haha! What "accuracy"? You're a Berkelian Bible-thumper.

I am not interested in your strawman and distorted argument at all.

Berkeley's contention against the primary and secondary qualities distinction and Lockean Substance as "an object existing distinct from these perceptible qualities but I know not what" is just ONE of Berkeley's problem with materialism in his texts.

Berkeley considers a long series of arguments concerning different sensible qualities, including the so-called "primary" ones. In each case, Hylas is forced to admit that no object existing outside the mind could have both a pair of seemingly incompatible properties (hot and cold, sweet and sour, large and small, swift and slowly). The conclusion is that sensible qualities exist only as ideas in the mind of the perceiver.

From this, Berkeley thinks it follows that there is no material substance outside one's perception of it--or rather that we have no intelligible concept of any material substance existing outside the mind. The reason is that if we abstract from all the sensible qualities, there is nothing left to discuss or consider. So there is no positive Idea of Material Substance.

But wait a minute:

How does Berkeley go from:

(a) We have no intelligible concept of any material substance existing outside the mind.

to

(b) Therefore, No Material Substance can exist outside the mind?

Even if (a) were true (which I don't think it is), and precisely BECAUSE (a) were true, Berkeley CANNOT infer that Material Substance existing independently of the mind doesn't exist. After all, Berkeley doesn't even have the concept of Material Substance, right? So He is inferring from an epistemological premise to a metaphysical conclusion about which Berkeley knows nothing of.

To be consistent with what (a) actually says, how do we even know that (b) is true? We can't know (b) is true, precisely BECAUSE (a) is true. So the inference from (a) to (b) is Berkeley's own way of being totally inconsistent with his very own view. Bad news for Berkeley! He is doing the exact same thing he is accusing his interlocutors of doing, namely, going beyond the bounds of possible experience and asserting a metaphysical thesis about metaphysical states of affairs. It simply doesn't matter what you assert if (a) is true--that Material Substance Exists, or that Material Substance does not Exist: either way, you are going to be caught being inconsistent with Berkeley's own premise (a) since then one would be using the complete linguistically meaningless concept "Material Substance" in one's talk in order to draw a conclusion about the ontological status of all Material Substance. Nice try, no cigar, Berkeley.

I've always found this blatantly and obviously inconsistent for Berkeley to be drawing metaphysical conclusions like these altogether. No wonder Kant thought Berkeley's Idealism is absurd--Berkeley is committing what Kant called the Dialectical Error for which Kant devotes the Latter Half of the Critique in discussing.

So Berkeley's contention, here, is just part of his CORE and CENTRAL argument--what I consider Berkeley's MASTER ARGUMENT--that crops up everywhere in his Dialogues. It looks exactly like this:

(1) You can't perceive any sensible thing without perceiving it.

Berkeley repeatedly says that to suppose otherwise is to be involved in a contradiction. And Berkeley is correct because (1) is necessarily true. But then Berkeley invalidly infers,

(2) Therefore, sensible things cannot exist unperceived.

He constantly goes from,

(A) I cannot perceive that object X exists without at the same time being in a position to perceive that it does,

to

(B) Object X exists only insofar as I perceive that it does.

This inference is INVALID.

Berkeley's arguments work if and only if

(I) the act of perceiving an object just is the object of perception,

in other words,

(I) act of perceiving X=X that is perceived.

But this alleged idenity statement is dubious, not to mention completely unargued for in Berkeley's Dialogues. Philonous agrees with Hylas throughout that it is "common sense" to think that sensible things really exist and are immediately perceived. But then he draws the conclusion from several very poor arguments that sensible things are wholly mind-dependent since, according to Berkeley's implausible view, the sensation of an object just is the object sensed.

But this just amounts to wholescale rejection of the sensation/object distinction without offering any arguments for telling us why collapsing this distinction is plausible in the first place. And each of his arguments relies on doing just this.

So all we have to do is disagree with Berkeley, and the argument is OVER.

Thanks very much, very well put. I am going through Paul Guyer's Kant at the moment, and might actually try and tackle the great work itself soon.

You might not know about David Stove's prize-winner for, The Worst Argument in the World (which, of course, stems from Berkeley, and is germane here). In case you don't, though:

Stove's discovery of the worst argument in the world

I think there is plenty of scope in Kant's philosophy for many different interpretations, but it gives pretty short shrift to naive realism, in my view.

You might not know about David Stove's prize-winner for, The Worst Argument in the World (which, of course, stems from Berkeley, and is germane here). In case you don't, though:

Stove's discovery of the worst argument in the world

]
But I wouldn't be so quick to say Kantian realism is a kind of "naive realism" anyway. Attributing this view to Kant is naive in itself.

What I meant, he is NOT a naive realist (i.e. 'gives it short shrift'). In fact, it would be a big mistake to regard Kant as naive in any respect.

However, I don't really know what "absolute existence" means at all with respect to God. So you will have to qualify that.

haha! No, I didn't know about that at all. Thank You. Truly, you just made my day.
Now if only Humanity would take the time to read it.

I have gone through this many times.
It is just another strawman

It is explained in Dialogue a few times.
Perhaps you should read it again.
If you had not understood such a term, what sort of credibility
do you have to critique Berkerley.

Most of your points are a distortion of Berkeley's view.

If you paraphrase or summarise Berkeley's ideas you should at least provide a reference to the original para.

Hahaha! Stove viewed Kant like sh_t.
He's one sick and psycho guy.

haha! you accuse the everyone of misunderstanding Berkeley, inluding David Stove--everyone except yourself. But you won't tell us why you think this as if you possess some secret mystical knowledge you can't convey to us simple-minded folk.

So let's all just resign because you're a genius, Berkeley is infallible, and his Idealism unfalsfiable.:rolleyes:

haha! you accuse the everyone of misunderstanding Berkeley, inluding David Stove--everyone except yourself. But you won't tell us why you think this as if you possess some secret mystical knowledge you can't convey to us simple-minded folk.

So let's all just resign because you're a genius, Berkeley is infallible, and his Idealism unfalsfiable.:rolleyes:

---------- Post added 03-26-2010 at 07:00 AM ----------



So why don't you tell us! Don't leave everyone in suspense!
Apparently, YOU"RE the expert on Berkeley here! Don't just say that and then back out of your responsiblities as a member of this forum....please, do us all a favor and acquire a little sense here...

You are certainly the most dishonest person I've discovered yet on this forum.



12th uproven accusation. Haven't you made yourself look stupid enough times now?



Look, MY book does not have the paragraphs designated. I just have page numbers. I have the Anchor Book, Doubleday book The Empiricists (1961) from which I am referencing. So if you have this book, I will gladly give you the page numbers.

Second, you must remember, Berkeley's arguments are in the form of a Dialogue, so they are not systematically articulated like I am doing.

But this logical structure I've been presenting is the backbone of every silly argument Berkeley gives in support of Idealism in this text. If you actually took the time to deconstruct the logic in the text instead of taking it at face value, you find this result, pal.

You obviously don't know how philosophy is practiced. When someone presents an argument with premises and a conclusion, many times the conclusion will not follow from those premises. So OUR task consists in uncovering those premise to be as charitable as possible to our opponent so that we DON'T misrepresent him. In my case, not ONCE have I ascribed beliefs to Berkeley he does not actually hold. IF YOU think I am incorrect about the premises I have given on these posts that are not actually Berkeley's own premises, then YOU need to tell me why they are not actually Berkeley's premises because I don't see it at all.


---------- Post added 03-26-2010 at 07:39 AM ----------


Ok, now that's an intelligent remark.:rolleyes:

Here's Stove's sick joke.
If he condemned your beloved Kant, I can only say
there's something wrong with him rather than Kant.

If there is a worse argument than this, I am still to learn of it. This argument has imposed on countless philosophers, from Kant to the present hour.

Stove himself was most concerned with this argument as it occurred in classical idealism. Berkeley This argument, which Stove called `the Gem', is a version of the `Worst Argument' because it argues from the fact that we can know physical things only under our own mental forms to the impossibility of knowing physical things at all.

So, are all the philosophical arguments that offend common decencies and corrupt the youth reducible to Stove's `Worst Argument'? No. That is not true for even all those of an idealist tendency. Talk of `forms of perception', and `things in themselves' may suggest Kant, but it is not clear that Kant was imposed on by a `Worst Argument'. Stove does pin a few small Gems on him (Stove, 1991, 160), but they are not central to his argument.Well before that stage in his reasoning, Kant relied on arguments from antinomies, transcendental arguments and considerations about constructions in geometry and the activity needed in counting, none of which are Gems.

I suggest you and me stop all the sniping remarks and concentrate on the issue.
Its getting very annoying.

You totally misread the article. Here, let me explain, son. The following bad argument,

"We can know things only under our forms of perception & understanding
in so far as they fall under our conceptual schemes etc.
We cannot know things as they are in themselves."

..in stove's words, is "imposed on countless philosophers, from Kant to present hour," not that Kant actually gave that simple-minded argument. As he says immediately after,

It was imposed on Kant, from Kant to the present time, becuase it originated with Berkeley, not Kant!....as can be seen here:

Contrast what Stove says about Berkeley (I bold-faced the important points),

Berkeley's argument is actually THE GEM of what Stove considers the Worst Arguments. Hahahaha!

Now compare what Stove has to say about Kant (again, bold-faced is important),

Again, that Gem of a worst argument--which is Berkeley's--was not "imposed" on Kant. In fact, it says here, it turns out that Kant's transcendental Idealism arguments or NOT gems at all! Stove only may have pinned a "few small gems" on Kant concerning other matters. So Kant's arguments for transcendal Idealism, are not gems--"None of which are gems!"

---------- Post added 03-26-2010 at 07:59 AM ----------

I can't believe your hypocracy!

YOU are the who won't address any of my actual arguments!! You just dismiss them, by choosing to respond to trivialities like you just DID!

YOU DESPERATELY NEED A REALITY CHECK!!!!

I've been open-mindedly discussing in depth this topic from the start, pal. YOU have NOT! You run away whenever you are directly challenged. And you have no good responses to my arguments. Not even ONE!

haha! No, I didn't know about that at all. Thank You. Truly, you just made my day.

You are welcome. The Worst Argument in the World is famous, or notorious, depending on who knows about it.

There are three issues:

1. Is the WAITW an argument that Berkeley produces?
2. Is the WAITW an argument that underlies Idealism?
3. Is the WAITW really invalid, and what (exactly) is wrong with it, if it is invalid?

1. It looks very much like it.
2. It would seem so.
3. This is, of course, the most important issue. And is the interesting issue to discuss.

You are welcome. The Worst Argument in the World is famous, or notorious, depending on who knows about it.

There are three issues:

1. Is the WAITW an argument that Berkeley produces?
2. Is the WAITW an argument that underlies Idealism?
3. Is the WAITW really invalid, and what (exactly) is wrong with it, if it is invalid?

1. It looks very much like it.
2. It would seem so.
3. This is, of course, the most important issue. And is the interesting issue to discuss.

The webpage you are looking is that of James Franklin not David Stove.
The comments are from Franklin.

Remarks like,
"We cannot know things as they are in themselves"
can only relate to Kant, who else.

You should read David Stove "Against the Idols of the Age" on his remarks on Kant and of course Berkeley et al.

Frankly i am fed up of counter sniping.
It is childish and annoying.

You can continue if you wish to, at least till the moderators get to you.

On this, note i deliberately started this OP to get someway.

As i had stated, i am discussing Berkeley to counter strawmen against him.
Didn't i tell you i am re-reading the 843 paras to sort and compile the points?
Even with this you are nit-picking by adding put-downs.
That would definitely provoke me to counter snipe.

I am not particularly interested in Berkeley's philosophy, as i have other better philosophies to focus on.

I agree. I might have come across the WAITW in passing at one time but didn't give it much thought because I had already dismissed Berkeley's idealism years ago. No one as far as I know in academia takes it seriously anyway, at least not how Berkeley presents it.

I agree, 3. is the most philosophically fruitful to discuss.

No, not Berkeley's version. But some form of Idealism is rife throughout all of academia (except in the hard sciences, and in analytic philosophy departments). Post Modernism is one of the most recent forms of Idealism, and permeates literature, sociology, psychology (except experimental) and many other subjects. Stove talks about this spread of Idealism and it possible motives. Linguistic idealism is standard in many attitudes toward meaning (the Humpty-Dumpty theory of meaning is just one version of it).

You should read David Stove "Against the Idols of the Age" on his remarks on Kant and of course Berkeley et al.
Can you tell me why I should read it?

You should read it because it is an excellent cultural and philosophical criticism of Idealism in many of its forms. And, it is entertaining in Stoves inimitable style. Do read it.

Tell me about it. It even affects the minds of undergraduates in its most perverted form. A couple years ago, a committe was set up in my philosophy department designed to address this post-modern cultural relativism epidemic coming from the students in the context of lectures making it really difficult for faculty to teach. You've heard them all: "what's true for you may not be true for me," "isn't that just your opinion because truth is relative to what you believe anyway?" What people pick up from the Literary and Human Sciences makes it really difficult to teach a topic in class because when a student plays this kind of wild-card, the prof has to spend another 10 to 20 minutes explaining it away. It is a widespread thought-virus that stunts everyone's ability to think, and it won't go away.

How do arguments to the effect of the following play?

- What's true for me, and is true for you, is that you have failed this class.

- It is my opinion that you will fail this class, and this opinion will likely generate a truth.