PHILOS 25B Lecture 28: PHILOS 25B Lecture 28 (Berkeley’s Arguments Against Representational Realism) (April 3, 2015).docx
Document Summary
Recap: one of berkeley"s main targets is what berkeley calls locke"s doctrine of double. Existence , or representational realism: he also attacks the doctrine of abstract ideas. If you try and think of an abstract idea, you find that it is not possible. The primary/secondary quality distinction and the doctrine of double. Arguments: in part 1 of the principles, there are several important arguments, 4 - esse ist percipi ( to be (a physical body) is to be perceived ) (i) We perceive things like mountains and hands (and these things are real) (ii) what we immediately perceive are ideas (this is the veil of (iii) (iv) perception, agreed upon by almost everyone, including. Ideas cannot exist unperceived (or, they cannot exist outside of minds) Therefore, mountains, hands, etc. do not exist outside of minds. Their existence depends on being perceived (and real objects are not material, but are sense ideas): objection by lockeans and cartesians, berkeley commits equivocation.
