Berkeley's Unperceived Table

Ed writes,

A question: if Berkeley is out of his study, and says ‘My table is in my study’, is he speaking truly or falsely? If truly, then ‘my table’ and ‘my study’ must have referents, and the referents must stand in the relation ‘in’. But neither referent is perceived, so neither exists, according to B’s first definition of ‘exist’, and so ‘My table is in my study’ is false. According to B’s second (counterfactual) definition of ‘exist’, the statement can be true, but then we have to drop the first definition. Then what else do we lose of B’s philosophical system?

For example, is the statement ‘the table in my study is brown’ true or false, given that if B were seeing the table, he would perceive it to have the sensible quality of brown, and given that B is now outside his study? If true, then he must concede that the referent of ‘the table in my study’ is bearing the visible quality signified by ‘brown’, and so concede that everything he says about the impossibility of material substance is wrong, e.g. in §9 of the Treatise.

Indeed the whole project of Idealism collapses once we allow the possibility of language, and thence the possibility of successfully referring to objects and states of affairs that are not perceived.

My valued interlocutor is being a bit quick here. Let's sift through this carefully starting with definitions of 'exist(s)' either found in or suggested by a charitable reading of Berkeley's writings.

D1. X exists =_df x is being perceived. (Esse est percipi.)

D2. X exists =_df x is such that, were a perceiver P on the scene, P would perceive x.

D3. X exists =_df either x is being perceived or x is such that, were a perceiver P on the scene, P would perceive x.

(D3) is the disjunction of (D1) and (D2). It is suggested by this passage:

The table I write on, I say, exists, that is, I see and feel it; and if I were out of my study I should say it existed, meaning thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it. (PHK 3, quoted here) 

God would be the best candidate for 'some other spirit.'  The author of the SEP entry, Lisa Downing, writes,

If the other spirit in question is God, an omnipresent being, then perhaps his perception can be used to guarantee a completely continuous existence to every physical object. In the Three Dialogues, Berkeley very clearly invokes God in this context. Interestingly, whereas in the Principles, as we have seen above, he argued that God must exist in order to cause our ideas of sense, in the Dialogues (212, 214–5) he argues that our ideas must exist in God when not perceived by us.^[20] If our ideas exist in God, then they presumably exist continuously. Indeed, they must exist continuously, since standard Christian doctrine dictates that God is unchanging.

There is much more to it than this, of course, but what I have said suffices to neutralize Ed's objection.  He thinks he has refuted Berkeleyan idealism. He has done no such thing. He ignores (D3).

I must also object to Ed's apparent identification of idealism with Berkeleyan idealism. Ed is being unduly insular. A little to the East of where he lives there is this land mass called The Continent where other forms of idealism have been known to thrive.

I am also puzzled by Ed's talk of phrases like 'my table' needing referents when he himself denies (in his book) that there is extra-linguistic reference and affirms that all reference is intra-linguistic.  As I read him, Ed is a linguistic idealist. Linguistic idealism, however, is by my lights much less credible than Berkeleyan idealism.

Comments

[oz the ostrich]

> He ignores (D3).

I had considered the possibility of the disjunction D3 but rejected it for various reasons. First, the counterfactual definition is consistent with ordinary realism, and does not require the existence of God. If to exist means capable of being perceived, then even if God does not exist, every unperceived thing still exists, for it is capable of being perceived. In De Anima 426a Aristotle considers some “earlier natural philosophers”, who “supposed that without seeing there was neither white nor black, and without tasting no flavour.” He replies that “When they mean the actual sensation and the actual sensible thing, the statement holds good: when they mean potential sensation and potential sensible, this is not the case”.

Thus the counterfactual definition is consistent with bogstandard Aristotelian realism.

Second, the counterfactual reading is inconsistent with §46, where he addresses the apparent absurdity of visible objects being “reduced to nothing” when we close our eyes. He objects that the indirect realists (Descartes, Locke etc) claim that light and colour are mere sensations that exist no longer than they are perceived, so by implication, if indirect realism is not absurd, neither is his immaterialism. See also §45.

Now at §48 he adds another definition of ‘exist’, but that is not a counterfactual definition. An object exists, he says, if some being is (not might be) perceiving it.

Take your pick of these different definitions. I say they are all wrong. Existence has nothing to do with perception.

> Ed's apparent identification of idealism with Berkeleyan idealism.

Lotze, Bradley and Bosanquet unsuccessfully tried to address the problem of the “logical idea” and the possibility of reference, yes.

>I am also puzzled by Ed's talk of phrases like 'my table' needing referents when he himself denies (in his book) that there is extra-linguistic reference and affirms that all reference is intra-linguistic.<

That would be a misreading of my book, which you should read. I claim that “ ‘Frodo Baggins’ refers to Frodo Baggins” is true. But I also claim that “there is such a person as Frodo Baggins” is false. That is consistent with my claim that ‘refers to’ is an intentional verb.