Is this the kind of married life Mary advocated and you imagine marks an important distinction between philosophers? — Fooloso4

It seems rather unlikely that Midgley was talking about marriage ancient-Greek-style. Wouldn't the natural assumption be that she meant marriage 20th century style?

Natural science was a part of the studies at Plato's Academy. Descartes wrote on medicine and optics. — Fooloso4

What does that tell us about their philosophy - or indeed about their science?

The history of philosophy is not the biography of philosophers and their marital status. — Fooloso4

Well, we do think it is important to read their work in its context, and sometimes details of their lives give us pause for thought. I'm sure you can think of examples.

Yes, a new start. A break with the past. Bringing clarity to what was confusion. There was a thread last year that addressed this — Fooloso4

I'm sorry I missed that. The idea that the panic about Communism that prevailed in the USA after WW2 affected philosophy is attractive. But it doesn't explain anything that Russell, for example, said before WW2 and the atmosphere was not at all the same in Europe.
They would have done better to reflect on all the new starts in the history of philosophy and formulated something a bit less radical.

I'm not sure about Heraclitus. — Leontiskos

The encyclopedias say that the sources say that he inherited the role of "king of the Ionians". Little (actually, nothing) is known of what this actually involved, but it is known that he resigned the office in favour of his younger brother. One might argue that his philosophy betrays aristocratic, rather than democratic, attitudes.
I'm reminded of the arguments about celibacy between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches about celibacy - and, no doubt, in the Protestant movement. I wonder whether that influenced her in this piece. (The Eastern traditions have views about this as well.)
It seems pretty clear that appeals to biography are not going to yield any secure results if we want an empirical, scientific hypothesis. Yet no-one believes that we do not learn from our experience (i.e. what happens in our lives) and it seems wildly implausible to think that we can sit down and set aside everything that we have learnt - even as a thought experiment.
Whether Descartes is reporting an episode in his life or not, he presents the story in the Meditations as a model. He is not reporting his conclusions, but presenting a model or paradigm of how he reached them and how he solved them and intended us to follow him.
Yet the sceptical conclusions are hard to square with the possibility of the project. I think he was aware of this, and tried to insulate the conclusions as simply a thought-experiment, not just in posing the problem, but in solving it. (One could compare the way the Pyrrhonians dealt with the same issue).
In a way, he seems to have succeeded Everyone has tried to refute scepticism since then. In another way, then, he failed, because so many people since then have not adopted his solution, but tried to work out a better one. One thinks of Berkeley, Hume and Kant - though were they responding to Descartes? I'm not sure about that.

The Stoics and Epicureans did not disregard daily life or human attachments either. — Fooloso4

True. But perhaps their attachment to ataraxia or apatheia shows their attitude to it.

They were too sensitive about its dignity. — Banno

Yes. But I think that putting her point in this rather abbreviated way is a hostage to fortune, given that not all her readers will be sympathetic

A disregard for the history of philosophy at its root. — Fooloso4

They thought they were revolutionizing philosophy - making a new start. So they were aware they had a history. As Russell shows, they read their history entirely in their own terms, which is a sure way to misunderstand it. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that they misinterpreted it, rather than disregarded it?

Making a clown of herself in a field she claims to be a scholar of is far from "succeeding". — Lionino

Thanks for clearing that up for me.

It will be clear that I have not, just now, taken up the topic of philosophic celibacy to point out its glories. Justice, I think, has been done to them." — Rings and Books

Midgley does try to give a balanced view. The difficulty is that it is quite hard to see her diagnosis as less than sweeping.

The great philosophers did not return (sc from the withdrawal of adolescence). Their thoughts, unlike yours and mine, had powers enough to keep them gazing into the pool of solitude. — Rings and Books

What isn't recognized here is that specialization can always be seen as a distortion, and implying that the distortion is any kind of immaturity, rather than just part of the all sorts that it takes to make a world, sets us off down the wrong track. I would have thought that solitary thought and dialogue and a domestic life, (which, surely, everyone has, in one form or another) are all appropriate parts of life as a philosopher. I think that other people have made the point that Descartes certainly lived in the community of his time, and must have had some kind of domestic life. The problem is his choice to present solitary meditation as the whole, or at least the heart, of philosophic life.

In this frame of mind, philosophers since Descartes have spent their profoundest thoughts on the Problem of Knowledge in the strict sense—not just problems connected with knowledge but the problem, how it is possible for us to know what we undoubtedly do know. Now nobody wants to deny that this enquiry has born magnificent fruit. — Rings and Books

I suppose this means that the Problem of Knowledge is a magnificent failure. I do believe that it is well worth while to be wrong in interesting ways, but this doesn't help me to see what Midgley thinks is interesting about the failure. On the contrary, I get the impression that, for her, it is just a failure.

All I am saying is, that the results have been delayed, and much of the lesser work entirely vitiated, by a want of good faith in approaching the question. Philosophers did not want the human soul to be mixed up in the world of objects, as it must be to make knowledge possible. — Rings and Books

I find it very hard to understand what this diagnosis means. On the face of it, philosophers really believed that "the human soul was not mixed up in the world of objects". One can say that they were wrong without questioning their "good faith".

There is more, most of it produced much later in her life. Her work is somewhat aggravating, determinedly, wilfully not dispassionate. — Banno

Yes, I have even read some of the more, but long, long ago. As a result of this thread, I'm inclined to look at it again.
She certainly succeeded in annoying Dawkins. But then, he is annoying as well.
But sometimes I think that it is the annoying texts that make me work hardest. I admit that it can be quite difficult not to indulge the feelings.

I've always been curious about philosophers in particular and academics in general. They make great play with the idea that dispassionate evaluation of ideas and civilized open debate about them is core to their way of life, and crucially important to the project of understanding the world. Yet academia in general and philosophy in particular are riven with highly emotional debates. There seems to be a dissonance between the presentation and the practice. What is that about?

Midgley's piece has faults and it isn't an an immortal contribution to philosophy. It seems to aim at contributing to the project of the Quartet, as Bakhurst outlines it above . But it fails to do so, or misinterprets what the project might be about. Understanding those mistakes would be worth something and these exchanges just get in the way of that.

Could we get back to reading the text carefully and analyzing thoroughly? It may be less exciting, but it would surely be more illuminating.

To "exist" is not well defined, and we tend to use it in whatever way we find suitable for the occasion. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, quite so. What makes a particular use suitable for the occasion? Berkeley is quite open about why he thinks his criterion for existence or not. It's in the title. "Matter", he thinks, gives sceptics and atheists a foundation for their pernicious ideas. We delude ourselves if we try to pretend that metaphysics is ethically neutral (in spite of Hume). Perhaps it could be, but people looking for a foundation for ethics will look for something helpful in metaphysics - and the natural sciences, which also claim to be ethically neutral.

I agree, it is likely that a thorough analysis would reveal that minds don't actually "exist" if we adhere to Berkeley's principles. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm sorry, but I think the problem lies in the question. It is a classic example of what Hume calls "augmentation" - the tendency of philosophers to extend the application of certain ideas beyond their contextualized scope.

I don't understand why you would say this. How can you conclude that the principle is false? To be, or as you state it, "esse", is to be something, and that means to have been judged as having a whatness, or "what it is". This, "what it is", is a judgement based on perception. You cannot dissociate the whatness from the judgement, to give a thing an independent whatness, or "esse", because the whatness. "what it is", is a product of the judgement. — Metaphysician Undercover

I should have explained myself. To exist is one thing, and Berkeley gives me no reason for supposing that existence of anything depends on being perceived or judged to exist. I can make some sense of the idea that anything that exists is capable of being perceived - especially if indirect perception is allowed.

Berkeley is no doubt relying on his argument against abstract objects. It supplies a way of accommodating abstract objects in his system, but is not obviously effective in the absence of his axiom. But his introduction of the notion of "notions" undermines his slogan, since he accepts the existence of my own mind and other minds, and God, even though they are not (directly) perceived. It is clear that he accepts that they are not (directly) perceived, because he introduces notions to get around the problem that my ideas do not themselves include the idea of myself. It's the same objection that was raised against the cogito.

I prefer "to be is to be the value of a variable".

How so? Subjects are invariably sentient beings are they not? Tables and chairs and billiard balls are objects, but how are they subjects of experience? Isn’t saying that a version of panpsychism? — Wayfarer

I'm sorry. A misunderstanding. I thought your reference to the subject/object relationship was to subject and object in the general, grammatical sense. But, of course, I should have remembered that logic describes this in the more general format of subject/predicate. However, tables etc can be subject - of pictures, investigations, conversations, etc. They can also, in ordinary language, do things like blocking fire exits, squashing fruit, supporting vases, etc. Equally, a human being can stand in the object-place in a sentence, being looked at, rather than looking, being pushed, rather than pushing and in general being objectified. Self-awareness seems to screw this model up, but given how this all works, I don't see why one shouldn't simply say that self-awareness involves objectifying oneself, imagining one is looking at oneself.

And whilst any of us can see and interact with material substance, the existence of ‘res cogitans’ is conjectural, and the proposed ‘interaction’ between the two ‘substances’ problematic. — Wayfarer

I thought the point of the cogito that was that is the one thing that we cannot doubt, and classical epistemology regards self-knowledge (which was always of the mind) was the only thing, apart from logic, of which we could be certain and which was therefore the foundation of epistemology.

From your original post:-

Now picture the same scene — but from no point of view. Imagine that you are perceiving such a science from every possible point within it, and also around it. Then also subtract from all these perspectives, any sense of temporal continuity — any sense of memory of the moment just past, and expectation of the one about to come. Having done that, describe the same scene. — Wayfarer

That's certainly true, but a point of view is an abstract, context-dependent concept, not at all the same as a conscious person. However, "I" is more like "a point of view" in that it has no content, being constructed in the same sort of way as a point of view.

A corollary of this is that ‘existence’ is a compound or complex idea. To think about the existence of a particular thing in polar terms — that it either exists or does not exist — is a simplistic view of what existence entails. — Wayfarer

Yes, that is quite right. But "exists" doesn't really tolerate half-way houses, so we have to talk of modes of existence or maybe categories, which gives a pluralist world, which is much more appropriate than monist, dualist or any other set number.

By ‘creating reality’, I’m referring to the way the brain receives, organises and integrates cognitive data, along with memory and expectation, so as to generate the unified world–picture within which we situate and orient ourselves. — Wayfarer

I don't believe our world-view is unified, except possibly in the world-views of philosophers. On the contrary, it is the lack of unity that enables us to distinguish reality from perception.
"Generating" a world view is much more appropriate than "creating" it. Think of a VR kit that can give you a picture of the world around you as it is or a fantasy world. "Creating" the fantasy world is perfectly appropriate, but not "creating" the real world. "generating" is much better.

What Berkeley did was ridicule the common notion of "matter", and this invited a reciprocation of the ridicule. — Metaphysician Undercover

Fair point. But I'm not comfortable with it, whoever is doing it. It is purely rhetorical and has no proper role in a supposedly rational discourse. Mind you, there's much ridicule in mid-century philosophy, which hides itself under the (not unreasonable) doctrine that analytic statements are trivial.

But Newton had said that this law is really dependent on the Will of God. Bishop Berkeley merely emphasizes this point. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't know about Newton's God. But there is the difference between Malebranche's occasionalism and Berkeley's, and one notices that Malebranche did not attract the same ridicule as Berkeley, so that difference must have seemed important at the time.
I had the impression that Berkeley's understanding of inertia was very different from the standard version. I think many of his arguments don't stand up if one allows that inert objects can interact, as when one billiard ball hits another.

Now, when Hume removes God, and portrays temporal continuity as something produced within human intuition, by representing sense perceptions as distinct instances, discrete impressions, instead of portraying the sense organs as providing us with continuous activity, he makes a false description. So Bishop Berkeley is ridiculed for his appeal to God to support the temporal continuity of existence, but this appeal is derived from sound principles, whereas Hume is able to remove God, but he does so by using false premises. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree with you that he thinks of impressions as atoms, and I agree that is a misleading account. The whole issue of individuating ideas, impressions, sense-data has been woefully neglected.
One of Berkeley's principles is "esse" is "percipi aut percipere", which, on the face of it and in fact, is false. He seems to treat this as a axiom, so I don't know why he believed it.

I admire your patient circumspection. I admit I am a bit prone to jump to conclusions. What I may or may not be able to conceive is not necessarily an adequate guide to what is conceivable or inconceivable tout court. How do we measure conceivability? — Janus

Cutting out the dithering and getting on with it has much to be said for it. I'm quite good and patience and circumspection, I suppose, but I'm absolutely lousy at getting on with it.

Many people, including some eminent professorial philosophers, say they can conceive of things that are, to me, plainly inconceivable. One more bedrock of philosophy crumbles into dust.

"Matter" is an Aristotelian concept, and the conceptual structure is arranged so that the form of a thing is what has existence. Matter, as the potential of a thing, simply does not exist, and that's why it's so easy for Berkeley to argue this, and why it seems to make logical sense, what he argues, even though intuitively we would expect otherwise. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, that's exactly how Berkeley presents his argument - officially - and why he thinks he can maintain that he doesn't deny the existence of anything that exists. (Notice how ambiguous that is - he doesn't deny the existence of anything that exists, but then he doesn't think that matter exists.)
His book was met with widespread ridicule, as the anecdote about Dr. Johnson illustrates. Another illustration of that ridicule is the name given to his doctrine ("immaterialism"). In case you hadn't noticed, it is a pun. His text is full of references to philosophical ideas being laughed at.
I don't know whether he didn't really know what he thought or he was upset by all the ridicule, he equivocates, oscillating between presenting his immaterialism as common sense (especially in the Dialogues and as a technical dispute within philosophy and between presenting his doctrine as a revolution in thought and as requiring no significant changes at all.

I find it interesting to find out about the insights of philosophers with regard to thinking, when those philosophers didn't have the advantage of modern neuroscience in making sense of what is going on. — wonderer1

I remember when philosophers managed quite well without neuroscience, even though it was clearly beginning. It wasn't really taken on board until this century, I would say.

Yes. Language works best when there is a personal relationship as a context for it.

Yes, I did mean "doesn't".

I'm sorry I have ignored this for so long. It got swept away in all the other stuff that's going on.

Start with the 17th century:-

Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. — Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, Pp 35-36

That's all fine. I'm not sure whether they realized that they were just kicking the can down the road. Mathematics can't explain colour and sound, so we'll classify them as subjective - just like the God of the gaps. OK. The tactic worked - in spades. The problem is that colours and sounds got lumped in together with hallucinations and dreams, beauty and goodness; and no-one troubled to analyze all this and draw proper distinctions. So now we are facing a "hard problem" that appears to have no solution. The framework that establishes the problem has to go.

With which I agree. I take his main point to be a reference to the well-known 'observer problem' in quantum physics, which has undermined the whole idea of the 'mind-independent reality' of the objects of quantum physics, although I don't want to go into the whole 'interpretations of physics' tangle. — Wayfarer

Yes, it was. But there's another aspect to this. When the physicists banished colour and sound from their theories, they forgot, or chose to ignore, the fact that their experiments and observations were conducted in the ordinary world in which colours and sounds are inextricably part of what we observe (and the point that Berkeley makes, that colour and shape (space) are inextricably linked.) If colours and sounds are not objective how can the science which proves them be objective? (Sense-data/ideas won't do the job. Ordinary common sense experience of independently existing objects in the objective world is essential.)

The question becomes, how do you demonstrate or prove the existence of such a 'thinking thing'? Why, you can't! It's a specious concept. So what are we left with? The other half of Descartes' duality, namely, res extensia, extended matter, which Modern Science has proven so extraordinarily adept at analyzing and manipulating. — Wayfarer

I don't quite understand this; surely Descartes had no idea about the existence of his own mind? But there is something in what you say. We do tend to leave ourselves with no alternative but to "reduce" everything to physics (except the observer, of course). But when you define matter and mind in relation to each other, you cannot abolish mind without reviewing and reshaping matter.
(I'm resisting the temptation to chase your remark about Ryle. But I'm afraid it will prove too much for my head to contain.)

I am proposing in this OP, that this amounts to more than just a theoretical paradigm - it's also a worldview, and one which is essentially the default view of secular, scientifically-informed culture. I also claim that an implicit assumption of this worldview is the 'subject-object' relationship — Wayfarer

I think the subject-object format has deeper roots than 17th century science. It is embedded in language (or at least the languages we are familiar with) but it is more than just a grammatical quirk; it affects everything we think. What we tend to forget is that every object can also be a subject, so that there is no logical gap, or gap of any sort, between the two. Most of the time, this is not particularly problematic. But it does get confusing when self-reference creeps in. That's why things get so hard when the observer becomes the observed.
Related to this is the idea of a point of view. A point of view is not included in the field of view, but defines the scope of what can be seen. It is an abstract concept - a location in space - which can be occupied by any observer (though not by all at the same time).It has geometrical existence, but not physical existence. It can be used in all sorts of metaphorical ways, many of which are helpful.

None of this connects to the subjective/objective distinction in the pejorative sense that "there is no disputing about tastes". It may connect to conceptual developments in the 17th and 18th centuries - the concept of the individual and so forth - but it doesn't connect in any way that makes sense to me to anything I've discussed so far.

This is why the argument in the OP says that an alternative to this view is a perspectival shift, a different way of seeing, which also turns out to be a different way of being. — Wayfarer

Quite likely. But there will be continuity as well.

I find it interesting to find out about the insights of philosophers with regard to thinking, when those philosophers didn't have the advantage of modern neuroscience in making sense of what is going on. — wonderer1

It seems to me that neuroscience (and psychology) have changed the game. It has been pretty obvious for a long time (over a century, I would say) that this would happen. But now we are facing the opening up of the reality and peering anxiously into the dark. I say that because there is a widespread tendency to speak as if we know it all already or to speculate wildly on what might be revealed. Both very human traits, but still not helpful.

If, on the other hand, I were suggesting another framework, I would respectfully say your discussion above is not what I would consider another framework. Rather, it too, is within this framework. Or, from your position, probably a framework within. — ENOAH

"Framework", just like "language-game" and even "Language" and "language" and "dialect" are most at home in an approach that looks for structures. And then we rightly want to expand our view and so we want to develop an overall structure (or Structure). But all these concepts are what I think of as jelly-fish concepts - almost infinitely plastic. So I'm quite content to set up a structure in a particular context for a particular purpose, without aspiring to any totalizing Structure. That annoys almost everyone, but it works for me.

The latter being before/beyond/outside of Language, which I would now identify as the constructed world, the world within a framework of becoming, to a world of organic presence, a world of (human) being. — ENOAH

OK. So now we can add "world" to the list of jelly-fish concepts. To adopt your spatial metaphor, our problem is that Language endlessly points beyond itself, while at the same time preventing us from ever quite getting there. Perhaps then I should have said "seems to point beyond itself". My preferred tactic is to turn the problem upside-down, by reflecting that language was developed from whatever existed before it and is a product of whatever existed before it. It must therefore be useful within those worlds. It is language that needs to take its place in the world, not the other way about. What may be even more important is that we are all born without language and need to develop a great deal of understanding of the world in order to be able to learn it. (I began to work this out in another thread - "on the matter of epistemology and ontology" - I don't know if you were involved in that.)

That's why the bonding Midgley referenced is uniquely significant--family, mates, offspring--that's where you find consciousness, and you find that we are one. — ENOAH

Yes and no. For the ancient Romans "familiaris" meant "of a house, of a household, belonging to a family, household, domestic, private". On a generous interpretation of "family", I'll buy this. One reason for doing so is that, whatever our domestic arrangements, we are all born and brought up and, for me, the people involved in that are my family, and so everyone has a family of some sort. It does imply that the consciousness of creatures that don't grow up in that way becomes moot - even if they are sentient. In ethics, that might become problematic.

Are you suggesting another framework?
There's an interesting discussion to be had about translation between languages/cultures of colour-words, including which words are colour-words and which are not. The classic locus in philosophy for this is the translation of "snow" into the language(s) of people who live north of the Arctic Circle. But they are extremely limited. Few philosophers are polyglot enough to enjoy that kind of thing. Which is a great pity. (I have some access to four, but almost certainly not the depth and fluency that one would need to do it well.)

We experience our own efforts all the time. We know energy from the inside, so to speak, and the idea of an interaction that does not involve energy, energy exchange, is inconceivable. So, I start from there, physics is merely an elaboration and formalization of that understanding. Speaking of basics, have you never heard of the four fundamental forces? — Janus

Yes, I know that understanding of causation exists - I've seen it one of Hacker's books - I forget which. I am increasingly sympathetic, but have not read enough about it to be sure what I think of it. Your conclusion from that experience that an interaction that does not involve energy is inconceivable seems a bit quick to me. I have heard of the four fundamental forces, but I've forgotten what they are, I'm afraid.

I passed this over before, and I should have made the point that this is a truism that applies to all terms whatsoever. There are no terms that have determinate senses outside the contexts of their use, which makes your point seem somewhat moot. — Janus

I'm glad we are in agreement about this. But philosophers seem to have a hard time with it, as, for example, in the argument about first causes vs infinite causes. Rorty described it as Truth vs truth.

I find this to be a bit scrambled but I'll see what I can do to sort it out with my understanding of Berkeley. — Metaphysician Undercover

I was expounding, not evaluating, so I'm able to agree with your critique in many ways, though I'm not particularly wedded to Aristotelianism.

As for Aristotle's concept of matter, it is primarily defined in his physics, as you say, as what persists through change. However, since the form of the thing is what actually changes, then the matter is said to provide the potential for change. That's how matter escapes the law of excluded middle, as potential, what neither is nor is not. And this is why it is the aspect of the world which is unintelligible to us. So the supposed underlying aspect of a thing which persists through change, matter, is completely unintelligible to us. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes. But, for me, the unintelligibility of matter is not a conclusion, but a problem. If you were to present this conclusion to Berkeley, he would conclude that matter didn't exist, and I would not be able to explain why he is wrong.

Berkeley allows that separate people have separate minds, and God's mind is separate from human minds. But I do not think that he adequately addresses the issue of what provides for the separation between one mind and another. So we need a concept like "matter" to provide for the separation between minds. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree. I don't think there is a coherent idea of immaterial minds.

I believe the principal difference between Hume and Berkeley is that Hume didn't believe in God. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm sure you know about the controversy about Hume's atheism. I don't think there is a determinate answer about what he "really" believed. But the Enquiry is perfectly clear. He rejects rational arguments for God's existence and Christianity, but believes in them on faith, which he acknowledges is a miracle.

How can you possibly distinguish between appearance and reality? Once you accept that there is such a distinction to be made, you plunge yourself into a quagmire because you need to provide principles by which you would distinguish between the two. — Metaphysician Undercover

I didn't express myself clearly. There are ordinary uses of "appear" and "real" that are perfectly in order. The stick in water appears to be bent, but isn't "really". The sun disappears behind the moon, but still exists. But when we posit a world of "appearances" (or "experiences") that exist independently of the entities that they are appearances of, we are seriously mistaken.

I think Midgley makes a profound point. — ENOAH

I agree with you. However, @Fooloso4's points about the way she makes her point are also important. The issue crops up all the time in reading texts from the past - and the present. Her ideas about marriage, family, maturity were pretty much conventional, though not uncontested, at the time and still exist. We need to be able to acknowledge both sides of this, though I haven't worked out how to do so properly.

Her point, I take it, to be that we do not [contra Descartes] have to infer the existence of the same consciousness in others. She was beyond Descartes, the subject, "I", and phenomenal perception. — ENOAH

Yes, quite so.

Why not bonding as a source for the truth that we are not utterly isolated in our consciousness? — ENOAH

Why not indeed? But let us not be hypnotized by a one bonding, but recognize the many different bonds there are in human lives - and how they arise in ways that we interact with, as opposed to merely observe, each other - and how we distinguish between people and non-people at the same time.

Or is philosophy not about truth, but about it within a restricted framework? — ENOAH

.. so truth within a restricted framework is not really truth?
Briefly -
For my money, "the sky is blue" is true because of the system of colours, not in spite of it. The objectivity of truths shows up in the way that a truth formulated in one system will show up in other systems. The easy example is the way that arithmetical truths show up in any number system.
In Wittgenstein's thought, this point is closely linked to colour exclusion problem (SEP). He says

225. What I hold fast to is not one proposition but a nest of propositions.

On Certainty 225.

Certainly.

You may think me lazy, but here are some extracts from the Treatise that should (I hope) explain what you're asking about.

On the cause(s) of ideas:-

26. CAUSE OF IDEAS.--We perceive a continual succession of ideas, some are anew excited, others are changed or totally disappear. There is therefore some cause of these ideas, whereon they depend, and which produces and changes them. That this cause cannot be any quality or idea or combination of ideas, is clear from the preceding section. It must therefore be a substance; but it has been shown that there is no corporeal or material substance: it remains therefore that the CAUSE OF IDEAS is an incorporeal active substance or Spirit.

28. I find I can excite ideas in my mind at pleasure, and vary and shift the scene as oft as I think fit. It is no more than willing, and straightway this or that idea arises in my fancy; and by the same power it is obliterated and makes way for another. This making and unmaking of ideas doth very properly denominate the mind active. Thus much is certain and grounded on experience; but when we think of unthinking agents or of exciting ideas exclusive of volition, we only amuse ourselves with words.

29. IDEAS OF SENSATION DIFFER FROM THOSE OF REFLECTION OR MEMORY.--But, whatever power I may have over MY OWN thoughts, I find the ideas actually perceived by Sense have not a like dependence on my will. When in broad daylight I open my eyes, it is not in my power to choose whether I shall see or no, or to determine what particular objects shall present themselves to my view; and so likewise as to the hearing and other senses; the ideas imprinted on them are not creatures of my will. There is THEREFORE SOME OTHER WILL OR SPIRIT that PRODUCES THEM.

33. OF REAL THINGS AND IDEAS OR CHIMERAS.--The ideas imprinted on the Senses by the Author of nature are called REAL THINGS; and those excited in the imagination being less regular, vivid, and constant, are more properly termed IDEAS, or IMAGES OF THINGS, which they copy and represent. But then our sensations, be they never so vivid and distinct, are nevertheless IDEAS, that is, they exist in the mind, or are perceived by it, as truly as the ideas of its own framing. The ideas of Sense are allowed to have more reality in them, that is, to be more (1)STRONG, (2)ORDERLY, and (3)COHERENT than the creatures of the mind; but this is no argument that they exist without the mind. They are also (4)LESS DEPENDENT ON THE SPIRIT [Note: Vide sect. xxix.--Note.], or thinking substance which perceives them, in that they are excited by the will of another and more powerful spirit; yet still they are IDEAS, and certainly no IDEA, whether faint or strong, can exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving it.

It would not be unfair to say that Berkeley is not very articulate about his notion of causality. He maintains that something that is "inert" cannot cause (or be affected by) anything. The only agent of change he recognizes is a mind. The passage in bold in section 28 above is more or less all he has to say about this. This section explains why (sort of):-

27. NO IDEA OF SPIRIT.--A spirit is one simple, undivided, active being--as it perceives ideas it is called the UNDERSTANDING, and as it produces or otherwise operates about them it is called the WILL. Hence there can be no idea formed of a soul or spirit; for all ideas whatever, being passive and inert (vide sect. 25), they cannot represent unto us, by way of image or LIKENESS, that which acts. A little attention will make it plain to any one, that to have an idea which shall be like that active principle of motion and change of ideas is absolutely impossible. Such is the nature of SPIRIT, or that which acts, that it cannot be of itself perceived, BUT ONLY BY THE EFFECTS WHICH IT PRODUCETH. If any man shall doubt of the truth of what is here delivered, let him but reflect and try if he can frame the idea of any power or active being, and whether he has ideas of two principal powers, marked by the names WILL and UNDERSTANDING, distinct from each other as well as from a third idea of Substance or Being in general, with a relative notion of its supporting or being the subject of the aforesaid powers--which is signified by the name SOUL or SPIRIT. This is what some hold; but, so far as I can see, the words WILL [Note: "Understanding, mind."--Edit 1710.], SOUL, SPIRIT, do not stand for different ideas, or, in truth, for any idea at all, but for something which is very different from ideas, and which, being an agent, cannot be like unto, or represented by, any idea whatsoever. Though it must be owned at the same time that we have some notion of soul, spirit, and the operations of the mind: such as willing, loving, hating--inasmuch as we know or understand the meaning of these words.

The passage in bold in section 28 above is more or less all he has to say about how a mind does what it does.

Notice, that for Berkeley "matter" is presented as a concept which would commonly be used to account for the supposed independent existence of the things (noumena). However, he shows that "matter" is really an unnecessary supposition, it is not actually required to be assumed as part of the independent thing to understand its independent existence. This implies that "matter" is actually a concept use to account for the sense appearance of things (phenomena). — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm afraid I'm not quite on board with this. It makes sense on its own terms. I thought matter was posited to account for things persisting through change, and that in any case, for Aristotle, if not others, the object of perception of things is their form (or maybe perceptible form?). But I don't recognize Berkeley here.
For Berkeley, the mind-independent existence of anything is ruled out by "esse" is "percipi". That principle is why he rules out matter as not merely unnecessary but impossible.
He is embarrassed by two problems. First, he realizes that I never perceive myself and second he recognizes that some of our ideas have a cause that is not me. So he introduces a concept of a "notion" which is just like an idea, but applies to ideas of things that we don't perceive. So he provides for my existence and then introduces the idea - sorry, notion - of God, which provides a cause of ideas that is not me. (He also slips in the existence of other minds, which creates even more confusion.) This manoeuvre also allows him to deny that he is denying the existence of anything; he makes much more of this in the Dialogues, which, of course, he wrote later and so, one suspects, he takes into account public reaction to the Treatise. I'm confused about whether the ideas produced by God exist in His Mind, my mind or both but they certainly depend on a mind. So it is clear that nothing exists that is not mind-dependent, even though some things exist independently of my mind.

He shows that if we take "matter" out of the thing, we lose nothing from our conceptions of independent things. That is because our conceptions are formal (in the Aristotelian sense of form). Nevertheless, regardless of what Berkeley shows, we find that "matter" is indispensable to the understanding of our sensations of things. This is because we sense things as active, changing, and Aristotle introduced "matter" as the means for understanding the potential for change. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not sure who "he" is here. But Berkeley certainly dispenses with matter altogether. It has no place in his world. God supplies all that is needed to explain our sensations of things, and explains change. I'm not sure whether his concept of ideas matches the idea of forms, but it certainly seems possible.

In each case, "matter" maintains its Aristotelian base as the potential for change, and the unintelligible aspect of reality. Berkeley, like Kant (with space and time) positions matter as something a priori, created within the human body or mind, as a necessary condition for sense perception, but not necessary for the independent existence of things. — Metaphysician Undercover

I suppose he would have to accept that the idea of matter can exist in a mind. But I don't think Berkeley's idea of ideas includes the potential for change. They are posited as inert and inactive, which Berkeley things rules out any causal relations between them - causal changes as we experience them are created and maintained by God. So far as I can see, he recognizes only one possibility for change - minds.

Hume turns this around and leaves matter as an a posteriori concept created by the mind in order to understand the independent existence of things which are sensed, rather than as necessary for the sense appearance of things. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not sure about this at all. I agree that, for Hume, relations between ideas are created (by association) in our minds. I found him curiously silent on Berkeley's issue. I have the impression that the existence of external, mind-independent objects is not explicitly ruled out. My speculation is the Hume did not want to get caught up in Berkeley.

Why reject it (sc. the distinction between phenomena and noumena) though, when it seems to be completely consistent with how I experience things? — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, "reject" is perhaps too strong and too simple. How could I not recognize the difference between appearance and reality? Whether it is consistent with how I experience things is one issue.
But our senses tell us about the world we live in, so long as we are suitably critical of what they seem to be telling us. Somehow they have become a VR headset which is an obstacle to our knowing that the world is "really" like and probably feeding us nothing but lies. It's a fantasy and the granddaddy of conspiracy theories. (OK, that's a caricature. It's only meant to show the direction of travel.)

It looks to me as if you (or is it Kant?) are trying to read Berkeley without God. Berkeley's work is as much theology as philosophy, so it is rather awkward for philosophers to deal with.

I'm glad you enjoy my efforts. I find mutual enjoyment is by far the best basis for an interesting discussion.
However, I would have to take issue with the title of the post of yours that you cited. But I'll read it nonetheless. I'm not sure I can contribute much to the discussion there, but we'll see.

I have read that Kant was infuriated by those critics of his first edition who accused him of basically re-cycling Berkeley's idealism, — Wayfarer

Perhaps I wrote that sentence a bit carelessly. I would have to read up to respond to your point properly. Thanks for the reference.
Quite what Berkeley did deny is a bit moot, but a common way of putting it is that he denied the existence of any mind-independent things, that is, of anything that is not perceived or perceiving. Kant did not deny that, except that if he did deny that the noumena are perceivable or (knowable?), then he is very close to Berkeley.

Yeah, and when philosophers disengage from ordinary human life, that's when their own lives become a real mess and muddle. — Metaphysician Undercover

Perhaps mess and muddle is an inescapable part of human life? And then, the attempt to escape also becomes an inescapable part of human life. Perhaps the best thing to do is to embrace mess and muddle - but then, what would become of philosophy?

I believe that Berkeley did not claim that sense observation doesn't imply the existence of matter, he showed that the concept of "matter" is not required to understand the reality of independent things. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, the first half of that is a bit unorthodox. But the second half is at least defensible. It's just that his understanding of the reality of independent things doesn't involve the concept of matter. Right?

Therefore we can infer that matter is a feature the human system which makes sense observations, just like Kant says space and time are. — Metaphysician Undercover

Perhaps so. However, I've always thought that Kant essentially accepts Berkeley, especially his argument that the distinction between primary and secondary qualities doesn't hold up, so that time and space are mind-dependent, as well as colour, etc. Including matter in that argument makes sense. Once you have accepted the distinction between reality and appearance, ideas and things, phenomena and noumena, that conclusion is more or less inevitable. The only way out is to reject, or at least recast, the distinction.

It depends on what you mean by 'substantial'; if you mean something like "tangible' then sure. Is mass fundamental in physics, specifically in QM? — Janus

I avoid commenting on QM. I'm not qualified to do so.
In some contexts, substantial does mean something like tangible or solid. In others, not so much.

If what is is fundamentally energetic, then that is what I would mean by "physical". Is there an alternative view to this? — Janus

I take it that you mean by "energetic" the concept of energy that is defined by physics? Which, by definition, studies what is physical?
Perhaps St. Augustine's remark about time applies to matter, as well.

My concern is that it advocates for a one size fits all standard - a mature person will marry. There are various reasons why someone does not marry, most of them having little or nothing to do with philosophy. — Fooloso4

In the end, this takes us back to the issue about what it means for a human being to flourish and the desire to let a thousand flowers bloom. The issue is, which of them, if any, count as weeds? It would be easy to talk about balance and proportionality, but we all make choices (subject to certain basic needs, such as food and shelter) and so we all specialize, so that doesn't help very much.
Returning to the specific issue, about the model of the solitary thinker as the paradigm of philosophy, I would want to say:-
1) that there is room for more than one model - and Socrates provides a different one.
2) A philosophical life that doesn't include both risks losing touch with philosophy or losing the focus and intensity that it requires - and Midgley does recognize this. The point that Descartes was not in fact a solitary thinker, but was deeply rooted in the philosophical and ordinary life of his time has already been made in this thread.
3) On this specific issue, it is important not to over-generalize; Wittgenstein certainly prioritized solitary thinking in his practice and even, I gather, went to some trouble to give the impression that he didn't read the work of other philosophers.
Isn't there a letter written when he was living on his own in order to focus on philosophy, in which he rails against the distractions of doing his own house-keeping? (But, one notices, he is doing his own house-keeping.) Yet he managed to understand the need to ground philosophy in human life.

I think you are making out more than there truly is in this article. It is a silly, poorly-written article. It is not a treatise, nevermind philosophy, the editor is correct. It does not offer in any way an alternative to Descartes' six Meditations, or to his Principles, or to his Discource. It is not rigorous. — Lionino

I may be making too much of it. However, I'm sure that Midgley did not think that this piece was in any way a replacement for Descartes' writings.

Even after Descartes' extensive writings on his method and replies to objections, people still try to find fault within him. It would be fine if they happened to find actual faults. Let's apply that amount of scrutinity to Mary's article then. — Lionino

Well, people try to find fault with everybody else. Why would Descartes be an exception?

Afaik, existentialists are not arguing against Descartes, Descartes not against what would be the existentialists. — Lionino

That's probably right. Perhaps it would be better to say that they were changing the subject. Though I suspect that Sartre was unduly influenced by him.

Not to speak of that horrible last paragraph in the article. Whatever college it was she lectured at, I will be far away from it and its professors. — Lionino

Expect no logic from a pregnant woman.

is certainly horrible. But Midgley is quoting someone else and expects us to find it horrible. She worked at Reading University 1949 - 1962 and then Newcastle University 1962 - 1980 but I would think that there has been considerable staff turnover since then.

My concern is that it advocates for a one size fits all standard - a mature person will marry. There are various reasons why someone does not marry, most of them having little or nothing to do with philosophy. — Fooloso4

Yes. That's valid. Her idea of adolescence is not much to write home about, either.

I find the discussion on celibacy to be similar to old school thoughts on celibacy in male athletes. It was commonly thought that male athletes ought to practise celibacy to improve performance. That sort of nonsense has been thoroughly debunked and we could call it a "trivial, irrelevant intrusion of domestic matters into [athletic] life". — Metaphysician Undercover

You are right about celibacy in athletics, and I wouldn't think that it was particularly important in philosophy either. For me, Midgley's argument is reminiscent of the argument that priests need to practice celibacy. What she may be trying to express, though rather badly, is that philosophers, however transcendent their thought, ought not to disengage from the mess and muddle of ordinary human life. I think that's true and important.
There is something very odd about the thought that organizing appropriate meals and providing and washing the kit are trivial irrelevant intrusions into athletic life, rather than the bedrock of athletic life. It suggests the speaker has the privilege of being able to get other people to do those things for him (or her).

However, there is a fundamental problem, science understands through sense observation, and sense observation instills "matter" into the phenomena. This produces what Wayfarer likes to call the blind spot of science. — Metaphysician Undercover

So Berkeley was wrong to think that sense observation doesn't imply the existence of matter?

But I'm not sure whether that's enough to refute the argument.
— Ludwig V

Banno himself said Midgely is using Descartes as a rhetorical device. If that is the case, there isn't really an argument. — Lionino

H'm. It depends on what you count as an argument. I probably have a more relaxed view of what constitutes an argument than you.

But there is a tricky issue here. Descartes invites us to approach his problem (winnowing out what he does really know from what he just thinks he knows) in a certain way. Midgley is suggesting a different way. Descartes offers us the model of a solitary thinker, withdrawn from the world and at peace. Midgely recognizes some good reasons for choosing Descartes' model, but thinks that a different model will avoid some big issues with Descartes' solution of the problem he sets himself. It's not really a simple question of fact. Proof and refutation are probably not available here. But that doesn't mean that the choice doesn't matter or that there cannot be good and bad grounds for making it. (Compare the existentialists' shift to focus on the human condition - the world as we are thrown into it - as opposed to Descartes' search for a clean sheet and an indubitable foundation - probably modelled on Euclid.)

I'm afraid I didn't take that comment - or the poll - at all seriously.

The idea that it is a "dialect" is not quite accurate, but I am not going to be uncharitable. — Lionino

You don't need to be charitable. I knew it was not quite right when I wrote it. But I couldn't think of anything better. Still can't, for that matter. "Dialect" and "language" are very slippery, unless one relies on a gun-boat.

If there had been faith in the king... — Lionino

Clearly, I put my faith in the wrong king. Thanks for the corrections. All very interesting.

I imagine you are referring to essentia. That is also one of the translations of usia. It is in fact the literal translation of usia to Latin, coined by Cicero. Substantia is in fact a post-classical translation of hypostasis, but later it came to be often used to translate usia. This comment might be of interest: — Lionino

It certainly is of interest. One might as well try to organize a herd of ferrets.

I find it curious that folk are so defensive of Descartes. Granny Midgley is obviously using him as a rhetorical device. — Banno

It isn't so curious. Philosophers are great parricides, and often resurrect their grandfathers - or great-grandfathers, if they want to be especially rebellious. It's because philosophy thrives on disagreement and is most at home in chaos.
Yes. Everything, especially in philosophy, including the arguments, is about persuasion. Logic is simply the most effective rhetorical device. She pulls much the same trick in her discussion of pregnancy.

If so, you must be making the same point as Midgely about motherhood. Are you pregnant? — Lionino

This move is really very problematic. With one breath I am reminded of an experience that is not available to me; with the next breath, I am faced with a universal conclusion. The only solution must be that the presentation of the experience is in fact supposed to convey what it is like. Midgley's discussion works well to establish her conclusion, but whether her description is "correct" or not is another question. It would be easy to suggest that perhaps not all mothers experience their pregnancy in the same way. But I'm not sure whether that's enough to refute the argument.

Based on the link to Midgley's Rings and Books, this does not appear to be advice she follows. — Fooloso4

So?

One has to be very careful here. "Granny Midgley" does capture something about her approach. But it risks being ageist and sexist at the same time. But then, one's reaction may be affected by whether one is a grand-child or a grandparent and by the character of the individuals in one's family. (Grannies can be wise and helpful in ways that are very difficult for parents - or so I'm told.)

There are two rather different approaches exemplified in this piece. One is the impact of the author's actual life as a context in which to read it. Midgley introduces actual life via the question of marriage and celibacy; for us, these are two different questions, but it was conventional at the time to treat them as linked.

You can see the other approach in her critique of Descartes. This is based on the model or image of philosophical practice that Descartes presents in his text. I don't think anyone is much bothered by whether Descartes actually ever settled down beside his oven in order to cook up his exercise; it is a presentation - a literary or rhetorical device to introduce us to his thought experiment - and whether it is fictional or not does not matter. What does matter is the model of philosophy that is presented.

Midgley does acknowledge the benefits of solitary thinking but too quickly turns this into a requirement for celibacy/being unmarried. Whether she is deadly serious about this (which would be a problem - Wittgenstein was never married, but yet manages to acknowledge that we are embedded in our human life) or just using the facts as a lever for introducing the philosophical point is hard to discern. What matters most is the philosophical point.

For the record, my view is that each of us needs both solitary thinking and dialogue and disagreement in our practice. There's no one right balance; it's a question of what is helpful and productive for each of us. Boring, but true.

That's just an example of my approach. I hope it is helpful.

Although it may be somewhat unfair to compare his work to a radio talk. — Fooloso4

Yes, an interesting reference. Though I find the title more than a little off-putting. It manages to be both portentous and trivializing in two words. But I'm sure that not everyone would be affected in the same way. When I read it, I will try to take it seriously (which includes criticizing it) but sympathetically, which means looking for the good bits.

If the physical is naturally understood to have substantial or substantive existence, and it is upon that idea of substance that the notion of reality is founded, and the idea of a mental substance is untenable, then what justification would we have for saying that anything non-physical is real? — Janus

Something needs to give. For my money, it is the neglect of the elementary point that both "substantial" and "real" do not have a determinate sense outside the context of their use. The philosophical search for them does not define a context in which it could ever be successful.
A good example here would be the well-known fact that that physics reveals a physical world that is almost completely insubstantial. "Substantial" and "real" have a meaning in the context of physics, but not one that meets the demands of this philosophical wild-goose chase. Berkeley was wrong about many things, but about this, he was right.

The alternative to eliminative physicalism would be to say that mental phenomena are real functions of some physical existents, and that the only sense in which they are not physical is that they do not (obviously) appear as objects of the senses. — Janus

This is an alternative to eliminative physicalism, but not to physicalism. We need something more inclusive. Ryle's categories seem to me to offer a way of articulating what needs to be accepted here, without prioritizing the physical.

My personal heuristic is that classical metaphysics allows for a distinction between what exists and what is real which are generally assumed to be coterminous. I've had many lengthy and often vexed debates about this topic here over the years, centered around my claim that the term 'ontology' is concerned with 'the meaning of being', and not with 'the nature of what exists', which is the proper concern of the natural sciences. — Wayfarer

There are many words of which it is futile to ask what their meaning is. These terms are among them, in my view. (I don't even really understand what the meaning of being is supposed to be.)

Lionino is right, however that it arrived in English from Old French.
— Ludwig V

Descartes' Principia Philosophiae was published in Latin, in which I presume the word 'substantia' would have been used (although I'm open to correction). — Wayfarer

This isn't affected by the history of the word in English, of course. But it is a nice example of how the arrival of a term in a text can have more than one origin.

In contrast to contemporary philosophers, most 17th century philosophers held that reality comes in degrees—that some things that exist are more or less real than other things that exist.

Isn't there a view somewhere in Aristotle that things that best "realize" their form (essence) - i.e. realize their potential - are the best because most real. Something like that.

Descartes has come under a great deal of criticism for the mind/body problem but it is his view of the body as mechanistic that led to advances in medicine. — Fooloso4

You are right that we should not divide philosophers into good eggs and bad eggs, though that can make for a more exciting read. There can be both useful ideas and useless ideas in the work of any philosopher, and a balanced assessment needs to take both into account. I don't think anyone would fail to acknowledge the important intellectual developments in Descartes' work. But that doesn't mean we should forget about the mistakes that he made.

by not leading what she regards as a "normal domestic life" their development was arrested. — Fooloso4

Rather than a deliberate and immature choice to not develop attachments, his attachments were severed from him. — Fooloso4

as if if he only he had married there would not have been the turn to subjectivism. — Fooloso4

You are also right that we need to be cautious in tying specific ideas in the work of a philosopher to details of their biography. Philosophers, as Midgley herself observes, are human beings and consequently often flawed. We should not rush to judgement. Most people will probably turn out to have been a mixed bag.
Aristotle may have loved his wife and treated her, and his slaves, well by the standards of his time and thought the master/slave relationship was fundamental to a household. Plato may have been profoundly authoritarian and contemptuous of democracy and regarded love and friendship as fundamental to human life. Aquinas may have been quite humane and tolerant by the standards of his time and regarded one of the benefits of being in heaven as being able to enjoy the spectacle of the torments of hell. One could go on to look critically at Berkeley, Locke and Rousseau as well as Hegel and Heidegger. We can't ignore the bad bits, but forgetting the good bits is as bad as celebrating the good bits and forgetting the bad bits.

Long story short - if philosophy is to be a practice based on human life, if it is to recommend or be a way of life, then the hinterland and the sub-texts of philosophical texts are part of the story, which we should pay attention to even if we do not like what we see. But in exploring those aspects, we should extend to our predecessors the sympathy and charity that we must all hope our successors will extend to us when their turn comes to assess what we have done or not done.

What I've said is partial and incomplete and undoubtedly muddled. But I hope I may have persuaded you to at least read and consider the whole of Midgley's text, rather than just extracts from it. I don't think it is perfect, but I don't think it is as bad as you suggest.

Thanks for the overview of Aristotle. It does make sense overall, doesn't it?

Your version makes him seem much closer to Plato than some others that I have seen.

Nevertheless the depiction of the 'thinking thing' is very much the residue of his philosophy in popular culture. — Wayfarer

Yes, indeed. If that passage had been taken more seriously, the history of philosophy might have been very different. Yet, he is so insistent on his substances that one has to admit that the "popular" presentation isn't wholly wrong.

The philosophical term ‘substance’ corresponds to the Greek ousia, which means ‘being’, transmitted via the Latin substantia, which means ‘something that stands under or grounds things’.

SEP on substance.
Lionino is right, however that it arrived in English from Old French.

c. 1300, substaunce, "divine part or essence" common to the persons of the Trinity;" mid-14c. in philosophy and theology, "that which exists by itself; essential nature; type or kind of thing; real or essential part;" from Old French sustance, substance "goods, possessions; nature, composition" (12c.), "

This difference made a big difference when it came to the empiricists' (especially Berkeley's) philosophy.

What's going on here is even weirder than that. Latin has a perfectly good equivalent for ousia, "being" in "esse". But somehow that got used for the Aristotle's phrase "en tôi ti esti" - literally "what it is to be". (Obviously, he can't find an actual Greek word for what he has in mind. His Metaphysics is riddled with his coinages.)
Then there's "exist". Wikipedia tells us that "The word "existence" entered the English language in the late 14th century from old French and has its roots in the medieval Latin term ex(s)istere, which means to stand forth, to appear, and to arise." (Note that our use of the word has absolutely no basis in ancient Rome.)
While we're at it, what about "real"? I don't know how reliable "etymonline.com" is, but it reports of "real" "early 14c., "actually existing, having physical existence (not imaginary);" mid-15c., "relating to things" (especially property), from Old French reel "real, actual," from Late Latin realis "actual," in Medieval Latin "belonging to the thing itself," from Latin res "property, goods, matter, thing, affair," which de Vaan traces to a PIE *Hreh-i- "wealth, goods," source also of Sanskrit rayim, rayah "property, goods," Avestan raii-i- "wealth". The meaning "genuine" is recorded from 1550s;"
All of which reinforces the point that medieval Latin is a dialect of Latin and very different from the language of ancient Rome.

I don't pretend that any of this has any particular philosophical significance. But I do think it is great fun.

*As noted previously, I think 'immaterial subject' conveys the gist better than 'immaterial substance' or 'immaterial thing' which I feel is oxymoronic. — Wayfarer

I'm inclined to agree with you. But, on the face of it, that wouldn't be the gist of Descartes' argument. He is quite explicit:-

As to those other things, of which the Idea of a body is made up, as extension, figure, place and motion, they are not formally in me, seeing I am only a thinking thing; yet seeing they are only certain modes of substance, and I my self also am a substance, they may seem to be in me eminently.

But then, there is the passage that is sometimes adduced in this context: -

Now there is nothing that this my Nature teaches me more expresly then that I have a Body, Which is not Well when I feel Pain, that this Body wants Meat or Drink When I am Hungry or Dry, &c. And therefore I ought not to Doubt but that these things are True. And by this sense of Pain, Hunger, Thirst, &c. My Nature tells[98] me that I am not in my Body, as a Mariner is in his Ship, but that I am most nighly conjoyn’d thereto, and as it were Blended therewith; so that I with It make up one thing;

Descartes Meditation VI

So his position is a bit more complicated than the simplified version that is usually considered in the literature. (And I do not know how to represent it more accurately.)

Descartes wrote of, to and for a community of people past present and future — Fooloso4

Descartes Meditation III
Yes, that's part of Midgley's point, which bears on the question what we are to make of his method of doubt, or methodical doubt, and the model of philosophical method that he portrays in the Meditations. If we pay attention to the real life hinterland of the text, we find that the presentation is much more complex than it seems to be.
He seems to invite us to join him in a real life journey. But he doesn't really think that such scepticism is true. It is something like a thought experiment, an academic exercise. But it also has the deadly serious aim of a religious retreat; it is a fantasy of hell, from which he will, ultimately, rescue us. (Just as the priest terrifies us with the image of hell and then presents Jesus as our heroic rescuer) It certainly isn't a sober presentation of reality. Our problem is that we aren't rescued by his rescue. so we really need to understand the significance of the Pyrrhonian scepticism that he takes us into.
(It is instructive here to remember Hume's discussion of Pyrrhonian scepticism and his recommendation of a month in the country as a cure for it. Like Descartes, he was labelled a sceptic, but, on closer inspection, was nothing of the kind.)

That the specific group in that specific situation were all women while there being plenty of men around seem to suggest that the specific situation is caused by a difference between men and women, otherwise, shouldn't we expect at least one man in the group too? — Lionino

You are right. In the first place, the colleges which were and are the primary scene of social interaction among students in that university were segregated by sex/gender - either all the students (and academic staff) were male or all were female. In the second place, both men and women regarded each other as significantly different and relations between men and women were socially regulated and controlled in ways that relations between men and men and between women and women were not. Thirdly, women students were a minority whose right to be there was still tolerated rather than accepted, which makes mutual solidarity more likely. Finally, much of their time there was during WW2, so many of the men who might have been there were otherwise engaged.

I wouldn't take it that way, but I would take it as undermining any attempt to claim that the male of the species is more rational than the female, and any position that relies on that thesis. — unenlightened

Well, yes. Of course.

fundamental to liberal individualism. — Wayfarer

Yes, quite so. But, without wanting to write the book, I would want to high-light Martin Luther as a critical figure in that change, and add that quantification is, perhaps not coincidentally, also a foundation of capitalism. (Money, rather than humans, as the measure of all things.)
And then there's the dubious relationship between individualism and authoritarianism.

it undermines the rationalist position from start to finish. — unenlightened

Yes. At least, it undermines that rationalist position. I would hate to think that it undermines all attempts to articulate ideas rationally - though I agree that many people have taken it that way.

It was clear that we [the women students] were all more interested in understanding this deeply puzzling world than in putting each other down.
— Midgley
But I thought that there was nothing fundamentally different between men and women? Strange — Lionino

I read this as about a specific group of women students in a specific situation. In that situation, I can well imagine that mutual support was more important for them than any internal struggle for power. But I can see that one could read it as a generalization. In which case, it would be odd.

The kind of self-awareness where one admits the mistake but does not seem to care about committing the mistake always stroke me as, also, strange. — Lionino

It depends how important you think the mistake is.

Mary Midgely's comment about the way women don't put each other down
— Jack Cummins
Is laughably wrong. — AmadeusD

Quite so. Women are human beings as well and the temptation to put (some) other people down is, it seems, part of the human condition.

I think this is a mistake. I think it is a mistake that leaves us, necessarily, in a hopeless loop of arguing with anyone who disagrees with one end of the spectrum (biology v culture) because there is no possibility of extricating them. I think we can. The charge that any observations are culturally-bound seems wrong to me on many levels. — AmadeusD

You are right. I agree that there is a spectrum involved, and in many cases there may well be agreement about how to apply the distinction. I wouldn't say that either biology or culture necessarily limit us - after all, they are both capable of change and development as life goes on. But I do think that they are where we start from.

I'm unmarried and so don't have a real insight into what she's saying.
— Moliere
No objection from me. We all have mothers after all. — unenlightened

One could dismiss all such arguments as simply ad hominem. But that seems unfair.
There's an interesting - even important - difficulty here. We are all familiar with the empiricist appeal to experience and accept the idea that at least some experience is universal and therefore a sound basis for philosophy. But Midgley plausibly cites a experience that is not universal (but is, as she says, typical) as having universal significance. So she must believe that people who have not had that experience can understand it sufficiently for her to make her point. That's the point of her description it. I don't think she is wrong about that.
It's just as well that she expands the scope of her appeal to something (parenting, marriage) that can be seen as common to both men and women, though still not universal.
The difficulty here is that, by parity of argument, one cannot invalidate the experiences of those who live solitary lives or practice solitary reflection. So we end up with having to see both solitary and communal thinkers as possible models and perhaps a pragmatic view of them.

It's a puzzle. That's all I'm saying.

I get along with the conclusion, though. And with the opening -- I don't think philosophy is an exercise in proving myself correct or the other person wrong or some such. — Moliere

Yes. Philosophy is much more interesting if one avoid getting trapped into those exercises. But it can be difficult to prevent it happening.

Misogyny will carry a thread only so far, but perhaps too far to drag it back to something more interesting. — Banno

I didn't mean to provoke a discussion of misogyny as such. I am interested in the questions of philosophical method that her argument about Descartes raises.

I think the issue all revolves around objectification. — Wayfarer

Yes. But I get worried that perhaps talk of the flow or experience suggests an objectification of experience, which leads to another set of problems. It is extremely difficult to distinguish the grammatical (in the traditional sense) and logical senses of "object" from a philosophical sense - "medium sized dry goods".

PS. By a logical sense of object, I mean "to be is to be the value of a variable".

The issue arose with lawyers, which was once a male dominated profession. If you look today, you have as many or more females in law school, who perform at the top of the class, and who get the prestigious jobs. But, as time goes on, you see fewer and fewer as partners and at the highest levels of firms. The reason, which is interesting, based upon the women are saying, is because women don't want those jobs. They are gruelling, stressful, and, other than money, are not terribly rewarding. — Hanover

Yes, things have changed and are changing in the professions. You may be right about the glass ceiling. But I'm sure are also aware that there are people who are not content to adopt your explanation, and my impression is that they are making headway. I think that change is coming.

They are gruelling, stressful, and, other than money, are not terribly rewarding. — Hanover

Who told you that? If it is true, why do so many men want them?

The same holds true to the trades. Women don't want to work on cars, pipes, and air conditioning units. Those jobs are physically demanding and not terribly rewarding. — Hanover

That certainly applies to serving in the army or the police. Yet, some women do want to do that, including, now, serving in the front line. And there are women working in the trades. Though it is true that I've never heard much agitation to change the gender balance amongst dust-men.

When coming up with policy decisions, what do you do? We've made entry open to whoever wants it, but do we then change the industry to make it so different people want it? ... Or do you say that men have figured out the biology of women (yeah, right) and have created systems that make them not want to compete? That would be the patriarchal argument, but it would also accept that biology controls to some point. — Hanover

Most people absorb ideas about what is appropriate for them and most people most of the time do not challenge those stereotypes. If you just pin up a notice "All welcome" and sit back, nothing much will change.
But I do worry about the expectation that gender balance in every trade and profession will conform pretty closely to the balance in general population. It could be used as a quota, which would be completely inappropriate. (The same applies to the general expectation that all the diversity balances in every group will conform to the balance in the general population.)
We ought not, ever, to talk about discrimination without qualification. Some discrimination is good, and necessary. What is wrong is discrimination on irrelevant grounds. What the relevant grounds are will depend on the context and may often be contested.

Wouldn't the acceptance that women don't want X but men do, be a nod towards biology? — Hanover

Not necessarily. It depends on why they don't want it.

Part of what I was saying is that biology and culture are not neatly separated or separable. On the contrary, they interact. We cannot generalize, but need to pay attention to each issue as it comes up. Solutions will usually be messy and not please everyone. But allowing people to complain and listening to what they have to say and taking them seriously matters.

There is the question of the innate differences of biology, which may involve thinking, as noted by Hanover, and the role of cultural assumptions and the dynamics of power relationships. It may be complicated. — Jack Cummins

"Complicated", it seems to me, understates the difficulty. We look to biology to provide an objective basis for cultural stereotypes. But our cultural stereotypes condition what we think of as biology. In other words, the two interact and are consequently inextricably intertwined. Both are deeply involved in the power relationships in play in our social interactions.
In the end, it seems to me, we would do better to manage without pursuing this fruitless attempt and deal with the problems we are facing, whatever their origin.

What I am arguing is that gender relationships are not simply about misogyny but about stereotypes. — Jack Cummins

That's true. Looking back, one can get depressed by the fact that eradicating hatred and stereotyping is much more difficult than it was thought to be at the time. Is it possible that those tendencies are both ineradicably part of the human condition?

As an example, consider the following from Midgley's article: -

Now I rather think that nobody who was playing a normal active part among other human beings could regard them like this. But what I am quite sure of is that for anybody living intimately with them as a genuine member of a family, Cogito would be Cogitamus; their consciousness would be every bit as certain as his own. And if this is not so for men, it certainly is for women. And women are not a separate species. And an account of human knowledge which women’s whole experience falsifies is inadequate and partial and capricious.

I agree whole-heartedly with the point that she is making. I'm sure that what she says here would have been wholly unexceptional when she was writing. But reading it now, I can't help worrying about the category of "women's experience" and especially "women's whole experience", particularly as she focuses on the experience of pregnancy and suckling, which, after all, was a lynch-pin in the justification of the traditional definition of women's role in life. She does then generalize through child-rearing and marriage back to "typical human experience" - but notice that she does not generalize to "our" experience or "universal" human experience.

In the twentieth first century the situation may have changed to the point where there is more bias against males in some contexts. For example, what I have found when looking for accommodation is that so many adverts say, 'females only', which may mean some difficulty for males in finding 'a room of one's own'. — Jack Cummins

I sympathize. It is a nasty shock to find oneself on the wrong side of a prejudice. But perhaps it is salutary. It's not new. I had a very similar experience (and I was far from alone, and probably lucky) well before this century began. Still, it comes to all of us as we advance into old age.

I don't quite follow you. As I read them, Kierkegaard and Sartre are existentialists (i.e. commitments which manifest an 'essence') and Camus is an absurdist (i.e. striving against both 'having an essence' (idealism) and 'not having an essence' (nihilism)) – none, however, are nihilists (i.e. 'not having an essence', (therefore) 'no commitments' (i.e. arbitrarily riot for the sake of rioting, obey for the sake of obeying, f*ck for the sake of f*cking, belief for the sake of believing, kill for the sake of killing, etc)). — 180 Proof

That helps a lot. The point about commitment is that it is authentic and so part of my essence. (Am I free to abandon my commitments? If so, how are they authentic and essential? If not, how am I free?
I'm not even clear what is wrong with being inauthentic, if that's what I choose to be sometimes. The idea of bad faith suggests a reason, but a moral one, which means it can be a choice. On the other hand, it seems that what is authentic is to be discovered, so not chosen, so a restriction on freedom.
I'm sure I'm just muddled and would appreciate being set straight.