DHARMARAM VIDYA KSHETRAM

Pontifical Athenaeum of Philosophy, Theology, and Canon Law

Epistemology by George Berkeley

Jobince PV

(Register Number: 1700324)

An Assignment Submitted to the Faculty of Philosophy in Partial Fulfilment of the

Requirements for the Degree of Bachelors of Philosophy

Bengaluru
November 2019
 Epistemology by George Berkeley

Introduction

George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, was one of the great philosophers of the
early modern period. He was a brilliant critic of his predecessors, particularly
Descartes, Malebranche, and Locke. He was a talented metaphysician famous for
defending idealism, that is, the view that reality consists exclusively of minds and
their ideas. Berkeley's system, while it strikes many as counter-intuitive, is strong
and flexible enough to counter most objections. His most-studied works, the
Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (Principles, for short) and
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (Dialogues), are beautifully written
and dense with the sort of arguments that delight contemporary philosophers.1
George Berkeley was empiricist philosopher who belongs to the period of the
philosophical thinker like Rene Descartes, Spinoza, John Locke, David Hume etc.
In the modern period there were two schools of thought which are the rationalist
school and empiricist schools. The rationalists would say that there are such ideas
which are the absolute ideas the real reason for our knowledge while the empiricist
would say that there are no such absolute ideas like the idea of perfect equality.
When we look into the Philosophy of Berkeley, we can see that for him, everything
is ideas or concepts which are formed by the help of sensation, memory of the past
experience and imagination. Thus, he considers that this kinds ideas form the human
knowledge.

Berkeley Ideas and Human Knowledge

1
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/berkeley [Accessed on 14 Nov 19]
 George Berkeley being an empiricist completely denies the existences of the
absolute ideas. If there are ideas that should be perceived by human intellect,
otherwise it cannot exist, example the idea of a pen, it can be perceived on that
object outside. When it comes to the absolute ideas, it is quite sure that absolute
ideas cannot be perceived, therefore he denies the absolute ideas that proposed by
the rationalist. For him all our knowledge about everything in the world outside is
the ideas that situated in the mind of one individual. These ideas cannot situate
anywhere else than in mind. So, mind is that sources which produce ideas and
connect it with the outside world.

In the book A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, he

tries to convey the same thoughts about the ideas and the relation between the ideas
and human knowledge. In the beginning of the book he tries to make an argument
that, all that exists out is just an impression of the ideas and we perceive it outside
world the example he gives is “A certain color, taste, smell, figure and consistence
having been observed and to go together are accounted one distinct thing call
apple.”2 The second argument he makes is that “All that endless variety of ideas or
objects of human knowledge there is likewise something which knows them or
perceives them and exercises divers operations as willing, imagining, remembering,
about them. This perceiving active being what I call mind, spirit, soul or myself.”3

What he meant by the first argument is clearly visible in the example that the,
it is the ideas that make a thing visible to others or sensible to others. The color is
an idea, taste is an idea in the same way the smell, and figures etc. are also such
ideas constitute knowledge of the thing outside and these ideas that formulate the

2
Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, 23.
3
Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, 24.
knowledge of the object (e.g. apple) in our mind and also explicitly make it visible
to us.

As a continuation to this, he speaks about the relation of mind with the ideas in the
second argument. Just as the case of the apple if the ideas are just going to remain
as it is then it cannot exist in realty but the existence of an object and its idea comes
to actuality when it is being perceived by something which is called as the mind. It
is the mind that perceives an idea and relates it to the corresponding object. So the
thing that he expresses is, we have the knowledge things because we have the ides
of that thing in us. How do we get it? We get it through the perception of the object
outside. So, in short it can be said that we have the ideas like taste, color, smell,
shape etc. in our mind, about an object or which represent the object. These ideas
all together constitute the knowledge in our mind.

Existence of a Thing Without Mind

According to Berkeley he matters only an idea comes out from the perception of
extension, form, motion, and other physical properties of a thing. So, the object only
exists if it can perceive or is perceived, and therefore its existence is ideal. Here
arise some critical points about material form or a movable substance which can
exist without the mind. As an answer to this he brings the knowledge about the
secondary and primary qualities indirectly. In that it was explained that there is no
distinction between secondary and primary qualities of an object as the ideas of
secondary qualities exists in the mind the ideas of primary qualities also exists in
the mind with the relation of inseparable connection.

Now if any material form exists, which can exist without the mind that will have no
qualities of the material objects we see outside. Because we consider all the things
that around us, as material objects because we have the idea or knowledge about
them in our mind. In other words, objects around us exists because we can see it and
we have the secondary and primary qualities in our mind. For he says “it seems no
less absurd to suppose a substance without accidents than it is to suppose accidents
without substance.”4 Here what he means that that form will be simply a form
without accidents or the qualities. And further he say that “it exists not in the mind
agreed and that it exist not in the place no less certain since all extension only in the
mind as has been already proved. It remains therefore that it exists nowhere at all.”5
So what he expresses is that if thing does not exist in human mind then it does no
exists nowhere.

Human Knowledge and God

Another similar thing that he explains is the God perception idea of matter and
absolute ideas. One of the critical questions that are asked is that, even though men
cannot know about the matter form that which exists without the mind it can be
perceived by God or it may be possible for God to perceive such absolute ideas.
George Berkeley responds that human ideas are same as the ideas of God there is
no difference between them. Because the knowledge that human has is form God.
It is just like something falls down. When something falls down it will not bring any
changes in being what it was before the fall and after the fall. In the same way the
knowledge we have is from God above. Actually, the ideas are situated in God and
the ideas we have is coming from God, for example, the ideas of a pen. We have the
idea of a pen George Berkeley would say it will be the same idea that we have same
as the God’s idea of pen. We cannot find any absolute idea of pen in God.

4
Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, 56.
5
Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, 57.
 As a conclusion I would like to say that human knowledge is ideas that exist in
our mind about the object outside this knowledge is coming from God.

Bibliography

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/berkeley [Accessed on 14 Nov 19]

Berkeley, George. Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. New

York: A liberal Arts Press, 1957.