In my earlier note I have written about the first of the troika of British Empiricism John Locke. Next comes a man who perplexes an ordinary mind by a complex theory that defies imagination. When I read the philosophy of George Berkely for the first time, it did not make any sense to me. Only after re and re reading it did it make any sense. When I understood it I enjoyed it. I tried to make this write up simple with the help of a wonderful Telugu book on philosophy I have. It may still be a bit confusing but I could not make it any simpler.
BISHOP GEORGE BERKELEY.
Earth, sky, stars, sun, moon, nature, men and animals all are part of the physical world. Materialism says only the physical world is real and nothing else. As opposed to this Empiricism says that knowledge only comes from the senses and experiences.
Berkeley was born in the year 1685 (about 50 years after Locke) in Ireland. He is a scholastic philosopher who vowed to tear apart materialism and prove the existence of God.
Berkeley says that there is no physical world, there is no matter and all that exists is in our mental states alone. Our world, our mind and its mental states alone are real.
This reminds us of the Mayawada of our own Sankaracharya. Like the Mayawada of Sankara, it is difficult to refute but also equally difficult to accept.
Descartes says, I think therefore I am. Berkeley says” To be is to be perceived”. As per this a thing has an existence when it is perceived by someone and if it there is no one to perceive a thing, then it has no existence.
Berkeley was born in Ireland in the year 1685 and studied at Trinity College. He learnt Greek, Latin, Maths and Philosophy. He worked at Trinity College for some time after completing his education.
He had a brilliant mind and he published “ An Essay towards new theory of vision” in his 24th year itself. Then in his 25th year has written a treatise explaining his philosophy named “ Treatise concerning the principles of Human Understanding”. 3 years later at the age of 28 he wrote another book to explain his theories in the treatise. So by the age of 28 itself he has written the books that have brought him name in the world of Philosophy.
The writer Jonathan Swift was his close friend. One of Swift’s lovers had a fight with Swift and willed Berkeley with half her property before she died. So Berkley became wealthy and toured Italy.
Berkeley was an idealist. He felt that contemporary society was becoming corrupt and it is impossible to correct it. He felt it is better to pick up a tribal community and educate it to be idealistic. With this in mind he proposed to establish a Jesuit college in Bermuda. There he proposed to train Christian missionaries and make them train American Indians into an ideal society.
Despite obtaining the Kings approval for this venture it did not take off because the Parliament refused the 20,000 pounds assistance promised. Berkley later became the Bishop of a place called Cloin.
He felt that contemporary society is becoming corrupt and ethics and faith are on the decline on account of the advancement in science which led people to doubt everything. He felt it is his life’s aim to bring back society to the age of faith. He has built his philosophy with this aim in mind.
The philosophy of Locke and his empiricism have influenced Berkeley strongly. Berkeley is also an empiricist. However, he felt that the empiricism of Locke leads people to materialism, skepticism and thence to Atheism.
He felt that if one believes that the material world exists independently and it automatically acts as per certain rules, then what is the necessity of God for man? That is wrong, the world exists only because God exists and without God nothing is. Berkeley used all his intellect towards proving this.
Locke said that all the knowledge we acquire comes through sensory perception and reasoning. The reason for sensory perception is the material things in the external world. Although we perceive the external things through our senses, there is no guarantee that what we perceive is the actual thing that exists. The reality of a thing is beyond our senses and all we know is that a thing exists because it causes sensations in us. So as per Locke there are three entities…..there is a mind that perceives, there are perceptions and also a thing that causes the perceptions.
Berkeley took the gauntlet from here. He too believed that all our knowledge is gained from perception and what comes into our perception are only perceptions caused and not the actual thing. He accepted only these ideas from Locke and rejected the rest.
Berkeley wrote two philosophical treatises to set forth his theory. His second book is in the style of Platos dialogues. They are between a materialist called Hilas and Philonus a non materialist. In these dialogues Berkley himself was Philonus.
What is heat? We perceive heat as our hand burns if we keep it on an object or near an object. It is felt only through mind. Therefore heat is just an idea in our mind but is not actually there in the things. Similarly with cold and all other ideas. Sweet taste makes you happy while bitter taste makes you unhappy. These are but perceptions and are dependent on your mind and they do not belong to the external things.
Therefore everything depends on your perception and your mind. With this theory Berkeley refuted the absolute space and time of Newton. The speed of an object depends on the person perceiving it and not in the object itself. Whatever quality we perceive to be of the substance is not actually in the substance but is in our mind.
As per Locke if we are getting the perceptions in the mind it means that there has to be an object that is causing these sensations. But Berkeley rejected this theory. He said when all our mind can perceive are perceptions, when we are getting ideas only through perceptions how can we assume that there is something beyond them which we cannot perceive.
Therefore, nothing exists independently of the mind. The object exists because we perceive it. Only whatever we perceive exists and nothing else. It does not have any other existence apart from that. As per Berkeley “to be is to be perceived.” Then the question arises suppose I do not perceive does the world cease to exist? I am in a room and go out of it briefly; does the room cease to exist then? Even though I am not in the room as someone else perceives it so it continues to exist. Even if no one is looking at the room because God is looking at it, it will continue to exist.
So we can condense Berekely’s thought thus. Any material thing exists only as long as it is an idea in the mind but it does not have any independence existence. It can be me or another or even God who perceives it that would make it continue to exist.
Therefore if God does not exist then there is no world either because there is no one perceiving it continuously. So Berkeley asserted that God has to compulsorily exist in order for the world to exist. Berkeley felt happy that he finally proved the existence of God by this theory. Of course this has been the main aim of his philosophy.
One of Berkeley’s famous sentences is
“All the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word , all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world have not any substance without the mind.”
But we may ask, if we say that all the mind knows about are perceptions, then are we eating and drinking ideas? Berkeley says that those things exist for the mind but they do not have any existence beyond that.
We have a Buddhist philosophy known as Vijnanavada propounded by Asanga and Vasubandhu. It is also known as Yogachara and is similar to this philosophy. Vijnanavada does not believe in the independent existence of the external world.
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