There is an argument, to which you have so far failed to respond. Berkeley says that we have no grounds for believing there is a material substance apart from the perception (tactile, visual, and so on). You have asserted that there is a material substance apart from the perception. It would seem therefore that your argument is the one with something to prove. You have to prove that there is a substance apart from the perception of it. So, again, how do you demonstrate that there is a substantial object apart from the perception of it?

---------- Post added 03-18-2010 at 09:50 AM ----------

I am making the same point as Pyrrho.

Berkeley's view is that physical objects simply are those "tactile, visual, and so on" sensations. They are reducible to them.

As quite a few contributors have actually provided quotes from Berkeley to illustrate his arguments, perhaps you might take a passage from Berkeley's Treatise or Dialogs where he makes this argument and criticize it.

There is an argument, to which you have so far failed to respond. Berkeley says that we have no grounds for believing there is a material substance apart from the perception (tactile, visual, and so on). You have asserted that there is a material substance apart from the perception. It would seem therefore that your argument is the one with something to prove.

You have to prove that there is a substance apart from the perception of it. So, again, how do you demonstrate that there is a substantial object apart from the perception of it?

Ihe table may exist without any of those sensations Berkeley says it reduces to occurring.

It could also be, because the nature of the world we perceive is actually contradictory, and fails to make sense, but we haven't noticed it yet because it is what we are used to.

All philosophy starts from the observation that the world does not make sense. Nowadays we have just gotten used to the idea, and live with it, in my view.

---------- Post added 03-18-2010 at 11:25 AM ----------



Indeed, it may. This is inferred on the basis of what we see. It is a reasonable inference.

Those two bolded sentences contradict each other. Berkeley unequivocally denied material objects, which is stated quite clearly in the passages you quote in your own post, and which you assert in the second sentence of yours that I bolded.

What people imagine are material objects are, according to Berkeley, really sets of perceptions or mental images. True enough, he did not deny the reality of a rock; but according to Berkeley, a rock is not a material object, but is really a set of perceptions, and nothing more. According to Berkeley, "the very Notion of what is called Matter or Corporeal Substance, involves a Contradiction in it."

A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge - Wikisource

1. Berkley did not deny material objects or matter of materials in general.
2. What Berkeley deny is this thing called Matter or corporeal substance of philosophical realism.

And in philosophical discourses it seems the best way to leave it quite out: since there is not, perhaps, any one thing that hath more favoured and strengthened the depraved bent of the mind towards Atheism than the use of that general confused term..

But that is not the point. The point is that it cannot be true that what we mean by saying the table exists is just reducible to those sensations, since the table may exist, and those sensations not occur. Therefore, it is false that the table is reducible to sensations. As Berkeley alleges. And so, the table must be something different and separate from those sensations. QED

And, here we are, where everyone is now quite convinced that the world of mere appearance is in fact the sole reality. But the belief is so deeply and utterly entrenched, as has been amply demonstrated by Johnson, that I am no longer inclined to pursue the argument, even tho' I do quite see what the good Bishop meant.

But thanks, Humanity, for the very germane and relevant quotations.

And, here we are, where everyone is now quite convinced that the world of mere appearance is in fact the sole reality.

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?

No Kennethamy, not you in particular, it is more just a general comment on the everyday view of life in the modern world and the scientific outlook. I am sure nearly everyone holds that view, and it is a probably a very sensible view to hold. And your arguments sure are hard to beat.

Because Berkeley never suggested that the immaterial nature of reality was such that the fundamental laws of science would not continue to exert the same controls over our experiences. While the rock or stone is being perceived by the human mind, it is bound to remain consistent with the same laws and forces that have heretofore controlled its actions and interrelations with other apparently material objects like feet. Therefore, there is no reason to think that a foot and rock (or stone) interrelation will not retain the expected consistency. Therefore, Johnson's demonstration is pointless. He must instead show that the immaterial reality of ideas proposed by Berkeley is incapable of explaining the responses of feet and stones to kicking.

Samm

Could it be because they are sound arguments? There is that possibility. It is not that you have the truth, but I have the arguments, so much as that I have the truth because I have the arguments.

57. Refutation of Bishop Berkely
After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together
of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of
matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed,
that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to
refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered,
striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he
rebounded from it -- "I refute it thus."
James Boswell: Life of Samuel Johnson book 3.

Interestingly, in googling around to try and see what "refute" meant to johnson, I found this:

JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie

"Rebut" is taught as something that weakens and argument, and refute as something that disproves it. But he suggests that it's a case where "professional teachers of speech insist there is a difference, although historically there is none".

Words often change meanings over time, sometimes coming to mean the opposite of what they meant before.

Although I can't see the rest of the article, and given this quote:

It seems the definition of refute as "disprove" was in use back then. However, Johnson may very well have been using the other meaning of the word. It certainly seems like that to me.

He did refute Berkeley, and not just rebut him..