicking a rock without feeling it, one knows such things by observation of the rock having been moved, which is still observation or impression or whatever such words one prefers. In Berkeley's view, the rock being moved is simply that one has different impressions [of the rock] from the sorts one had before.

What one gets with Berkeley is a different description of what is going on, but without any observations being any different from the usual description of what is going on. The difference between Berkeley's view and materialism is a difference that cannot be observed empirically. Therefore, no empirical demonstration can prove him wrong. No empirical demonstration can be relevant to whether he is right or wrong.

Berkeley objected to going beyond experience and positing a something else out there in the world, when all of one's experience is sensation. Of course, he did not strictly keep to this in his discussions of God and other minds, but even in those cases, he kept them to the realm of ideas, which are the "basic stuff" of experience.

I have this queasy feeling that someone is going to mistake me for a Berkelean idealist because I am defending him here. I am not an idealist, either Berkelean or other. But I do not think that Johnson's "refutation" is in any way relevant to whether Berkeley is right or not. And that, being the subject of this thread, is why I have responded in defense of Berkeley.

---------- Post added 02-23-2010 at 01:35 PM ----------

Zetherin;131468 wrote:

I think he did refute Berkeley, if Berkeley simply stated, "There are no material objects". His kicking demonstrated that an object was there. An object other than himself. The sensation of pain after kicking the rock is another matter entirely.

But I have not read thoroughly Berkeley's view, so I don't really know.

You should read Berkeley if you want to know what he said, and why he said it. But to give you a brief idea, how do you know that you have kicked a rock when you have kicked a rock? It is by the various sensations and impressions you have. But ALL of that is in your mind. Positing an external object that is made up of something that is wholly beyond experience is unjustified; you merely have various sensations and thoughts, and cannot have experience of matter. Your experience is necessarily of thoughts and ideas, not of something wholly different. Yet the majority of people believe in something magically different from all of their experience, and pretend that their experience supports their view!

For a slightly less brief idea, see:

George Berkeley - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

George Berkeley (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

But, again, it is best to directly read Berkeley. But if you are not going to take the time to do that, the second best is to read things like what is at the links above.

Zetherin · # **49299** Tue 23 Feb, 2010 12:36 pm

Pyrrho wrote:

The difference between Berkeley's view and materialism is a difference that cannot be observed empirically. Therefore, no empirical demonstration can prove him wrong. No empirical demonstration can be relevant to whether he is right or wrong.

But doesn't this make his position unfalsifiable, at least to the materialist? What sort of thing do you suppose could prove him wrong, then?

Isn't the burden of proof on Berkeley to show material objects do not exist, not on everyone else to show that material objects exist?

Quote:

I have this queasy feeling that someone is going to mistake me for a Berkelean idealist because I am defending him here. I am not an idealist, either Berkelean or other. But I do not think that Johnson's "refutation" is in any way relevant to whether Berkeley is right or not. And that, being the subject of this thread, is why I have responded in defense of Berkeley.

If anything, it may have shown that Berkeley's position was unfalsifiable, and not worth considering in the first place? And in this way it would be very relevant.

Quote:

You should read Berkeley if you want to know what he said, and why he said it. But to give you a brief idea, how do you know that you have kicked a rock when you have kicked a rock? It is by the various sensations and impressions you have. But ALL of that is in your mind. Positing an external object that is made up of something that is wholly beyond experience is unjustified; you merely have various sensations and thoughts, and cannot have experience of matter. Your experience is necessarily of thoughts and ideas, not of something wholly different. Yet the majority of people believe in something magically different from all of their experience, and pretend that their experience supports their view!

If this is an accurate summation of his views, I will not be reading him at all.

Pyrrho · # **49300** Tue 23 Feb, 2010 12:47 pm

Zetherin;131474 wrote:

Pyrrho wrote:
The difference between Berkeley's view and materialism is a difference that cannot be observed empirically. Therefore, no empirical demonstration can prove him wrong. No empirical demonstration can be relevant to whether he is right or wrong.

But doesn't this make his position unfalsifiable, at least to the materialist?

No more so than the position that matter exists.

Zetherin wrote:

What sort of thing do you suppose could prove him wrong, then?

It would have to be done conceptually, if at all. Of course, what most people in fact do is not disprove him, but merely presuppose he is wrong and go on with what they want to do. It is very unphilosophical of them to do this, but that is what most people do. Including most philosophers.

Zetherin;131474 wrote:

Isn't the burden of proof on Berkeley to show material objects do not exist, not on everyone else to show that material objects exist?
...

No, the burden of proof is on whoever is making a claim. If someone asserts that material objects exist, then that person has acquired a burden of proof. In Berkeley's case, he provides arguments for his position. If you want to know what they are, read him, or at the very least, read the material at the links above.

Zetherin · # **49301** Tue 23 Feb, 2010 12:56 pm

Pyrrho wrote:

It would have to be done conceptually, if at all. Of course, what most people in fact do is not disprove him, but merely presuppose he is wrong and go on with what they want to do. It is very unphilosophical of them to do this, but that is what most people do. Including most philosophers.

A philosopher shouldn't entertain every idea, just for the sake of entertaining every idea. It is not unphilosophical to ignore nonsense. In fact, sifting through the nonsense is what makes philosophy useful.

Quote:

No, the burden of proof is on whoever is making a claim. If someone asserts that material objects exist, then that person has acquired a burden of proof.

The determination of who should show burden of proof is not based solely on who made the claim. It is often based on how the claim correlates with conventional knowledge. For instance, and this example is used on a website, if someone claimed that Elvis was dead, there is less burden of proof required than if someone claimed that Elvis is alive. That is because it is part of conventional knowledge that Elvis is dead.

The more outlandish the claim, the more the deviation from conventional knowledge, the more burden of proof on the shoulders of the claimer.

jeeprs · # **49302** Tue 23 Feb, 2010 02:50 pm

I think Johnson's 'refutation' simply demonstrates that he did not understand Berkeley's argument, not that he refuted it. Interestingly, Kant also criticizes Berkeley in his 'Critique of Material Idealism' which is notable in distinguishing Kant's view of the question from Berkeley's, and thereby illustrating the distinction between Kant's 'transcendental idealism' and that of Berkeley's. Because Kant was a realist.

On this general topic, I want to try and advance an argument on the general question of idealist views. Please criticize it.

Ideas - or in a broader sense, cognitive constructs - are not in themselves objects of perception.

The way in which objects are depicted in our minds, within a nexus of other ideas and sensations, is not in itself an object of perception. When we consider idealist philosophies, we are trying to picture the situation on the basis of the mind being in the brain, and the brain being in our skull. But this is not a real description of the actual situation of mind or consciousness, because it is the mind that is creating this picture as well.

This picture of the idealist position is another cognitive construct which is based on our basic cognitive construction of seeing the mind as something in the brain, the brain in our bodies, and our bodies in the world. This construction is based on standing outside yourself, as it were, and seeing yourself as an object. Which you are not.

You can study mind, cognition, and cognitive constructs as objects. This is what cognitive science does. But, as an object, mind doesn't contain anything. The mind only 'contains' objects - and contain is probably the wrong word - when it is situated in a live body. The idea that the brain is like a storage unit with little facsimiles of stars in a memory bank has been proved by neuroscience to be incorrect.

These ideas are similar to those presented by W. Teed Rockwell in Neither Brain nor Ghost.

Zetherin · # **49303** Tue 23 Feb, 2010 02:59 pm

jeeprs wrote:

The idea that the brain is like a storage unit with little facsimiles of stars in a memory bank has been proved by neuroscience to be incorrect.

Itt has been proved that the brain is like that, as far as I know. It just hasn't been proved the mind is like that. And neurologists often confuse the mind for the brain. But the mind is not the brain.

Scottydamion · # **49304** Tue 23 Feb, 2010 03:15 pm

Zetherin;131518 wrote:

Itt has been proved that the brain is like that, as far as I know. It just hasn't been proved the mind is like that. And neurologists often confuse the mind for the brain. But the mind is not the brain.

If you equate the brain to all of the neurons in the body, the distinction between brain and mind would seem a harder one to make.

jeeprs · # **49305** Tue 23 Feb, 2010 03:22 pm

Zetherin;131518 wrote:

Itt has been proved that the brain is like that, as far as I know. It just hasn't been proved the mind is like that. And neurologists often confuse the mind for the brain. But the mind is not the brain.

Nothing like that has been proven about the brain. That is just another cognitive construct, a model you use to create your world. The idea that the brain stores things, like a computer storage device, has been found to be completely incorrect. Computers are splendid for doing calculations or storing information that can be represented in digital form. But the mind is nothing like that. Have a look at the work ofHubert Dreyfus from UC Berkeley. He completely demolished the idea of 'mind as computer' in about 1979.

---------- Post added 02-24-2010 at 08:29 AM ----------

actually earlier than that, in the 1960's, now I read it again.

Zetherin · # **49306** Tue 23 Feb, 2010 03:29 pm

jeeprs;131525 wrote:

Nothing like that has been proven about the brain. That is just another cognitive construct, a model you use to create your world. The idea that the brain stores things, like a computer storage device, has been found to be completely incorrect. Computers are splendid for doing calculations or storing information that can be represented in digital form. But the mind is nothing like that. Have a look at the work ofHubert Dreyfus from UC Berkeley. He completely demolished the idea of 'mind as computer' in about 1979.

Then how do you explain people like Phineas Gage? There are portions of the brain which store specific information, and portions of the brain which effect specific functions.

Reconstructo · # **49307** Tue 23 Feb, 2010 03:31 pm

Zetherin;131477 wrote:

It is not unphilosophical to ignore nonsense. In fact, sifting through the nonsense is what makes philosophy useful.

I agree. But we should also note that our definition of nonsense is a shaping of our conceptual reality. One man's nonsense is another man's fame. (Heidegger, to name just one example.)

jeeprs · # **49308** Tue 23 Feb, 2010 04:48 pm

Zetherin;131531 wrote:

Then how do you explain people like Phineas Gage? There are portions of the brain which store specific information, and portions of the brain which effect specific functions.

But Phineas Gage is a perfect example of why neuroscience is so confounding!

Imagine proposing an experiment where we were to take the experimental subject and, using explosives, blast a large crowbar clean through his skull. Of course, any sensible person would say, why you can't do that! It would kill him! And besides, even if he survived, he would be a vegetable.

The fact that he lived for many years after such a catastrophic injury, albeit with massive personality changes, just confounds many attempt to understand brain functionality. As does neuro-plasticity. The mind seems to be able to re-organise the brain. If the mind were the product of the brain, how would this be possible?

It is an interesting topic, and worthy of discussion, but this line of reasoning fails to come to terms with either Berkeley's argument, or mine.

kennethamy · # **49309** Tue 23 Feb, 2010 05:40 pm

jeeprs;131564 wrote:

It is an interesting topic, and worthy of discussion, but this line of reasoning fails to come to terms with either Berkeley's argument, or mine.

In fact, it has nothing whatever to do with what Johnson said. The diversion seems to me an admission that the question about Johnson and Berkeley is too difficult. That's what diversions usually are about. "I have no idea how to tackle this question, but I am impelled to say something (why?) so I'll talk about neurobiology. I read something about it the other day". People so often miss an opportunity to be silent.

---------- Post added 02-23-2010 at 06:43 PM ----------

jeeprs;131515 wrote:

I think Johnson's 'refutation' simply demonstrates that he did not understand Berkeley's argument, not that he refuted it. .

Have you any particular reason for thinking that? I would have thought that the rest of what you wrote would have present one or two. Apparently, it is about something entirely different.

jeeprs · # **49310** Tue 23 Feb, 2010 05:48 pm

I didn't bring up the neuro-physiological argument, other than to say that the idea that the brain is like a computer is incorrect, and I am sure it is incorrect.

The reason I say Berkeley's criticism was incorrect is in accord with what Pyrrho says in his first post about the topic. I don't want to repeat that here.

Do you have any criticism of my contention that 'cognitive constructs are not objects of perception', and whether this has any bearing on understanding Berkeley and idealism generally?

ughaibu · # **49311** Tue 23 Feb, 2010 05:51 pm

kennethamy;131584 wrote:

The diversion seems to me an admission that the question about Johnson and Berkeley is too difficult.

You posed a did-question; Did Samuel Johnson misunderstand George Berkeley? As did-questions are of the yes/no variety, your question presupposes that exactly one of the following assertions is true:
1) yes, Johnson did misunderstand Berkeley
2) no, Johnson did not misunderstand Berkeley.
On the face of it, I see no reason to doubt that exactly one of these assertions is true. So, your question appears to me to be legitimate, and I'm not convinced that it's difficult. What do you think that the difficulty consists of?