Analysing Berkeley’s Master Argument
Background: Materialism vs Idealism
Many philosophers try to answer the question of how reality is known to us. For this there are mainly two viewpoints: materialism and idealism, both of which stand at the opposite ends. Basis of materialism is that matter is first and then thinking matter (humans). The theory says that mind cannot exist without matter as the human brain is a part of the human body which is composed of matter. Matter exists independent of mind and latter is a specific property which comes later. On the other hand, idealists believe that mind is first and everything else depends on it. The theory conveys that mind is the reality and matter is no more than an illusion. It may be said that the idealists believe that there is a divine power above all and the human body is just a creature chosen by that divine power (God).
Introduction
George Berkeley was an irish philosopher who advocated the theory of ‘immaterialism’ in which he denies the existence of material objects and says that there are only ideas in the minds of people. His ideas are mentioned in his book ‘Three Dialogues’ which is now famously known as his ‘Master Argument’, the term coined by the philosopher ‘Andre Gallois’ in 1974. Before that it was known as the inconceivability argument.
Master Argument
According to his master argument, Berkeley says that one cannot conceive of something in the mind that is not seen. Initially it appears as if one can easily think of such an object but after careful thought one realises the contradiction in the statement. The explanation is simple. If one tries to conceive of an inconceivable thing, one has already conceived it. At a first glance this argument appears to be quite intuitive. But actually it’s not and many philosophers have gone on to criticise his works. In fact it turns out that Berkeley’s argument is stuck in its place with the existence of God and his ideas can only be applied to a subset of things as when applied to others his arguments are proven to be wrong.
Object vs Concept
In his ‘Three Dialogues’, Berkeley lays out his ideas by taking an example of a tree. He asks his interlocutor, Hylas, to try to conceive of an object without mind. Initially Hylas thinks of a tree and soon he recognises that he has made a mistake which led to contradiction. Now many philosophers counter this and say that his ideas are limited to objects and not concepts. This arises as Berkeley says that if one cannot form an image of something, then that doesn’t exist. Consider imagining ‘justice’. If one tries to form its image in mind, one might be visualizing a blind lady holding pans. But this lady is not justice. In fact one cannot form an image no matter how hard one tries. But we all know that justice exists but according to Berkeley, this shouldn’t happen. The fact highlighted here is that in his book, Berkeley was referring to the term objects in their colloquial sense rather than philosophical sense. If we think of an object as of a philosophical object, we can easily disprove his argument by thinking of any concept. Thus if one tries to justify Berkeley’s arguments, one needs to focus only on objects in their colloquial sense.
God’s Assistance
Apart from concepts, we can also consider colloquial objects to counter the argument. A famous slogan given by Berkeley is “For unthinking things, to exist is to be perceived”. In other words, if we cannot perceive something then that doesn’t exist. Consider a ball. This can be perceived and thus it exists. Now if we put this ball in an opaque closed box, we cannot perceive it. But when we take out this ball, we can perceive it. Thus while the ball is inside the box it doesn’t exist and as soon as we open the box, it exists. Since we know that the ball exists all the time, there seems to be some flaw in Berkeley’s argument. When questioned about this, Berkeley counters by saying that when the ball is inside the box, then also it exists as God perceives it. He says that God is omnipresent and perceives everything. Consider the famous puzzle “When a tree falls in a forest and there’s nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound?”. Berkeley would say ‘yes’ by saying that God has heard the tree falling so it does make sound. Consider another example. Several scientific discoveries such as discovery of protons, black holes etc. were not perceived by anyone until they were discovered. So should one say that these things were created as soon as someone perceived them? Again Berkeley argues that one need not to worry about scientific discoveries as God is always there to perceive these phenomena. Thus it turns out that Berkeley’s argument is stuck in place by the existence of God as whenever a counter arises, he says that God is there to perceive it.
Promoting Idealism
On further analysis, one might also comment that Berkeley is trying to promote idealism over here. Many philosophers claim that in his argument, he is trying to show that ‘matter’ is an abstract concept and this concept has no practical use. This is because in his dialogue with Hylas, he takes an example of a tree (material object for materialists). He then forces Hylas to arrive at a contradiction and then states that the tree only exists as an idea and there is no such thing as matter.
Russell’s Criticism
Bertrand Russell was among several philosophers who criticised Berkeley’s theory on idealism and his master argument. He points out that Berkeley is conflating two separate things to prove his ideas: apprehension and the act of apprehension. While the latter exists in the mind, the same cannot be said about the former. This can be understood with the help of an example of a play depicting a lonely sailor on an island. According to Berkeley, it is not possible that such a play exists as the sailor would never be lonely with the audience viewing it. But this is actually irrelevant. One could argue that the audience cannot see the actual sailor, but they only see the person playing his character and thus we can stage such a play. This is the flaw which Russell is trying to bring out. Apart from this he also says that if we agree to Berkeley’s thoughts, then we are limiting our mind’s power as our mind is one of the most powerful things and has the power to acquire any unknown knowledge. But if we say that we know everything that exists, we are making our mind not so powerful by limiting its capacity to learn new things.
Conclusion
Berkeley’s ideas are limited to colloquial objects rather than philosophical objects. Deeper analysis shows that his arguments are based on the foundations of idealism and in a sense through his arguments he is trying to justify why idealism is better than materialism. Besides he makes extensive use of God’s existence to defend his arguments by saying that God is one divine being who perceives everything. Also in his book ‘Three Dialogues’ Berkeley uses quite complex language which can be interpreted in many ways and this weakens his claims to a great extent. So based on these facts, I cannot say that Berkeley’s ideas are very convincing. They are good and can be applied to some aspects but they need a lot of refinement to be applicable to a larger scope.
