Berkeley and the Mind-Independence of Matter

Berkeley and the Mind-Independence of Matter

For Berkeley, the nature of objects is that they are mind-dependent ideas that exist only in the mind, and only minds and ideas exist. For example, Berkeley would say that the nature of a table is only that we are having the experience of its qualities (which include its shape, which we determine by lighting through the sense of sight, its texture through the sense of touch and so on) and that we recognize objects from patterns of these experiences. We come to know the nature of such objects through the experience of specific ideas. Berkeley offers a simple outline of an argument for his idealism:

a. Commonsense objects are perceived by sense.

b. We perceive by sense only our own ideas and sensations, which are mind-dependent.

Therefore, commonsense objects are ideas, and so mind-dependent.

According to Berkeley, we come to know of the existence of objects because we perceive them as ideas, and the table, for instance, is existent only as in idea, which we know exists simply from thinking it. We will see, though, that this is Berkeley’s weakest argument, in that he arrives at the unwarranted conclusion that those objects themselves that we perceive must only be ideas because our perceptions themselves are only ideas.

In sections twenty-two and twenty-three of Berkeley’s Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge he makes his “master argument” for the incoherence of mind-independent objects. His argument is simple and on the surface plausible, but it does contain problems. Berkeley begins by offering that one might think it possible for mind-independent objects to exist by thinking of an object existing without anyone perceiving it; he uses books in a closet as an example. He says that one could conclude that the books unperceived still exist, but he expresses his opposition to this conclusion through his “master argument.” Berkeley explains that thinking this way—that one can imagine...