George Berkeley … is important in philosophy through his denial of the existence of matter—a denial which he supported by a number of ingenious arguments. He maintained that material objects only exist through being perceived. To the objection that, in that case, a tree, for instance, would cease to exist if no one was looking at it, he replied that God always perceives everything; if there were no God, what we take to be material objects would have a jerky life, suddenly leaping into being when we look at them; but as it is, owing to God’s perceptions, trees and rocks and stones have an existence as continuous as common sense supposes. This is, in his opinion, a weighty argument for the existence of God.
Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (1945), III, I., Ch. XVI: "Berkeley", p. 647
Bottom Line: Did George Berkeley mean that the existence of the entire world was dependent upon human perception, or divine perception?
(A Treatise…, p. 24).Wherever bodies are said to have no existence without the mind, I would not be understood to mean this or that particular mind, but ALL MINDS WHATSOEVER
(A Treatise..., p. 48)first, it is supposed that extension, for example, may be abstracted from all other sensible qualities; and secondly, that the entity of extension may be abstracted from its being perceived. But, whoever shall reflect, and take care to understand what he says, will, if I mistake not, acknowledge that all sensible qualities are alike sensations and alike real; that where the extension is, there is the colour, too, i.e., in his mind, and that their archetypes can exist only in some other mind; and that the objects of sense are nothing but those sensations combined, blended, or (if one may so speak) concreted together; none of all which can be supposed to exist unperceived
George Berkeley … is important in philosophy through his denial of the existence of matter—a denial which he supported by a number of ingenious arguments. He maintained that material objects only exist through being perceived. To the objection that, in that case, a tree, for instance, would cease to exist if no one was looking at it, he replied that God always perceives everything; if there were no God, what we take to be material objects would have a jerky life, suddenly leaping into being when we look at them; but as it is, owing to God’s perceptions, trees and rocks and stones have an existence as continuous as common sense supposes. This is, in his opinion, a weighty argument for the existence of God.
Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (1945), III, I., Ch. XVI: "Berkeley", p. 647
A very sophisticated form of "proving" the existence of God or of simply postulating a "Deus ex Machina," I think. Yes???
By the way, how similar or different are Kastrup's ideas about Objective Idealism compared to those of Hegel's Objective Idealism?
Bottom Line: The latter, ultimately. For, according to the good ol’ bishop, without the divine mind, there would be no human perceivers, & so neither their perceptions.Bottom Line: Did George Berkeley mean that the existence of the entire world was dependent upon human perception, or divine perception? — charles ferraro
Guided by what you stated about him, Kastrup seems to me to be promoting a contemporary version of Spinoza's pantheism
At the time I was studying various philosophers --quite far in the past-- Berkeley appeared to me as quite an obscure philosopher and he remains so. Just to show this and also set the "climate" in which he discoursed:Did George Berkeley mean that the existence of the entire world was dependent upon human perception, or divine perception? — charles ferraro
Now it is on all hands agreed, that nothing abstract or general can be made really to exist, whence it should seem to follow, that it cannot have so much as an ideal existence in the understanding. (Works 2:125)" — Berkeley
George Berkeley … is important in philosophy through his denial of the existence of matter—a denial which he supported by a number of ingenious arguments. He maintained that material objects only exist through being perceived. To the objection that, in that case, a tree, for instance, would cease to exist if no one was looking at it, he replied that God always perceives everything; if there were no God, what we take to be material objects would have a jerky life, suddenly leaping into being when we look at them; but as it is, owing to God’s perceptions, trees and rocks and stones have an existence as continuous as common sense supposes. This is, in his opinion, a weighty argument for the existence of God.
Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (1945), III, I., Ch. XVI: "Berkeley", p. 647
In contrast to the outlook of naturalism, Husserl believed all knowledge, all science, all rationality depended on conscious acts, acts which cannot be properly understood from within the natural outlook at all. Consciousness should not be viewed naturalistically as part of the world at all, since consciousness is precisely the reason why there was a world there for us in the first place. For Husserl it is not that consciousness creates the world in any ontological sense—this would be a subjective idealism, itself a consequence of a certain naturalising tendency whereby consciousness is cause and the world its effect—but rather that the world is opened up, made meaningful, or disclosed through consciousness. The world is inconceivable apart from consciousness. Treating consciousness as part of the world, reifying consciousness, is precisely to ignore consciousness’s foundational, disclosive role. For this reason, all natural science is naive about its point of departure, for Husserl. Since consciousness is presupposed in all science and knowledge, then the proper approach to the study of consciousness itself must be a transcendental one—one which, in Kantian terms, focuses on the conditions for the possibility of knowledge... — Routledge Introduction to Phenomenology, p144
I'm not an expert on such esoteric questions, but my rather naive interpretation of "esse est percipi" means just the opposite of Solipsism : "the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist". Apparently he was merely stating the underlying assumption of traditional Idealism : that we observers are merely ideas, concepts, Forms, avatars in the mind of God (or LOGOS for Plato ; or the Universe Game for players). In other words, we humans, including bodies, are merely instances of universal Mind : parts of the whole ; chips off the old block. Is that hubris or modesty? Can we prove our claimed patrimony? Can the part question the Whole?Bottom Line: Did George Berkeley mean that the existence of the entire world was dependent upon human perception, or divine perception? — charles ferraro
How can Kastrup argue for "full-blown ontological idealism" without first proving the existence of "God, or Mind at Large"?
Does he anywhere attempt an ontological argument, or any other type of argument, for the existence of God, or Mind at Large?
Also, when you state that Kastrup argues "the universe is mind-dependent and the substance is 'mental,'" to what substance are you referring?
I thought Berkeley convincingly argued that, upon detailed analysis, material substance and nothingness had identical meanings.
Tom Storm 'what we take to be material objects would have a jerky life, suddenly leaping into being when we look at them' - this illustrates one of the fundamental misconceptions of idealism in my view. — Quixodian
The whole point of idealist philosophy is to come to understand the constitutive role of the mind in the generation of experience. And you can actually see that awareness growing in modern cultural discourse, with phenomenology being one of the key tributaries of it. But Berkeley, Kant, and Schopenhauer are all significant precursors to it (god bless 'em). — Quixodian
To clarify - are we not talking about two distinct accounts of idealism here? — Tom Storm
Also do you have a brief take how a Vedanta conception of reality might fit into this schema? — Tom Storm
that what we need to grasp is that all we know of existence — whether of an immediate object or the Universe at large — is a function of our world-making intelligence, the activity of the sophisticated hominid forebrain which sets us apart from other species. That’s what ‘empirical reality’ consists of. After all, the definition of ‘empirical’ is ‘based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience.’ — Quixodian
So, asking of the Universe ‘How does it exist outside our observation or experience of it?’ is an unanswerable question. But there is no need to posit a ‘mind at large’ to account for it, because there’s nothing to account for. — Quixodian
when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, "non-existence" with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, "existence" with reference to the world does not occur to one.' 1 — Quixodian
Russell's opinion misses a quality of Berkeley when Berkeley says nobody can actually question the phenomenal. Object permanence happens. God, in this situation, is not me. — Paine
But I think it is something along these lines: that what we need to grasp is that all we know of existence — whether of an immediate object or the Universe at large — is a function of our world-making intelligence, the activity of the sophisticated hominid forebrain which sets us apart from other species. — Quixodian
Some elements of it I've had for a long time, but I keep seeing new implications. — Quixodian
If you and I and everyone else we might ask see an orange on the table, how could our similar cognitive setups explain the fact that we all see a table with an orange on it rather than some else altogether? — Janus
Also, we have individual intelligences, so my intelligence could not make the world for you and vice versa; and yet we see the same things. — Janus
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