By Wolven
George Berkeley, as a devout Christian, could not bring himself to believe that there could ever be any thing in creation which God would allow to be useless. He was of the mind that, if God created it, it must have a use, and not only that, but a use to be known by Human beings. With this in mind, he studied at the idea of what the philosophers of the day were calling �substance,� or �matter.� He found that, in actuality, there was no use for these so-called external forms, these �real� things that were supposed to give us the representations, we saw daily. They served no purpose, for the understanding of �substance� was of something outside of a perceived space, therefore out of the range of a perceiving mind. If a thing is not perceived, then what use is it? In fact, Berkeley would ask, if this were the case, how could there be any Thing there, at all? If it is not perceived, and cannot be perceived, other than as the ideas we hold of it, does that not make the ideas the reality, and the mysterious �matter� the fantasy?
If one were to try and separate the idea of a thing from perception, what would one find? other than, say, an imagining of a book, in an empty room. But, say, is that book not still perceived, if only in the imagination of the one trying his hardest to prove his own mind wrong? Some would say that there are primary and secondary characteristics of a thing, such as a book. The primary characteristics would be said to include extension, figure (i.e. weight), and motion, while the secondary are things such as colour, taste, sound, &c. Those who would say this would contend that it were possible to measure the primary characteristics of the book, and yet not the secondary, thusly placing the primary outside of the realm of perception. But is it not still necessary to perceive the measurements of these things? No thing is, in this way, outside of the realm of the realised.
To have an understanding of a thing existing, unperceived, or unrealised, one must continually think upon and realise the existence of the thing. While it is possible to imagine the scent of a rose, without the rose itself, or the form of a human torso, without the limbs, it is not possible to imagine the figure of tree, without some colour, or the motion of a wing, without some form. And to take it out of the context of ideas, completely, one would need to imagine oneself to be not imagining the thing, and then to imagine another of oneself not imagining the one not imagining the book, and so on, ad infinitum. The resulting regression, Berkeley merely hints at, but it is a quandary of no small size. And this is just one example of the absurdity of this proposed �matter,� or �substance.�
Berkeley states that if any man �shall attend his ideas, whether of sense or reflection,� he will not find a trace of power or individual activity in the ideas, themselves. True, there are the ideas of power and activity, but those ideas are not powerful, or active. The existence, or esse, as Berkeley puts it, of an idea is, in part, defined by its inertness, meaning that it is impossible for the idea itself to do any thing or be the cause of any effect. The thinker may reflect upon an idea, and therefore decide to act, but the idea, itself, was inactive. In this same way, neither motion, nor extension, nor figure can �create� the idea of a book, as they are ideas themselves. Either in remembering or experiencing, first-hand, all we have of the book are the collection of ideas that we have seen, time and again, come together under this name.
The ideas we have in our minds are varied. Some are simple while others are extremely complex, being made up of many of our other ideas, placed side by side. Our simple ideas include touch, which gives us the understand of hard and soft, and the various textures. We are privy to taste, telling us sweet, sour, salty, and all combinations. Smelling gives us the scents of roses, or garbage, depending upon our luck, that day. And a certain combination of tastes, smells, colours, and textures, gives us a more complex idea, and that we give a separate name, from the sensations attributed to it, and we call it an apple. When we collect other ideas, we get new names, such as �rock,� �stream,� �sun,� &c. But what of the thing perceiving them all, and doing the collecting? is it just another idea?
The mind, or soul, or whatever thing it is that perceives and catalogues the ideas in my daily life, Berkeley says, is not, itself, an idea. It is something entirely distinct from ideas and imaginings, and wills said imaginings, and perceives such ideas, that a world may be said to exist. The mind, the thing that perceives and understands ideas, is not able to be perceived, on its own merits. As an outside factor, this makes up the second part of Berkeley�s Idealism, which is probably better-termed as �Idea-ism.� Firstly, according to Berkeley, there are ideas. Berkeley believes that everyone will attest to the fact that neither thoughts, nor wants, nor ideas in the mind, can exist without said mind, and that, to him, it seems just as obvious that all sensations and/or combinations of ideas, complex objects like apples, cannot exist without a mind to perceive them. So, secondly, there are minds, and one Great mind, above all. The Great mind-- God-- perceived and created those ideas, and continually perceives all things, and our minds, the minds of humans, perceive what bits we can, in our daily lives. That which goes unperceived by us does not, somehow, magically cease to exist, for it is still perceived by God, along with being continually within our recollections and imaginations.
As was stated earlier, all of our sensations of touch and taste, &c., are ideas we hold, within our minds, and thus any combination resulting in such things as apples, or mountains, would also be held with the mind, as an idea. It is easy, Berkeley supposes, to believe that these things exist, without the mind. That, if there had never been the idea of a forest, the forest would still exist. If you had no idea what a forest was, would the word �Forest� mean anything to you, at all? No, it would not. Until the idea was placed in your head, to correlate with the word, then forests would not exist for you. Now, on a universal scale, if we were to have no concept of darkness? If it ever came, we would be mystified and dumbstruck. Consequently, we�d have no understand, nor a need for the understanding of �light,� but that is getting into opposing dualities, not idea-ism.
This idea of things existing, unperceived, Berkeley brings down to a basic abstraction of ideas. The removing of properties, to show something distinct from something else is a useful tool, but, as was show with the rose, the torso, and the wing, it is an ill-fit method for proving the existence of �matter.� Indeed, some would say that, even though they will concede that ideas cannot, themselves, exist outside of the mind, they believe that there are some things which resemble ideas, which may exist outside the mind, in some unthinking �substance.� But Berkeley states, well, that the only things that resemble ideas, are other ideas. For anything to resemble anything else, one must have the idea of both things, well in mind. In this way, all things are kept within the realm of perceptual experience, and understanding.
Throughout his treatise, Berkeley restates and goes over his main points, a number of times-- so much in fact, that he feels it necessary to apologise for his being prolix. He states, further, that it is his wish to be understood by everyone, or at least those willing to try to understand. In Berkeley�s Idea-ism, it is necessary to understand three major things: 1) That all that exist are ideas and the minds that perceive them; 2) there is no form or �matter,� outside of ideas; 3) God perceives and understands all ideas, even if humans do not. Berkeley was extremely intent on making others realise that God was the driving force behind everything, and would not create anything useless. To bluntly illustrate this, he wrote, �If therefore it were possible for bodies to exist without the mind... is to suppose, without any reason at all, that God has created innumerable beings that are entirely useless, and serve no matter of purpose.� The people of the day, if they were Christians, would be forced to agree that God would never do anything without a purpose.
On reflection, Berkeley�s tenet of there being no such thing as matter, outside of the realm of ideas, also serves as a warning, or an admonition. He begins, at the end of sect. xxiv, to vehemently elucidate on the subject, but mentions it even earlier than that. In section xi, there is note of the �materia prima,� taught of by Aristotle and, in Berkeley�s day, counted as inaccurate. Berkeley says that the philosophers, in their search for this �substance,� this �matter,� have become much like Aristotle, and his now ridiculed teaching. This is a sort of stern look, saying, �careful where you lead yourselves, for I�ll not follow.� When one gets caught up in these sorts of finger-pointing contests, it is easy to fall into an unwitting contradiction, deriding an idea, on one hand, while singing its praises, under another guise. Berkeley wanted to make everyone aware of the danger, before they made mistakes they wouldn�t be able to live down.
Finally, Berkeley never said that there was not something that we could hold, and touch. He believed in the things he could see and feel, and in the fact that they really did exist. He did deny, however, that there was anything called �matter,� or �substance.� The evidence for it, he believed, was nowhere near strong enough, and if it were to exist, we would have no more cause for believing in it, than we do, right now. We can not know of the existence of other minds, other than by their operations, and we have to trust that God, or some other Great Perceiver(s) exists, to see and understand the things we miss. All we have, in this world, are our ideas, and our minds, which hold them. Without these, there is nothing.