Did Samuel Johnson misunderstand George Berkeley?

@Jebediah,

Jebediah;142719 wrote:

. Science is pretty clearly on the realist side, so if the problem isn't science itself, what's the problem with realism?

Anti-realism in Science

In philosophy of science, anti-realism applies chiefly to claims about the non-reality of "unobservable" entities such as electrons or DNA, which are not detectable with human senses. For a brief discussion comparing such anti-realism to its opposite, realism, see (Okasha 2002, ch. 4). Ian Hacking (1999, p. 84) also uses the same definition. One prominent anti-realist position in the philosophy of science is instrumentalism, which takes a purely agnostic view towards the existence of unobservable entities: unobservable entity X serves simply as an instrument to aid in the success of theory Y. We need not determine the existence or non-existence of X. Some scientific anti-realists argue further, however, and deny that unobservables exist even as non-truth conditioned instruments. (Wiki)

Instrumentalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;142455 wrote:

I did not say it followed from the fact that solidity is a necessary condition, that it was also a sufficient condition. That, of course, would be the fallacy of affirming the consequent. But that does not mean that it is not the case that solidity is evidence that the object is material, nor that if it is a necessary condition, it may not follow that it is evidence the object is material. If X is a brother, then X is a male. And if X is a male, then under certain circumstances, that might be evidence that X is a brother (and not (say) a sister).

Yes, the fact that X is a male rules out the possibility that he is a sister. But the fact that a stone is solid does not rule out the possibility that it is immaterial. It does not even reduce that possibility, since it may be the case that things that appear solid are indeed solid, but immaterial. To refute this, you need a different argument.

@kennethamy,

Jebediah;142719 wrote:

Science is pretty clearly on the realist side, so if the problem isn't science itself, what's the problem with realism?

Big topic in its own right. Have a look at this blog entry where I tried to summarize some of the issues.

@ACB,

ACB;142723 wrote:

Yes, the fact that X is a male rules out the possibility that he is a sister. But the fact that a stone is solid does not rule out the possibility that it is immaterial. It does not even reduce that possibility, since it may be the case that things that appear solid are indeed solid, but immaterial. To refute this, you need a different argument.

Evidence E. that Y is true need not rule out the possibility that Y is not true. It need only make Y more probable than not. Or, even just increase the probability that Y is true. It need only be such that it would be difficult to explain the existence of E. unless Y were true.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;142465 wrote:

No one is an Idealist when not in a philosophy setting.

I don't know about that. I think the common-sense view is more or less 'come come, the world just is the way it is, and we just are born, live our lives, and move on.' This attitude naturally looks to science for vindication; it is the kind of common-sense realism of practical men-of-the-world. 'Roll up yer sleeves and get to work, quit day-dreaming'. That kind of thing.

Idealists are more likely to say things like 'life is what you make it; as you think, so you become', and so on. There has always been a strain of that in American thinking, in more or less sensible forms.

There have been many scientific idealists; it think the appeal to scientific realism is more common among academic philosophy than in science itself.

But in any case, it is a matter of outlook and a temperament as much as a reasoned position, don't you think?

@kennethamy,

[QUOTE=Jebediah;142719]II don't see how this fits with the idealism vs realism debate though. Science is pretty clearly on the realist side, so if the problem isn't science itself, what's the problem with realism?[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=kennethamy;142465]No one is an Idealist when not in a philosophy setting. All I meant is that the attraction of Idealism nowadays, needs an explanation, both because it, of course, deviates from how people are outside of the philosophical setting, but also, because it is fairly recent change in philosophical direction among mostly younger people who used to be (say before World War 2) philosophical Realists.[/QUOTE]
I just don't know what people mean when they say "idealism" or "realism".

Is there an independent external world which has some physical and material properties detected by the senses or measured by scientific instrumentation?
If I say yes, does that make me a "realist"? or a materialist?

If I think, that same independent external world also has properties of mind (mental properties) and perceptive experiential properties which are not detected by the senses or measured by scientific instrumentation:
Does that make me an idealist? I am not denying the material and physical properties of the world, I am just asserting there are other properties as well.

I don't know how one denies either the mental or the material properties of the world. It seems to me that we clearly experience them both. The world clearly has both mental and material properties and in my view one can not be separated from the other. I am in the end a process philosophy person and "reality" is composed of events (which invariably have both a mental and a physical pole, reality is dipolar) not of objects. This is a form of neutral monism but it does not seem to be either idealism or realism to me and I think the notion that one is either a realist or an idealist is false and most people are a blend of both.

Hard core realism, I think asserts that the mental is ultimately reducible to the physical or the material (or is a rare, emergent and epiphenomena or the physical) and essentially reduces to materialism.

Hard core Idealism, likewise asserts that the material is ultimately reducible to or dependent upon the mental.

I do not think either position represents most people's actual day to day working worldview because we are constantly confronted by both the mental and the material.

I guess I do not like the world realism because it is so often reduced to materialism and the very world "realism" contains real. Implying that realism is the view of the "real" and of what really "exists".

Reality as I see it, includes both the mental and the material and one can not be separated or one reduced to a mere epiphenomena or emergent property of the other. This makes me some form of panpsychist or neutral monist. Does it make me an idealist? Does it make me a realist?

It is impossible to deny that the world has mental properties (concepts, ideas and minds).
It is impossible to deny that the world has physical or material properties.
The real question is the relationship between the mental and the physical.
But the choice is not simply one of "idealism" versus "realism".
Science deals with the physical and material aspects of reality but does not make the claim that those properties define "reality", or define what "exists". Science and the senses both give us a partial, an incomplete and a representational not a direct view of "reality". Both Kant and Hume warn us about the mistake of thinking our human perceptions, conceptions and categories are direct or complete representations of "reality". Were they idealists? Were they realists?

Types of idealism- subjective, objective, metaphysical, epistemological, transcendental.

Ultimately of course I think mind, reason and intelligence are inherent in nature and explain the order and mathematical representation of nature. So one could claim I am an idealist since the world is based on mind, on possibility becoming actuality. I may be an idealist therefore. My idealism does not mean I think the world does not have material or physical properties or that what science tells us about the world is not truth; only that the picture painted by science like that of the senses is partial and incomplete. The limitations of science and the senses are not merely epistemological, they are inherent ontological in the nature of reality itself.

@Jebediah,

Jebediah;142719 wrote:

I see what you mean, people love to use it to justify whatever position they have, while science itself acknowledges its limitations. It just shows what we have reason to believe is true; what we don't have reason to believe can possibly still be true.

I'm not sure about the word scientism though, it doesn't strike me as the obvious word to use. People with an axe to grind will use whatever argument they think will work best. One of the things they do is use science in their argument. But I would bet that even the people who argue against scientism are guilty of some form of this (especially with quantum physics--it seems to be used to make points in arguments far to often given how cutting edge and complex the science is).

I don't see how this fits with the idealism vs realism debate though. Science is pretty clearly on the realist side, so if the problem isn't science itself, what's the problem with realism?

imo, science is neutral in terms of idealism vs realism (i.e. philosophical).
Science is well-defined within its framework of scientific method, falsification, testability, repeatability and peer review.

Idealists and philosophical realists use science to support their views.
In this sense, science is merely a tool.

Scientism is practiced by pscho-perverts (with a heavy sense of pride and demented ego) who think science as an end and it is the ONLY way to salvation for humanity.

---------- Post added 03-23-2010 at 10:49 PM ----------

prothero;142797 wrote:

I just don't know what people mean when they say "idealism" or "realism".

Is there an independent external world which has some physical and material properties detected by the senses or measured by scientific instrumentation?
If I say yes, does that make me a "realist"? or a materialist?

If I think, that same independent external world also has properties of mind (mental properties) and perceptive experiential properties which are not detected by the senses or measured by scientific instrumentation:
Does that make me an idealist? I am not denying the material and physical properties of the world, I am just asserting there are other properties as well.

I don't know how one denies either the mental or the material properties of the world. It seems to me that we clearly experience them both. The world clearly has both mental and material properties and in my view one can not be separated from the other. I am in the end a process philosophy person and "reality" is composed of events (which invariably have both a mental and a physical pole, reality is dipolar) not of objects. This is a form of neutral monism but it does not seem to be either idealism or realism to me and I think the notion that one is either a realist or an idealist is false and most people are a blend of both.

Hard core realism, I think asserts that the mental is ultimately reducible to the physical or the material (or is a rare, emergent and epiphenomena or the physical) and essentially reduces to materialism.

Hard core Idealism, likewise asserts that the material is ultimately reducible to or dependent upon the mental.

I do not think either position represents most people's actual day to day working worldview because we are constantly confronted by both the mental and the material.

I guess I do not like the world realism because it is so often reduced to materialism and the very world "realism" contains real. Implying that realism is the view of the "real" and of what really "exists".

Reality as I see it, includes both the mental and the material and one can not be separated or one reduced to a mere epiphenomena or emergent property of the other. This makes me some form of panpsychist or neutral monist. Does it make me an idealist? Does it make me a realist?

It is impossible to deny that the world has mental properties (concepts, ideas and minds).
It is impossible to deny that the world has physical or material properties.
The real question is the relationship between the mental and the physical.
But the choice is not simply one of "idealism" versus "realism".
Science deals with the physical and material aspects of reality but does not make the claim that those properties define "reality", or define what "exists". Science and the senses both give us a partial, an incomplete and a representational not a direct view of "reality". Both Kant and Hume warn us about the mistake of thinking our human perceptions, conceptions and categories are direct or complete representations of "reality". Were they idealists? Were they realists?

Types of idealism- subjective, objective, metaphysical, epistemological, transcendental.

Ultimately of course I think mind, reason and intelligence are inherent in nature and explain the order and mathematical representation of nature. So one could claim I am an idealist since the world is based on mind, on possibility becoming actuality. I may be an idealist therefore. My idealism does not mean I think the world does not have material or physical properties or that what science tells us about the world is not truth; only that the picture painted by science like that of the senses is partial and incomplete. The limitations of science and the senses are not merely epistemological, they are inherent ontological in the nature of reality itself.

imho, you are quite way off tangent with your understanding of the issue of "idealism" vs "realism".

First of all, within the philosophical community, the two opposing theories are, philosophical realism vs philosophical non-realism.
Note, it is philosophical realism not merely realism.

Idealism happened to be one of the non-realists theory.
One type of idealism is Berkeley's idealism. I would not give it
a name, as it could be misleading. Others have called Berkeley's idealism
as Subjective or dogmatic idealism.

As for this OP, Johnson had misunderstood and misinterpretated Berkeley's idealism, and thus the whole refutation is moot.

Philosophical Realism is;
Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief in a reality that is completely ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc.
Philosophers who profess realism also typically believe that truth consists in a belief's correspondence to reality.
Realists tend to believe that whatever we believe now is only an approximation of reality and that every new observation brings us closer to understanding reality. (wiki)

Common sense realists cognize an external world that is taken for granted and do not insist and reason about its externality.

Philosophical realists who are materialists reasoned and insist, as an extension from common sense realism, that there is an external reality that is reducible so some inert corporeal substance called matter which is absolutely independent of any human involvement.

Idealism was conceived to counter the above.
Idealism countered that it is impossible for matter to exists without any human involvement. The mind was the central focus of human involvements.

The first counter and challenge of the idealists was requesting the philosophical realists to prove their theory.
Berkeley requested for this in his Dialogs, so did Kant in his preface to the CoPR.
So far, there is no convincing proofs from the philosophical realists.

Subsequent to their first counter, the idealists like Berkeley provided their explanation on why the philosophical realists theory is not tenable.
Berkeley made some headway with his explanation of the mental but it was not complete.
This two-strategies approach are well documented in Berkeley's Treatise and Dialogs. (Must read them)
Kant did manage to get to a reasonable beachhead.
Since then modern scientists and others have provided very convincing knowledge why philosophical realism is a dead duck.

At the present moment, denouncing Berkeley is not effective (this OP is off tangent anyway), because the philosophical realist will still have to counter the more realistic Kant, the modern sciences and others to re-establish their philosophical realism.

@kennethamy,

well it is off tangent but has been rather interesting anyway IMO. I am glad that my consciousness has generated this forum, it is most amusing.:bigsmile:

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;142805 wrote:

well it is off tangent but has been rather interesting anyway IMO. I am glad that my consciousness has generated this forum, it is most amusing.:bigsmile:

Somehow, i would prefer whatever that is 'off-tangent'.
Not that i agree with them, but they provide an 'excuse' or rather a platform for us the do additional explorations to increase or refresh our knowledge base. :a-ok:

@Humanity,

[QUOTE=Humanity;142798] You are quite way off tangent with your understanding of the issue of "idealism" vs "realism"..[/QUOTE] Well that may be; I am just an arm chair philosopher mostly trained in the hard sciences and biology. Your response still leaves me with a lot of confusion

Humanity;142798 wrote:

Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief in a reality that is completely ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc. .

Humanity;142798 wrote:

Philosophers who profess realism also typically believe that truth consists in a belief's correspondence to reality. .

This is the correspondence theory of truth and I accept that as one form and definition of truth but I am not sure that is confined to realism as opposed to idealism.? Again the confusion of "realism" and "reality"?

Humanity;142798 wrote:

Realists tend to believe that whatever we believe now is only an approximation of reality and that every new observation brings us closer to understanding reality. (wiki) .

I do not see why this view is specific to realism in any way. Can't both idealists and realists believe in metaphysical truth. Do you mean scientific observations and scientific realism? Leaving out any form of subjective experience and any contribution of subjective experience to arriving at truth?

[QUOTE=Humanity;142798] Philosophical realists who are materialists reason and insist, as an extension from common sense realism, that there is an external reality that is reducible so some inert corporeal substance called matter which is absolutely independent of any human involvement. .[/QUOTE] Matter is a human concept, which corresponds to certain properties of reality as perceived by humans and by scientific method and instrumentation. Materialism in your view is a form of philosophical realism. How do other forms of realism regard matter?

Humanity;142798 wrote:

Idealism countered that it is impossible for matter to exists without any human involvement. The mind was the central focus of human involvements..

] I think the emphasis on "human mind" and "human involvment" misses the notion of abstract mind or mind as a property of the universe or of mind as inherent in reality which is a feature of the thought of almost all classical and most modern day "idealists"(especially Bishop Berkeley). It leads to such challenges as "so the world did not exist before humans perceived it" which is both an absurd notion and a misunderstanding of idealism. Now certainly "the world as humans perceive and understand it" did not exist but that is a tautology; not philosophical idealism. Philosophical idealism is the notion that the world is dependent upon ideas, mind, intelligence or reason and not necessarily human forms of those properties at that?

@prothero,

prothero;142815 wrote:

Well that may be; I am just an arm chair philosopher mostly trained in the hard sciences and biology. Your response still leaves me with a lot of confusion

This is the correspondence theory of truth and I accept that as one form and definition of truth but I am not sure that is confined to realism as opposed to idealism.? Again the confusion of "realism" and "reality"?

I do not see why this view is specific to realism in any way. Can't both idealists and realists believe in metaphysical truth. Do you mean scientific observations and scientific realism? Leaving out any form of subjective experience and any contribution of subjective experience to arriving at truth?

Matter is a human concept, which corresponds to certain properties of reality as perceived by humans and by scientific method and instrumentation. Materialism in your view is a form of philosophical realism. How do other forms of realism regard matter?
] I think the emphasis on "human mind" and "human involvment" misses the notion of abstract mind or mind as a property of the universe or of mind as inherent in reality which is a feature of the thought of almost all classical and most modern day "idealists"(especially Bishop Berkeley). It leads to such challenges as "so the world did not exist before humans perceived it" which is both an absurd notion and a misunderstanding of idealism. Now certainly "the world as humans perceive and understand it" did not exist but that is a tautology; not philosophical idealism. Philosophical idealism is the notion that the world is dependent upon ideas, mind, intelligence or reason and not necessarily human forms of those properties at that?

I think it is a bit too tedious to go through all your points above, as i still believe you do not have a proper grasp of what is philosophical realism and philosophical idealism (Berkeley's).

I think the best way to for you to reconcile my understanding of what is philosophical idealism with yours, is that you read both Berkeley's two books, i.e. the Treatise and Dialogs. I have done so and quite thoroughly.
I can assure you that it will be worth the effort.
They are very thin books in comparisons to Kant's voluminous and very complicated CoPR.

We can then explore line by line what Berkeley meant by his idealism and his two-prongs approach to counter philosophical realism.
I think this will be a fair justification of Berkeley's view.

@Humanity,

Humanity;142819 wrote:

I is that you read both Berkeley's two books, i.e. the Treatise and Dialogs. I think this will be a fair justification of Berkeley's view.

Well if I find the time I might try
but
Berkeley is Bishop Berkeley, clearly a religious man and dont you think his form of idealism includes the mind of god in his philosophy?
"The tree does not cease to be, because god is always about in the quad"?

@Humanity,

Humanity;142819 wrote:

We can then explore line by line what Berkeley meant by his idealism and his two-prongs approach to counter philosophical realism.
I think this will be a fair justification of Berkeley's view.

Just reading him carefully will justify Berkeley's view? How can that be?

@prothero,

prothero;142823 wrote:

Well if I find the time I might try
but
Berkeley is Bishop Berkeley, clearly a religious man and dont you think his form of idealism includes the mind of god in his philosophy?
"The tree does not cease to be, because god is always about in the quad"?

Newton was also a theist and he tried to relate to god using Physics.
Gregor Johann Mendel was a Christian priest.

We have no problem separating Newton physics and Mendel's genetics from religion and god, so for the purpose of philosophical idealism, we should have no problem with Berkeley's god as well.

Btw, if you are interested (PM an email address) i can send you my copy of the Dialogs.
I have prepared hyperlinks, bookmarks, for easy reference.
I have extracted a summary (imo) of essential points.
In addition i am in the process of numbering each para of Dialogs.

---------- Post added 03-24-2010 at 01:03 AM ----------

kennethamy;142824 wrote:

Just reading him carefully will justify Berkeley's view? How can that be?

I am sure reading directly from
Berkeley's book would be better than relying on someone's else paraphrasing his ideas.
Almost all the interpretations of Berkeley i have came across in books and wiki etc are misinterpretations of Berkeley's original ideas as intended in his books.
Many anti-Berkeley relied on strawman to counter him.

Reading carefully meant not just a fast scan of the pages but reading at least 5 times line by line and understanding the main points and the whole context of his ideas.

I am sure you understood the obviousness of the above.

@Humanity,

Humanity;142826 wrote:

Newton was also a theist and he tried to relate to god using Physics.
Gregor Johann Mendel was a Christian priest.

We have no problem separating Newton physics and Mendel's genetics from religion and god, so for the purpose of philosophical idealism, we should have no problem with Berkeley's god as well.

Btw, if you are interested (PM an email address) i can send you my copy of the Dialogs.
I have prepared hyperlinks, bookmarks, for easy reference.
I have extracted a summary (imo) of essential points.
In addition i am in the process of numbering each para of Dialogs.

---------- Post added 03-24-2010 at 01:03 AM ----------

I am sure reading directly from
Berkeley's book would be better than relying on someone's else paraphrasing his ideas.
Reading carefully meant not just a fast scan of the pages but reading at least 5 times line by line and understanding the main points and the whole context of his ideas.

I am sure you understood the obviousness of the above.

But to justify Berkeley would be to show that he was right. How could only reading him carefully show that Berkeley's view is correct? Reading him carefully is not an argument to show Berkeley is correct. You cannot mean what you say.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;142829 wrote:

But to justify Berkeley would be to show that he was right. How could only reading him carefully show that Berkeley's view is correct? Reading him carefully is not an argument to show Berkeley is correct. You cannot mean what you say.

I mentioned, "fair justification" which implied, to be just and fair in representing Berkeley's original idea.

@Humanity,

Humanity;142834 wrote:

I mentioned, "fair justification" which implied, to be just and fair in representing Berkeley's original idea.

This is trivial, but that is not what "justification" means. To justify a view is to show it is correct. It doesn't mean to represent anything (either fairly nor in any other way). Anyway, how would reading something carefully, represent it? It might cause you to represent it fairly, if that is what you mean.

@kennethamy,

prothero;142815 wrote:

I read some of your responses here. FYI, I'm on the same page with you.
Contenancing the existence of minds, concepts, mental abstractions in addition to *physical matter* does not make one an idealist in the Berkelian sense. Whoever said this doesn't know what he or she is talking about. In his Dialogues, Berkeley said the meaning that we normally associate with the concept of "matter" as "sh*t that you can kick" was nothing other than those perceptions (ideas, sensations) themselves. Berkeley's view is essentially an identity statement about objects: objects=perceptions (ideas, sensations).

Humanity is not making the necessary distinctions here. First, the Idealism/materialism distinction concerns two opposing metaphysical theses about what exists (to be distinguished from one's epistemology)--both of which can have realist and anti-realist components. The realism/anti-realism distinction, on the other hand, just applies generally to certain sorts of entities a philosopher is willing, or not willing, to admit into his or her ontology. So the two pairs of distinctions don't always match up.

Second, Humanity sees to be lumping Kant's weak "Idealism" in with Berkeley's strong Idealism--which is not accurate representation of Kant at all since Kant actually goes to great lengths to refute Berkeley's own Idealism in the Critique.

Berkelian Strong Idealism is both an ontology and an ontological dependency thesis:

(1) Objects cannot exist independent of the mind because...
(2) All objects are ideas, perceptions, sensations (and other minds).

Kantian Weak Transcendental Idealism, in contrast to Berkelian Idealism, is not an thesis about the ontological status of ideas and physical matter. Morever--and also in contrast to Berkeley's view--Kant's Idealism expresses an ontologically weak dependency thesis which says:

(1) Objects cannot exist independent of the mind in those worlds in which a mind exists because...
(2) Objects are transcendentally ideal, but empirically real.

Kant NEVER says objects are "merely" perceptions, ideas, and sensations.

[QUOTE=prothero;142815]This is the correspondence theory of truth and I accept that as one form and definition of truth but I am not sure that is confined to realism as opposed to idealism? I do not see why this view is specific to realism in any way. Can't both idealists and realists believe in metaphysical truth. [/QUOTE]

Quite right. The correspondence theory of truth would technically be neutral with respect to answering the ontological question about what kinds of entities objectively exist--abstract mental entities, material entities, or both. But it is interesting to note that a hardcore idealist such as Berkeley had quite a hell of a time giving a plausible picture of what error consisted in if (1) the only things that exist are ideas (perceptions), minds, and God and (2) the only epistemic access we possess with respect to an objective of world is via our own mental representations.

So if Berkeley's wholescale idealism is true, it is easy to see how I can easily give an account of what my false beliefs consist in with respect to objectively existent minds and an objectively existent God, such that: some of my ideas are false because ideas 1,2,3 don't veridically represent how minds A, B, and C actually are, and don't veridically represent how God actually is.

But with respect to my own ideas, the situation for Berkelian Idealism is pretty bad. Take the classic illusion of a small stick appearing bent in a glass of water. We say things like "At time 1 the stick *appears* bent to me, and at time 2 the stick *appears* straight." But question is: If all that exist are appearances, how is it that one appearance is veridical, but the other not? I don't seem to have a means of explaining what exactly the mistake is, simply because any notion of "correspondence" doesn't even apply here.

I suppose a mental representation of mine could inaccurately, or falsely, represent other ideas that I possess--but the considering the extent to which we are in error quite frequently, the result would be a kind of massive cognitive dissociation with respect to one set of my beliefs misrepresenting the content of my other beliefs. But this kind of wholescale dissociation between my own beliefs greatly undermines my own first-person authority on the contents of my own thoughts. Bad news, not to mention very counterintuitive.

prothero;142815 wrote:

Matter is a human concept, which corresponds to certain properties of reality as perceived by humans and by scientific method and instrumentation. Materialism in your view is a form of philosophical realism. How do other forms of realism regard matter?

You can be substance or property dualist realist about the mental and physical domains....or a monist realist about some other category of entity underlying both the mental and the physical about which we only have a vague understanding, etc. REALISM goes many ways...

[QUOTE=prothero;142815]"so the world did not exist before humans perceived it" which is both an absurd notion and a misunderstanding of idealism....[/QUOTE]

prothero;142815 wrote:

Now certainly "the world as humans perceive and understand it" did not exist but that is a tautology; not philosophical idealism.

Quite right. And Berkeley made the mistake of further drawing the conclusion that the only things that exist are minds and ideas. But this doesn't follow from the tautology at all. Example: It is true that the existence of the lighthouse on the beach is a necessary condition for lighting up the ships on the sea miles away and making them known to the observer. But it does not follow from this that (1) the ships don't exist if the lighthouse doesn't work or isn't there to cast light on them. Nor does it follow that (2) one's idea of the ship is the ship itself. Both (1) and (2) are unwarranted conclusions Berkeley drew, and both of which Kant outright rejects as either false or undetermined because they are metaphysical theses that go beyond the bounds of possible sense-experience and for which we know nothing about.

@kennethamy,

So just for fun I looked up a PDF copy of Berkeley dialogues and used the search function for the word god in the document. I simply do not know how one can maintain that Berkeley's form of idealism can be separated from the notion of the infinite mind of god as creating the sensible properties which finite human minds then perceive. I do not care how many times you read them; Berkeley's idealism is completely dependent on the notion of the infinite mind of god and makes no sense without the religous concept. IMHO

Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, in opposition
to Sceptics and Atheists.
By George Berkeley

Phil: Yes, but here's the difference. Men commonly believe that .all things are known or
perceived by God because they believe in ..the existence of a God because .all sensible things must be perceived by him.

Phil: But we don't believe the same thing. Philosophers hold that God perceives all corporeal things, but they attribute to such things an absolute existence independently of their being perceived by any mind whatever; and I do not. Besides, isn't there a difference between saying
There is a God, therefore he perceives all things
and saying
Sensible things do really exist; if they really exist they must be perceived by an infinite
mind; therefore there is an infinite mind, or God?
This provides you with a direct and immediate proof, from a most evident premise, of the
existence of a God. Theologians and philosophers had proved beyond all controversy, from the beauty and usefulness of the various parts of the creation, that it was the workmanship of God. But some of us have the advantage that we can prove the existence of an infinite mind from .the bare existence of the sensible world, without getting help from astronomy and natural philosophy and without bringing in facts about .how wonderfully the parts of the world relate to one another.
What gives us this advantage is just the simple thought that the sensible world is what we perceive by our various senses, that nothing is perceived by the senses except ideas, and that no idea and you can now oppose and baffle the most strenuous advocate for atheism, without any laborious search into the sciences, without any sophisticated reasoning, and without tediously long arguments. This single reflection on impossibility that the visible world or any part of it - even the most low-grade and shapeless part of it - should exist outside a mind is enough to overthrow the succession of unthinking causes and effects, or the chance coming together of atoms - those wild fantasies of Vanini, Hobbes, and Spinoza. Let any one of those supporters of impiety look into his It is evident that the things I perceive are my own ideas, and that no idea can exist except in a mind. It is equally obvious that these ideas, or things perceived by me - or things of which they are copies - exist independently of my mind, because I know that I am not their author, it being out of my power to choose what particular ideas I shall experience when I open my eyes or ears. So they must exist in some other mind, who wills that they be exhibited to me.

this: the things I perceive are known by the understanding, and produced by the will, of an infinite Spirit. Isn't all this very plain and evident? Is there anything more in it than what a little observation of our own minds and what happens in them not only enables us to conceive but also obliges us to assent to?

as matter

Hyl: As to the first point: by 'occasion' I mean an inactive, unthinking being, at the presence of which God causes ideas in our minds.

Phil: You acknowledge then that God alone is the cause of our ideas, and that he causes them in the presence of those occasions.
Hyl: That is what I think.
Phil: No doubt God perceives the things that you say are present to him.
Hyl: Certainly; otherwise they could not provide him with occasions of acting.
Phil: Without insisting now on your making sense of this hypothesis, or on your answering all the puzzling questions and difficulties that beset it, I merely ask:
.Isn't the order and regularity found in the series of our ideas - that is, the course of
nature - sufficiently explained by the wisdom and power of God?
.Doesn't it take away from God's wisdom and power to suppose that any unthinking
substance influences or directs him concerning what to do and when to do it?
as matter

@prothero,

prothero;142848 wrote:

So just for fun I looked up a PDF copy of Berkeley dialogues and used the search function for the word god in the document. I simply do not know how one can maintain that Berkeley's form of idealism can be separated from the notion of the infinite mind of god as creating the sensible properties which finite human minds then perceive. I do not care how many times you read them; Berkeley's idealism is completely dependent on the notion of the infinite mind of god and makes no sense without the religous concept. IMHO

I would think that depends on how narrowly or widely you construe, "Berkeley's form of idealism". Specifically the term, "form". Certainly, God is integral to Berkeley's own views, but I would have thought that by using there term "form of" you mean something wider than that. For example, John Stuart Mill defined physical objects as "permanent possibilities of sensation", a view that has been called, "Berkeley without God".

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Did Samuel Johnson misunderstand George Berkeley?

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