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Berkeley's Theory of Reference and the Critique of Matter

George Berkeley is well known for his critique of matter. By "matter" he means Locke's "material substratum." At the end of the Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous he actually does acknowledge that one might use the word "matter" simply to mean "the stuff of the physical world" (that's not a direct quote) and he doesn't object to this, so he actually isn't opposed to the way the word was used in your physics or chemistry classes, but only to the way it was used in early modern metaphysics.

The critique of matter is tied up in the critique of abstract ideas, and so Berkeley devotes the Introduction to the Treatise on the Principles of Human Knowledge to criticizing abstraction. The alleged faculty of abstraction is one by which we, by considering concrete ideas, are supposed to be able to frame clear and distinct ideas which are nevertheless underspecified. In a well-known passage, quoted several times by Berkeley, Locke writes: "does it not require some pains and skill to form the general idea of a triangle ... for it must be neither oblique, nor rectangle, nor neither equilateral, equicrural, nor scalenon; but all and none of these at once" (Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 4.7.9). This, Berkeley thinks, is nonsense. This alleged "idea" is full of contradictions, and we can form no such thing. Matter, or material substratum, he supposes, is just such a false "idea," as his spokesman, Philonous, points out in the Three Dialogues:

HYLAS. ... when I look on sensible things in another view, considering them as so many modes and qualities, I find it necessary to suppose a material substratum, without which they cannot be conceived to exist.
PHILONOUS. Material substratum call you it? Pray, by which of your senses came you acquainted with that being?
HYLAS. It is not itself sensible; its modes and qualities only being perceived by the senses.
PHILONOUS. I presume then, it was by reflexion and reason you obtained the idea of it.
HYLAS. I do not pretend to any proper positive idea of it. However I conclude it exists, because qualities cannot be conceived to exist without a support.
PHILONOUS. It seems then you have only a relative notion of it, or that you conceive it not otherwise than by conceiving the relation it bears to sensible qualities.
HYLAS. Right.
PHILONOUS. Be pleased therefore to let me know wherein that relation consists.
... [Hylas tries and fails to explain] ...
PHILONOUS. Pray, let me know any sense, literal or not literal, that you understand it in. - How long must I wait for an answer, Hylas?
HYLAS. I declare I know not what to say, I once thought I understood well enough what was meant by matter's supporting accidents. But now the more I think on it, the less can I comprehend it; in short, I find that I know nothing of it.
PHILONOUS. It seems then you have no idea at all, neither relative nor positive of matter; you know neither what it is in itself, nor what relation it bears to accidents.
HYLAS. I acknowledge it.
PHILONOUS. And yet you asserted, that you could not conceive how qualities or accidents should really exist, without conceiving at the same time a material support of them.
HYLAS. I did.
PHILONOUS. That is to say, when you conceive the real existence of qualities, you do withal conceive something which you cannot conceive. (pp. 197-199)

The substratum is supposed to be an idea of "material stuff" abstracted away from any particular qualities a particular object might have. Berkeley, however, does not believe that he or anyone else can frame such an idea. We are just playing with language here.

But wait! Elsewhere, Berkeley develops a sophisticated theory of reference that is supposed to give significance to all sorts of words that don't correspond to ideas! Here are selections from Alciphron 7.2, 4-7 (Berkeley's spokesman is Euphranor):

ALCIPHRON. ... Words are signs: they do or should stand for ideas; which so far as they suggest they are significant. But words that suggest no ideas are insignificant. He who annexeth a clear idea to every word he makes use of speaks sense; but where such ideas are wanting, the speaker utters nonsense. In order therefore to know whether any man's speech be senseless and insignificant, we have nothing to do but lay aside the words, and consider the ideas suggested by them.
...
Grace is the main point in the Christian dispensation; nothing is oftener mentioned or more considered throughout the New Testament; wherein it is represented as somewhat of a very particular kind, distinct from anything revealed to the Jews, or known by the light of nature ... Hence Christianity is styled the covenant or dispensation of grace ... What is the clear and distinct idea marked by the word grace? I presume a man may know the bare meaning of this term, without going into the depth of all those learned inquiries. This surely is an easy matter, provided there is an idea annexed to such term. And if there is not, it can be neither the subject of a rational dispute, nor the object of real faith ... Grace taken in the vulgar sense, either for beauty or favour, I can easily understand. But when it denotes an active, vital, ruling principle, influencing and operating on the mind of man, distinct from every natural power of motive, I profess myself altogether unable to understand it, or frame any distinct idea of it; and therefore I cannot assent to any proposition concerning it, nor consequently have any faith about it: and it is a self-evident truth, that God obligeth no man to impossibilities...

EUPHRANOR. ... Words, it is agreed, are signs: it may not therefore be amiss to examine the use of other signs, in order to know that of words. Counters, for instance, at a card-table are used, not for their own sake, but only as signs substituted for money, as words are for ideas. Say now, Alciphron, is it necessary every time these counters are used throughout the progress of a game, to frame an idea of the distinct sum or value that each represents?
ALCIPHRON. By no means: it is sufficient the players at first agree on their respective values, and at last substitute those values in their stead.
EUPHRANOR. And in casting up a sum, where the figures stand for pounds, shillings, and pence, do you think it necessary, throughout the whole progress of the operation, in each step to form ideas of pounds, shillings, and pence?
ALCIPHRON. I do not; it will suffice if in the conclusion those figures direct our actions with respect to things.
EUPHRANOR. From hence it seems to follow, that words may not be insignificant, although they should not, every time they are used, excite the ideas they signify in our minds; it being sufficient that we have it in our power to substitute things or ideas for their signs when there is occasion. It seems also to follow, that there may be another use of words besides that of marking and suggesting distinct ideas, to wit, the influencing our conduct and actions; which may be done either by forming rules for us to act by, or by raising certain passions, dispositions, and emotions in our minds. A discourse, therefore, that directs how to act or excites to the doing or forbearance of an action may, it seems, be useful and significant, although the words whereof it is composed should not bring each a distinct idea into our minds.
ALCIPHRON. It seems so.
EUPHRANOR. Pray tell me, Alciphron, is not an idea altogether inactive?
ALCIPHRON. It is.
EUPHRANOR. An agent therefore, an active mind, or spirit cannot be an idea, or like an idea. Whence it should seem to follow that those words which denote an active principle, soul, or spirit do not, in a strict and proper sense, stand for ideas. And yet they are not insignificant neither; since I understand what is signified by the term I, or myself, or know what it means, although it be no idea, nor like an idea, but that which thinks, and wills, and apprehends ideas, and operates about them. Certainly it must be allowed that we have some notion, that we understand or know what is meant by, the terms myself, will, memory, love, hate, and so forth; although to speak exactly, these words do not suggest so many distinct ideas.
ALCIPHRON. What would you infer from this?
EUPHRANOR. What hath been inferred already - that words may be significant, although they do not stand for ideas. The contrary whereof having been presumed seems to produce the doctrine of abstract ideas.
...
EUPHRANOR: ... But, to come to your own instance, let us examine what idea we can frame of force abstracted from body, motion, and outward sensible effects. For myself I do not find that I have or can have any such idea.
ALCIPHRON. Surely everyone knows what is meant by force.
EUPHRANOR. And yet I question whether everyone can form a distinct idea of force. Let me entreat you, Alciphron, be not amused by terms: lay aside the word force, and exclude very other thing from your thoughts, and then see what precise idea you have of force.
ALCIPHRON. Force is that in bodies which produces motion and other sensible effects.
EUPHRANOR. Is it then something distinct from those effects.
ALCIPHRON. It is.
EUPHRANOR. Be pleased now to exclude the consideration of its subject and effects, and contemplate force itself in its own precise idea.
ALCIPHRON. I profess I find it no such easy matter.
EUPHRANOR. Take your own advice, and shut your eyes to assist your meditation. Upon this, Alciphron, having closed his eyes and mused a few minutes, declared he could make nothing of it.
...
EUPHRANOR. But, notwithstanding all this, it is certain there are many speculations, reasoning, and disputes, refined subtleties and nice distinctions about this same force ... Upon the whole, therefore, may we not pronounce that - excluding body, time, space, motion, and all its sensible measures and effects - we shall find it as difficult to form an idea of force as of grace?
ALCIPHRON. I do not know what to think of it.

EUPHRANOR. And yet, I presume, you allow there are very evident propositions and theorems relating to force, which contain useful truths ... And if, by considering this doctrine of force, men arrive at the knowledge of many inventions in mechanics, and are taught to frame engines, by means of which things difficult and otherwise impossible may be performed ; and if the same doctrine which is so beneficial here below serveth also as a key to the celestial motions; shall we deny that it is of use, either in practice or speculation, because we have no distinct idea of force? Or that which we admit with regard to force, upon what pretence can we deny concerning grace?

Berkeley believes that the view of Alciphron, which is called "semantic atomism" is misconceived. When we hear words, we don't form ideas distinct from the words at every turn. Instead, as in solving a math problem, we manipulate words according to rules and don't necessarily stop to think about what it means until we get to the end. This parallel is made more explicit in sect. 14:

the algebraic mark, which denotes the root of a negative square, hath its use in logistic operations, although it be impossible to form an idea of any such quantity. And what is true of algebraic signs is also true of words or language, modern algebra being in fact a more short, apposite, and artificial sort of language, and it being possible to express by words at length, though less conveniently, all the steps of an algebraical process.

Some symbols may not correspond to anything at all, but gain meaning by being part of the system. The purpose of the system, as Berkeley remarks repeatedly in Alciphron 7, and also in the Introduction to the Principles, is not always the communication of propositional content, but can also involve inspiring emotion or action. For more on Berkeley's theory of reference, see Anthony Flew, "Was Berkeley a precursor of Wittgenstein?" in W. B. Todd, ed. Hume and the Enlightenment: Essays Presented to Ernest Campbell Mossner (reprinted in David Berman, ed. Alciphron in focus), and my "The Semantics of Sense Perception in Berkeley", under the heading "Berkeley's theory of reference."

So how does the critique of matter proceed? You may have noticed in the passage from the Three Dialogues that Philonous is careful to distinguish between a "positive idea" and a "relative notion." Positive ideas are the "distinct ideas" of the Alciphron. These are limited to what we can perceive or imagine. Relative notions are concepts like the imaginary number i. We don't have a "distinct idea" of i, but we have a theorem: i²=-1. This establishes a relation (hence "relative") between i and a real number, and thus allows us to apply the rules of algebra to get back to real numbers, which we understand. Berkeley believes that we can do this with words like "grace" and "force," but Hylas fails to do even this with "matter." A relative notion of matter actually might be something like "that which has mass and takes of space," which is what we learned in physics and chemistry classes, but this, according to Berkeley, is meaningful only because it actually relates to our perceptions. Therefore, such a definition does no good to someone arguing for a materialist metaphysics.

My Five Favorite Philosophers

Recently, while I was busy with finals, Clarke at Mormon Metaphysics and Johnny-Dee at Fides Quarens Intellectum posted lists of their favorite philosophers. I thought that today I would do the same. I won't get fancy with pictures and stuff, because that's not my style (as you can plainly see if you are looking at this page), but I do have a list, roughly in order (though there were certainly some ties that were hard to break):

1. George Berkeley (12 March 1685 – 14 January 1753). Berkeley is, in my opinion, the most underappreciated philosopher in all of history. Idealism aside, Berkeley is responsible for most of the (in my opinion) best parts of David Hume's philosophy, including most notably the collapse of Locke's distinction between primary and secondary qualities, which led Hume to his 'veil of perception' doctrine (Hume acknowledged Berkeley's influence, though broad overviews of the history of modern philosophy often skip directly from Locke to Hume). Berkeley also, in the 17th century, developed a linguistic theory similar to that of the later Wittgenstein (the theory is in Alciphron 7; on it's resemblence to Wittgenstein, see Anthony Flew, "Was Berkeley a Precursor to Wittgenstein?" originally printed in W. B. Todd, ed., Hume and the Enlightenment, reprinted in David Berman, ed., George Berkeley - Alciphron in Focus). Finally, I previously argued that Berkeley may have been an influence on Kant's epistemology of metaphysics (though I may have overstated the case there, due to liking Berkeley and not knowing Kant very well). Then, of course, there is the fact that I actually believe most of what Berkeley says about metaphysics. Also, Berkeley is one of very few philosophers who, in my view, are capable of writing good philosophy and good literature at the same time. Both the Three Dialogs Between Hylas and Philonous and the Alciphron are exceedingly well written and a pleasure to read. These things earn him the number one place on my list of favorite philosophers.
2. Arthur Schopenhauer (February 22, 1788 – September 21, 1860) - Although Schopenhauer is not a theist, he provides useful thoughts for any idealist to consider. His primary influence on me is the he showed me the essential flaw in Hume's argument against libertarian free will: Hume argues that the world of sense is a 'veil of perception' and we can't see through it to the underlying reality, but he then uses arguments based on looking at the veil of perception in arguing against libertarian free will, despite the fact that we have direct, priveleged epistemic access to the mind, which is the object we are studying. In other words, Schopenhauer has me convinced that philosophy of mind, and especially free will, is a topic which must be studied phenomenologically. I also appreciate about Schopenhauer that his understanding of life reads a lot like Ecclesiastes without the last chapter. I wonder if, had he waited longer to publish or not been too proud to admit having been wrong in a published work, he would have discovered what Solomon discovered in his last chapter and not been remembered as the great pessimist. It's rather sad really. Whatever the case, Schopenhauer is a brillian philosopher and highly deservng of the number 2 spot on my list.
3. G. W. Leibniz (July 1 1646 – November 14, 1716) - Another underappreciated philospher. While Leibniz's total metaphysical system is a bit nutty, he's great for cherry-picking. That is, although his system is very tightly integrated with itself, it is often possible to pull very useful tidbits out of it for incorporation into less nutty systems. He is also just plain fun to read, partially because of his periodic nuttiness.
4. Plato (c. 427–c. 347 BC) - No list of best or favorite western philosophers should lack reference to Plato. Plato is inredibly brilliant, had relatively few shoulders to stand on (though the influences of Parmenides, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and Socrates were all, of course, very important), and is also one of the few philosophers capable of writing good literature and good philosophy at once. His dialogs are a pleasure to read. He deals with a huge range of topics and influenced countless future philosophers. His philosophy was a big influence on early Christian thought as well (though, in the west he was, in my view unfortunately, mostly displaced by Aristotle around the tenth century - the Christian east continues to have strong Platonist leanings). His primary influence on me has been in his ethics, which may actually be more Socratic than Platonic, but Plato gets credit for writing them down. Of course, the Bible is the most important source for my ethical understanding, and especially my non-consequentialism, but Plato also played an important role. Plato really has me quite convinced that, even apart from human or divine punishment, one ought to behave morally for the simple reason that, at the end of the day, one has to live with oneself. Being around immoral people is unpleasant, and we can't get away from ourselves. I also more or less buy Plato's tri-partite division of the soul, which I think is roughly equivalent to St. Paul's (in fact, I think it is almost certain that Paul was familiar with at least the Republic and that it influenced his thought patterns).
5. Parmenides (Early 5th century, BC) - One of my favorite facts about the history of philosophy is that the earliest surviving deductively valid argument is found in a work that appeals to divine revelation - the poem of Parmenides! Here also is the first formulation of the logical Law of Non-Contradiction. Parmenides belief that "that which is" is a description picking out and fully describing one particular object, and Plato's later revision adding a realm of 'becoming' between being and not-being has been important to monotheistic theology as well: many accounts, especially those relying on ontological arguments, invovle the claim that God is the being that exists "the most" and this entails all of his other properties. Parmenides, or what's left of him, is also fun to read. I'm not joking or exaggerating when I say that I pray regularly for a complete copy of Parmenides' poem to be found.

You will notice a conspicuous absence of contemporary philosophers here. This is, unfortunately, due to a lack of familiarity on my part. I have read a not inconsiderable amount of contemporary philosophy, but I haven't read enough of any one particular contemporary philosopher to put him on a list of greats like this one. However, I will give honorable mentions to the following contemporary philosophers: Peter van Inwagen, Alvin Plantinga, Roderick Chisholm, William Lane Craig, and Richard Swinburne. The names on that list probably indicate immediately that most of the contemporary philosophy I read is philosophy of religion. I'm hoping to expand my knowledge of contemporary philosophy next semester when I will be taking undergraduate-level philosophy of religion and graduate-level contemporary metaphysics.

With that, I will pass the question on to the rest of you: who are your five favorite philosophers, and why?

Persons as Events

Over the semester break, I took some time to look at Peter van Inwagen's paper "Materialism and the Psychological-Continuity Account of Personal Identity" (Philosophical Perspectives 11 (1997): 305-319) and, as I realized that I don't have a good candidate for submission to Monday's Philosopher's Carnival, I thought this would be a good time to write down some thoughts that I had in connection with this paper and (very) broadly Lockean "psychological continuity" accounts of personal identity in general.

The aim of van Inwagen's paper is to show that these kind of psychological continuity accounts require the existence of immaterial substances, and so are incompatible materialism. He takes aim at what I see as the primary flaw of contemporary analytic philosophy: the attempt to isolate from one another philosophical issues that are in fact inextricably connected. In this case, this is primarily the attempt separate personal identity from the rest of ontology, which, I agree with van Inwagen, is not a good idea, and is probably nearly impossible.

However, I do think there is a version of the psychological continuity account that IS very nearly ontologically agnostic, and is at least agnostic as to the existence of material and immaterial substance, which is precisely what Locke claims about his theory. I will not spend time here making any arguments that the theory I'm presenting is Locke's (although I think it probably is), but I do want to show that there is a broadly Lockean account here that avoids van Inwagen's argument. This account makes a highly unusual assertion: according to it, persons are not in fact substances but events.

According to any psychological continuity account of personal identity, persons remain the same over time because their mental states bear a certain relationship to one another. In Locke's case, memory is emphasized, but I do not think this is necessary. It would be just as easy to say that a person A existing at time T1 is the same as a person B existing at a later time T2 if and only if B's mental state can be explained by a series of previous mental states leading back to A. This is of course not a rigorous formulation, and cannot handle all objections, but you get the idea. At any rate, the mental state of person B is connected to the mental state of person A in some relevant way, which leads us to assert that they are the same person.

Now, Locke is committed to a theory of what is called relative identity (see van Inwagen's brilliant paper "And Yet There are Not Three Gods, But One" in the collection Philosophy and the Christian Faith, ed. Thomas V. Morris for a rigorous account of relative identity). Relative identity is the claim that in at least some cases we cannot answer the question of whether A is the same as B without first asking, "The same what?" In particular, Locke thinks that although one being might be simultaneously a material object, a human, and a person, the question of whether it is the same material object, the same human, and the same person may in some conceivable cases have different answers. In the everyday case, it will not be the same material object over time because of the constant intake of food, elimination of waste, sloughing of dead skin cells, etc., that cause it not to be made up of the same matter. It will be the same human over time because it has continuity of organization as a living organism. It will be the same person over time because is has psychological continuity in the form of memory. What is curious about Locke's account is he envisions the case where two entities are compared and turn out to be the same person while NOT being the same substance. This would occur, for instance, if two souls (assuming, for the moment, that souls exist) were to swap memories.

The core of the strangeness of this account comes, I believe, from the fact that we are comparing things that we think of as being substances (persons) based on events that occur within them (mental states). We wouldn't normally do this. Now, perhaps we want to say that the mental state is the collection of properties of the person, and the person's having those properties is an event. This is where van Inwagen's attack comes in, since the materialist (allegedly) cannot say that the person is distinct from his body. Now, I'm not familiar with the particular accounts of materialism van Inwagen attacks here, but it seems to me that the materialist is only committed to saying that the person does not exist as a substance independent of the body. Van Inwagen presents a further attack by pointing out that if the person is identical with the physical body, then whatever is predicated of the person can be predicated of the body. However, if it is possible for persons to switch bodies, this will lead to the breakdown of the transitivity of the (absolute) equality relation. By way of illustration (an illustration different than van Inwagen's) let NBx (where x is a numeric subscript) be the new body at time x, and Px be the person at time x. The transfer occurs at time 2. We have:

NB1 != P1
NB3 = P3
P3 = P1
NB3 = NB1

Thus the equality relation would transitivity. There are some things that can be predicated of the body that cannot be predicated of the person, therefore they are ipso facto not equal, and the person either does not exist or is distinct from the body.

I believe that both of these objections can be escaped, on a reasonable definition of materialism. That is, it may be reasonable to define materialism as the view that only material substances exist, but it is also reasonable to define it as the view that there are no substances other than material ones. This difference is significant, because many ontologies posit that substances are not all that are "real" - events are also real in an important sense. If persons are viewed as complex events consisting of series of psychological states, then they can exist without being identical with any physical objects; they simply need physical objects to "inhere" in. We would say, then, that each mental state is a "time-slice" of a person, a simple event consisting in (according to the materialist) some brain having certain properties. The person is a complex event consisting of a collection of such simple events which are related to each other in some relevant way, such that we say that any one mental event in the collection is "continuous" with all the others. These events need not inhere in the same material object. This could be defined rigorously by making explicit what types of properties are relevant to psychological continuity.

For the record, I do believe this theory of persons and events, although I am not a materialist. I think that it is the best account of what it is we mean by the word person; for the mental states that we speak of in terms of personhood are clearly events and, as Locke's arguments show, what substance they happen in doesn't seem to be relevant. This possibility is completely absent from van Inwagen's paper, and I'm really not entirely sure why.