Monday, October 27, 2014
What You See Is What You Get
Berkeley argues that skepticism is only possible if there is a distinction between appearance and reality. Furthermore, he claims that that distinction collapses once we deny the existence of material substance. Given these two premises, he concludes that skepticism in false. But is he correct? Does the distinction between appearance and reality collapse if idealism is true? Is it possible for God to perceive an object differently than me? Does that possibility redrawn the line between appearance and reality? Are there other problems with this argument?
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In Berkeley’s dialogues, he tries to prove that the only way to skepticism is through realism, meaning that you know nothing if you believe in material substances. Again, Berkeley refuses to acknowledge one major, and other minor, problems having to do with the conclusion; that only realism leads to skepticism.
ReplyDeleteThe reason that Berkeley says that realism, or even dualism, is equivalent to skepticism is because it leads to a distinction between what we perceive and what is the reality. For example, a ball may be red, but I perceive it as blue, therefore I never fully know the true nature of any object and therefore can know nothing. If we successfully get to the point where we either are a skeptic or we believe in idealism, there is another problem that Berkeley fails to address. On a basic level, it is easy to prove that there are discrepancies between appearance and reality if any sensible substance has objectivity in its own right, but what he fails to say is that even if everything is simply based on perceptions, we still have discrepancies, which leads to a loss of objectivity. Using the same example, if I perceive a ball as red, but my friend Jack, who also happened to win Jeopardy as a smaller child, sees the ball as blue, then we cannot validate either of our perceptions. To answer this problem, one could say that god acts not only as the “ultimate perceiver” but as the “true perceiver”. Therefore, when our perceptions match the perceptions of god, or simply this great perceiver, then I am right. The problem is that I can never know when my perceptions align with the “ultimate perceiver’s”, and therefore I am a skeptic again. When Berkeley’s argument is fully followed through, we realize that Berkeley has set us up for skepticism all along. That being said, there is always good news that comes with the bad. Today, that good news is that almost all of Berkeley’s arguments are flawed anyways, so although Sneaky George may try to tell us that we know nothing, we can break the illusion of skepticism and move on with our day with our heads held high.
According to Berkeley, once we accept that everything exists in the mind, we can be certain that what we perceive is the truth because appearance and reality are identical. Therefore, skepticism must be false. I disagree with this argument against skepticism because it relies on eliminating the distinction between reality and appearance without doing so. Consider solipsism, the theory that only my mind, and no other mind, exists. If only my mind exists, anything I perceive must be reality because my perceptions are the only things that exist in the entire universe. Thus, when I assume that I am the only real thing, skepticism must be false. However, Berkeley’s particular brand of idealism falls short of denying the existence of minds. While it shifts reality from the physical world into the minds of perceivers, it maintains the notion that there is some objective truth. Berkeley claims that “ideas or things by me perceived, either themselves or their archetypes, exist independently of my mind, since I know myself not to be their author” (49). He goes on to name God as this author of his perceptions. Thus, Berkeley’s theory of existence is that the real world exists in God’s mind and that we perceive the world as snapshots of God’s mind. Though he calls his theory idealism, isn’t Berkeley’s theory essentially materialism? It contains an absolute, real world (the contents of God’s mind) that we can perceive either correctly or incorrectly. Therefore, since Berkeley implements God in his theory, he retains a distinction between appearance and reality; if some object exists differently in my mind than in God’s, the object that appears to me is an illusion. When appearance is distinct from reality, even if that reality exists in a mind, we are still “plunged into the deepest and most deplorable skepticism” despite Berkeley’s best efforts (63).
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ReplyDeleteBy describing the greatest flaw of realism, Berkeley concludes that idealism creates a world in which skepticism is false; however, his argument is defeated not only because true knowledge is never gained, but also because idealism doesn’t provide a solution for skepticism, it only pretends it isn’t there.
ReplyDeleteOver the course of the second dialogue, Berkeley argues why materialism leads to skepticism. He claims that once a materialist asserts that there are material substances, skepticism becomes inevitable. He outlines the argument by first saying that if there are material substances, then objects must exist outside of the mind. As a result, there is a difference between the way things are and the way that they are perceived. According to Berkeley, it follows that illusion is possible since someone may perceive things in a way that differs from their reality. As a result, one may not know anything at all and skepticism is proven true.
Berkeley says that this problem is avoided when idealist theory is applied. Idealism allows philosophers to eliminate material substances from the epistemological equation. Berkeley claims that once idealism is applied, we no longer have to worry about the discrepancy between how things actually are and how they are perceived since perception is the only manner in which they exist. As a result, since reality and appearance are no longer at odds, skepticism is defeated.
Inherently, this argument is flawed on two levels. The first flaw stems from the fact that just because someone may have an idea of something, it does not mean that that idea is correct. Berkeley claims that, in the end, idealism avoids skepticism but in order to do so he would need to show that people are obtaining knowledge of some sort. Unfortunately, he fails to show any example of people actually obtaining knowledge. To explain how idealists cannot obtain knowledge, we have to recognize that in Berkeley’s own analysis, he proves the existence of God. Additionally, he claims that God is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. As a result, God has his own perceptions of every object in the world and since he is perfect, these perceptions are perfectly accurate perceptions that do not just perceive, but depict reality. On the other hand, Berkeley tells us that creatures on earth see absolutely everything from a different perspective. At that point, there is no way of knowing whether or not our perceptions align with the true perception that god perceives. We have no grounds for claiming that we are correct in any way and therefore we know nothing under Berkeley’s idealism.
The second and largest flaw occurs in Berkeley’s reasoning. In general, he claims that the reason that idealism works is because it allows us to get rid of the discrepancy between appearance and reality. But, he falls into a major logical fallacy. He states in his third dialogue that even if objects can only be perceived, they are still real. At the same time though, he agrees that material objects don’t exist and that the perceived objects only exist while they are in view. Given that he claims that existence depends on perception, he can’t verify that objects have existence. In his argument, Berkeley claims that once we remove realism, then the problem of identifying what “objects actually are” disappears. Even though he goes to significant extent to avoid the next statement, his last premise makes it undeniable that objects don’t inherently exist. If knowledge is ever to be acquired, reality must not only exist, but it must be comprehended. Insofar his argument literally claims that reality does not exist, he only supports skepticism in a far more affirming way than do the realists.
There is a huge problem with this argument. I agree that skepticism is possible under the circumstances that you distinguish separately appearance and reality, however, I do not believe that one could be justified in denying the existence of, at least, the most core quality of a material thing and further denouncing any possible existence to skepticism. I believe that no matter how many things could be proven perception over actual existence, as I do agree there are many successful arguments, the core of a physical entity will never be able to be torn down. Perceptions are perceptions for a reason. There has to be something to perceive in order to perceive it. I agree that it is possible for our perceptions of objects build most of what we see in it, however, it is impossible for our perceptions and ideas to build the core of it. It is hard to quote anything specific for this general argument in the dialogue so I'll use an example I gave during class: I rose the issue of a banana the lay in both of my hands, one in my right and one in my left. In my mind, I perceived the most clear image, feel, smell, weight, size of these two bananas. However, there was a problem here. In one of my hands lay a banana that others could see. In the other, no banana was there for others in the class to see. I concluded that since a banana could not be created by the perceptions of my mind alone, there had to be a core piece to the banana that was actually visible that made it possible for everyone around me to PERCEIVE it. The key word is "perceive" here. On thesaurus.com, perceive generates synonyms like distinguish and identify. These are things that involve some sort of process here. What is interesting about processes is that there has to be something to process. Humans are only able to process and define an entity as long as it already lays before their eyes, like in my example. For this reason, the problem here is that there will always have to be a barrier between appearance and reality. That barrier can never be broken, no matter how small the barrier is. Because of this, there will always be the possibility of deception and skepticism. These are just things that come with our ABILITY to perceive.
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