Berkeley argues for his idealism from the relativity of perception. He compares the size of a mite's foot as seen by the mite itself, by a human and by some smaller microorganism. What, exactly, is the argument? Is the argument successful? If not, how do we resist the sucking of all so-called primary qualities into the mind?
What Berkeley is trying to do here, is to prove that all qualities of that which exists are in the mind, so that he can prove that they cannot exist without the mind. There are many more compelling arguments made in this vein of reasoning than the one about the relative size of a mite's foot -- or anything for that matter. There are a couple of ways this argument could go and I know my writing's too wishy washy but I don't actually know which one I believe in/like better so I'm just going to present them both because in the end it doesn't really matter. Option 1: The mite's foot is a size. This size may appear larger or smaller because of the relative size of the being perceiving it, but it doesn't actually change the size of the foot any more than a building becomes smaller when viewed from a distance. Option 2: The mite's foot can be measured precisely, but any measurement we apply to it will be no more than the human invention of the inch (or some fraction of it, that foot is really small (the way I see it)), which is itself subject to our perception.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, it hardly matters. Because what Berkeley is really trying to do in the end is to prove that everything we perceive exists only as we perceive it. Perhaps a better example would be an adult walking into a room they'd known as a small child and seeing it completely differently. The room could be completely the same and they could know that, but they are perceiving it differently. Knowing that it was once perceived differently changes nothing, adding to the proof that all qualities exist in the mind -- or at least, all qualities that matter exist only in the mind, as we will never know anything that we can't perceive, and as soon as we perceive a thing, it is in our minds.
As with most philosophical arguments, the existence of a deity makes or breaks this. Without opening that can of worms though, I wonder, if God is omnipotent and omnipresent, we must seem as small as the foot of an amoeba to It.
Berkeley makes a very convincing and sound argument for the relativity of perception that is hard to deny without absurdity. While Hylas and Philonous are arguing over what lives in the mind, the text states, “Phil. Can one and the same thing be at the same time in itself of different dimensions? Hyl. That were absurd to imagine,” (Berkeley 24-25). What this is saying, in simpler terms, is that one thing cannot have two definitions of its dimensions at once. However, if you look at a mites foot from different perspectives, it would look completely different. For myself, it would look miniscule, but for the mite it would look normal sized. Therefore, what we perceive is relative, and only exists in the mind. This theory stands true because if you were to define perception as existing in the object, it would mean the object is both small and large at the same time, which is just logically not sound. This argument also stands the test of measurements, which some would say would quantify any object in a uniform sense. However, this only adds an insignificant layer to the equation, because an inch, for example, would still look large to a mite and small to a human. Adding measurements only makes the measurement the object that we analyze.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, in my opinion, as weird as it is to think about, all primary qualities do just exist in the mind. That does not mean they are not real, or have any less impact on us than ever before, it just means that everything we perceive is based on our own experiences and bodies, which I believe is a pretty fair claim to make.
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ReplyDeletePART 1
ReplyDeleteIn Berkeley’s Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, the character Philonous, who represents Berkeley’s line of thought, presents an interesting example in the dialogue about a human, a mite, and an even smaller organism, all of which are compared. Philonous says that the human will perceive the mite as small, and the third as minuscule; the mite will perceive the human as big, and the third as small; the third organism will perceive the mite as big and the human as enormous. From this, we understand that each being perceives the size of the other differently.
Philonous then references a previous idea that all objects must have compatible qualities. All objects can only be small, medium, or large, but they cannot have more than one of these qualities; all objects can only be red, blue, or yellow, but they cannot be more than one. Because size is a physical quality of an object, size follows. The contrasting perceptions of sizes between the three beings indicate a contradiction in perception. Therefore, Berkeley argues, size is a quality of the mind and doesn’t exist in the real world.
However, I argue that Berkeley’s argument about size belonging to the mind is incorrect because he fails to distinguish between what is real and what we perceive. He also implies that we can control the qualities of an object, which is also not true. Its desires and innate qualities all cause the being to understand the world differently from another, but this does not deny the fact that the quality of an object can be declared the same by every being that encounters it. This is important because it defines every quality as existing in the real world. After all, no thinking being can see it differently from another being–a crucial point in disproving Berkeley’s argument. Every quality perceived by a being is biased by that being to fit its likings and understanding of the world around it but their interpretation of such a quality does not influence the existence and value of the quantity itself.
Simply put, a measurable quantity or any quality belonging to an object exists separate from our existence. We can only declare that the value given to any quality is what it is, but it is up to our mental structure to decide what that means for us. We decide for ourselves whether or not a quality is small, but we do not for the quality itself. Berkeley’s argument is wrong because we cannot influence the world as he implies, and there are unchangeable objective quantities (the real world) and biased versions of those quantities (from our mind).
PART 2
ReplyDeleteIf the argument is unclear, we can think of it this way. Berkeley argues that an object is influenced by what we perceive about it, but I am arguing that we are influenced by what our bodies and minds make us interpret the object to be.
Any object in bulk has a declared and objective quality and characteristic. For example, if I were picking apples to eat, I may pick 40 pounds or 120 apples, which all sit in a cart. Anyone who wishes to count the apples inside the cart will find exactly 120 apples in the cart. If one wishes to dump all the apples out of the cart for a particular reason, one will find that exactly 120 apples will fall out of the cart. If multiple people can declare its quantity, it is not only defined in the real world but also our minds how much it is. However, one may think that the 120 apples in the cart are not enough compared to what they were hoping for; they want 180 apples. Another may think that the 120 apples in the cart is too much compared to what they wanted, just 60 apples. This does not mean that the apples in the cart are objectively too small or too large; rather, it is just what is perceived. Therefore, the number of apples in the cart cannot have any incompatible qualities because all the qualities that we imagine are relative to another idea within our mind–not connected to the quantity itself; as we have already established, the amount of apples in the cart is an objective value.
Look back at the mite, the microorganism, and the human example. I will declare the human as five to six feet tall, the mite several millimeters, and the microorganism just several micrometers. Each of these has a declared size and declared dimensions which are objective and cannot be changed; any being can measure these three organisms using a standardized unit of measurement (in this case, the metric system) and unequivocally declare the same values for each. Then, if compared next to each other, it is reasonable to say that the human will conclude that the mite is small and the microorganism is tiny; the mite will conclude that the human is larger and the microorganism is smaller; the microorganism will conclude that the mite is large and the human is enormous. However, these are only perceptions and biased interpretations of objective values, which only exist in the mind. The biased conclusions based on what each of the beings perceives cannot influence what is separate from the being. With this in mind, we find that–again–there are no incompatible qualities because all of the contrasting conclusions each being makes about the world around it do not influence the objective values of its surrounding objects.
Using this logic, we can argue that all of the physical qualities and quantities assigned to objects cannot be interpreted as part of the mind because what we perceive about an object is only because what we know about the world around us causes our minds to bias and influence the qualities we perceive to fit with what we know. Colorblind people may perceive a red apple as blue, while non-colorblind people will perceive it as it is objectively defined: red. In a similar example, the texture of an object can be perceived differently by different beings who have experienced different things; one being that has experienced rough and coarse trail terrain will conclude that sidewalk cement is very smooth; another being that has experienced a truly level and smooth terrain will conclude that sidewalk cement is very rough. It may seem that the texture of a terrain is subjective, but we can objectively measure it with friction. No matter how rough or smooth a terrain may be when compared to another object, its friction coefficient value will always remain the same; it is an objective value.
We can also prove all other physical qualities to be an objective value that defines it in the real world.