Figures. I guess David Stove would have said that, too. I would have been interested to know, however, what his positive philosophy was. I never could figure that out.

OK it seems that David Stove's argument against Berkeley is that Berkeley's philosophy is based on a tautology and is preposterous - one of the worst arguments in the world. Stove's argument doesn't seem a lot different to Johnson's, really. I have come to understand more of the shortcomings of Berkeley's philosophy, but I don't think it is as wrong as Stove says it is. But I don't think I will re-open the whole debate.

"Stove argued that this claim [e.g., Berkeley's] proceeds from the tautology that nothing can be thought of without its being thought of, to the conclusion that nothing can exist without its being thought of." Source

Yes you are right in saying that Stove's argument is different to Johnson's.

---------- Post added 03-27-2010 at 11:08 PM ----------

Mind you, the fundamental difficulty that still confronts analytical philosophers is that developments in physics in regard to the fundamental nature of matter itself, have actually undermined the basis of objectivism, as we have discussed elsewhere. It also seems to me that Russell's, Stove's and Moore's criticisms of Berkeley all proceed on the basis that we have a perfectly clear idea of what mind is and what matter is, and I don't think this is true at all.

As regards the soullessness of animals, Descartes had the same opinion, and in fact I think it was characteristic of pre-modern thought generally. Everything was situated in one place or another in the Great Chain of Being. Humans were above animals, but below angels, etc. Animals were regarded as very base, only one rung above vegetable matter. (One shudders to think of how animals were treated in medieval times.)

"...the thing in itself..."

Berkeley spoke of many things, domestic animals included, as soulless and mindless beings whose existence was no different from that of the stone. So it seems to me from my reading. Do others agree? I think Berkeley saw only humans as having mind. This seems to have been to him the breath of God by which we are created in the image of God (as in the creation myth in the Old Testament book of Genesis).

I think Berkeley might have identified the mind as that which we call "the thing in itself," that which is the essence of a being. I don't know that he actually DID make such an association, or even that the concept of "the thing in itself" was on the table in his time and place.

To me, it is the mind, and specifically that mental function (?) by which we experience and perceive and are aware of ourselves and our world, that is for humans our "thing in itself." I say that to be is to be conscious. Some of you here of course do not accept that animals and plants have anything even resembling human consciousness, but then I am talking about my personal understanding of what "the thing in itself" might be. But let's focus our search for "the thing in itself" on ourselves and what in us most completely satisfies our understanding of what "we in ourselves" truly are. What do you all say there?

p.s. - Please don't tell me what other philosophers have said that you agree with. I know we all can and do read. I want to know what you think. What you yourself think, even if it's very similar to a philosopher you have read. What is the essence of your human existence? What is the you in yourself?
Samm

To Kant, the "thing-in-itself" is not recommended to be viewed as a thing per-se but just a limiting concept to check the extreme inevitable speculations by one's pure reason.

Yes! You got it!:a-ok:
That's totally different than Berkeley's denial of Material-Substance.

I see similarities in both Berkeley and Kant on this issue.

Berkeley's was crude while Kant's was relatively more specific and refine.

Berkeley was denying the ontology of the philosophical realists' 'Matter'

while Kant denied the ontology (in absolute term) of all things including god.

The absolute 'Material-Subtance' is just another form of speculation by pure reason,

albeit of much lesser degree than god, soul or other supernaturals entities. No supporting details here, as this is part of the ongoing discussion in the other thread.

Why did you insist on continue talking? You should have stopped right there--because that is all Kant has to say about it. The rest of this nonsense below is false, because Kant never said any of it. Stop comparing Kant to Berkeley please.
You obviously no nothing of Kant whatsoever, and you are making things up.

It's impossible to answer what an object is like independent of my perception of it--as Berkeley correctly affirms. But this impossibility does not entail that the existence of the object depends on my perception of it. This inference is exactly Berkeley's logical fallacy.

It either exists or doesn't.

I think this last claim is contestable - but I will have to do a fair amount of work to show why.

Well I do admit it is a tall order. It is kind of a 'notice of motion'. You will notice that your statement of the question is actually rather similar to the laws of Aristotlean logic. I think these laws, to all intents and purposes, are true nearly all the time. But there are also circumstances in which they can be questioned. I don't know if 'existence' does have an absolute value. When we say 'something (real) exists', I know that from a practical perspective, it is quite true. But you can analyze any existing thing in terms of its constituent parts, and in terms of it persistence through time. When you start to do that, you find that its existence is not nearly so concrete as might appear. It is always composed of parts, and is actually changing all the time, even though it appears consistent to us. Look at it for long enough, and it will change or break up. Now in practical terms, this rarely matters. I come home at nights and hang my keys on the key hook. I know that in the morning when I get up, they'll be there. So I am not talking about common-sense notions of existence. But when it comes to metaphysical analysis, the question is not so definite. We are after all trying to consider things at the most basic level of reality.

Anyway, I am not really ready to go through all the details yet. I will say, though, that this whole thread, and all the questions in it, have really got me thinking, and I will be doing a lot more reading about it.

Unless you would contest the claim that either something exists or it does not exist in the two ways I indicated, then what would you mean when you wrote that the claim was contestable? How would it be contestable except in one of those two ways? How otherwise could you contest it? After all, to say that it is false that something either exists or it doesn't is no more than to say that at least and at most one of the ways of I indicated of contesting that statement is true.

Something can exist at one time and not exist at another. That is to say, it can be the case that at one time there is X and at another time there is not X. Of course, "something can both exist and not exist at the same time" is necessarily false.

Apparently you are worse.
You claimed that you know a lot about Kant and yet did not fully understand Kant's central view of metaphysics which was the back bone of his critique. You claimed that Kant wanted to banish metaphysics altogether.
When i pointed to you otherwise, you gave all sort of excuses.

Your limitation is that you are over analytical by focussing
too much on the crude parts and thus failed to understand the whole.