Bettcher - Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit. Consciousness, Ontology and The Elusive Subject
Bettcher - Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit. Consciousness, Ontology and The Elusive Subject
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Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1 Berkeley's Project 8
4 Purity of Spirit 55
Notes 133
Bibliography 159
Index 168
To Helen Leary
That we have first raised a dust, and then complain, we cannot see.l
The views of Descartes, Hume, and Kant on self and self-consciousness have
secured an almost mythological status in philosophy. According to the
famous philosophical story, Descartes claimed to perceive an T which
accompanied his mental states. But when Hume 'entered most intimately
into what he called himself he perceived only perceptions and concluded
the self was nothing but a bundle of perceptions. Failing to find anything to
hold the bundle together, Hume ultimately abandoned this account. Kant
would show that Hume had left out the 'transcendental unity of conscious-
ness' which secured this unity without any metaphysical soul.2
By contrast, Berkeley's views about self and self-consciousness have been
relegated to virtual ignominy. Alas, Berkeley's commitment to spiritual sub-
stance has been the subject of controversy and, not so infrequently, an object
of derision. In another traditional story, Berkeley is the middle figure of the
'empiricist triumvirate.' He rejects material substratum on the basis of a
Humean argument (it cannot be perceived; there is no idea of it) but
attempts to retain spiritual substratum despite the fact that it, too, cannot
be perceived. Inevitably, Berkeley's notorious and seemingly ad hoc claim
that while we lack an idea of spirit, we nonetheless have a notion of it has
been met with considerable scepticism. It is easy to see Berkeley as a
double-sided or torn figure: He has the philosophical sharpness of a Hume;
he is blinded by religion.5
The fact that Berkeley intended to publish a second part of the Principles to
treat of spirits more fully, yet failed to produce it, has only underscored the
concern. Berkeley writes to Johnson:
It has been easy to speculate that the real reason Berkeley never re-wrote his
lost manuscript was the fundamental incoherence of the account itself.
Adding to the dramatic appeal of this story, in his early notebooks, Berke-
ley appears to have endorsed a proto-Humean conception of the mind -
something of the type that Hylas defended (3D III 233). Beginning with
entry 577, 'The very existence of Ideas constitutes the soul,' there is a
set of entries: 57881, 63738, 672 in which Berkeley makes claims such
as the following: 'Mind is a congeries of Perceptions. Take away Perceptions
& you take away the Mind put the Perceptions & you put the mind'
(PC 580). This, and the incoherence which allegedly blights Berkeley's
published account of spirit, has yielded speculation of a more duplici-
tous Berkeley who kept secret his true account of the mind, while officially
offering up an indefensible theory. Whether Berkeley is viewed as simply
blundering or duplicitous, this over-arching story places a philosophical
Berkeley at odds with the more theological one.7
Methodological Considerations
with Irish analogy:' 'Tis true he holds there is something in the divine nature
analogous or equivalent to those attributes,' writes Berkeley, 'But upon such
principles I must confess I do not see how it is possible to demonstrate the
being of God. ...' 1 7
Let me also observe that Browne claims in the Letter that he has an argu-
ment for the immateriality of the soul and an argument against the possibil-
ity of superadding thought to matter which are beyond his present purpose to
share. These are subsequently presented in the Procedure. This suggests that
some of Browne's views expressed in the Procedure are already well-developed
when Berkeley is a student at Trinity. And ifjonathan Swift is at all correct in
his assessment of Browne ('. . . you must flatter him monstrously upon his
Learning and his Writings; that you have read his Book against Toland a
hundred Times . . .'), it would not be surprising that Berkeley should have
been made familiar with them, whether he wanted to hear them or not. 19
Additionally, Browne and King were in attendance when Berkeley pre-
sented 'Of Infinites' to the Dublin Philosophical Society (November 19,
1707). 20 At this point, Berkeley accepted a Lockean account of meaning
(all categorematic terms require ideas). Yet by Berkeley's first extant
sermon, 'Of Immortality' (January 11, 1708) he had rejected this view. 21
The presentation at the Dublin Philosophical Society may very well have
led to a clash between Berkeley and Browne/King and a subsequent altera-
tion in Berkeley's views.22
There is further evidence of Browne's influence on Berkeley very early in
his notebooks. At PC 176 Berkeley abruptly raises a worry about the meta-
phorical use of language. He claims that insensible things are described in
terms borrowed from sensible things. At PC 176a, Berkeley claims that we
lack ideas of reflection ('this is metaphorical dress we have not'). Both are
views articulated by Browne in his rejection of Lockean ideas of reflection
(Procedure 97). At PC 177, Berkeley wonders how our idea of God can be
complex when his essence is simple. Again, this can be found in Browne (Pro-
cedure 82). Up to this stage in the notebooks, however, Berkeley had sup-
posed that there is a complex idea of the soul which includes willing and
perceiving (see PC 44, PC 154). This suggests Berkeley's abrupt change is
possibly inspired by Browne.
Moreover, these men share similar views about abstraction. In the Proce-
dure Browne devotes an entire chapter to the topic, echoing some of the argu-
ments of Berkeley. To be sure, there are important differences in terms of the
sort of abstraction they are attacking, as well as their arguments against it.
My point is that there is sufficient overlap to raise the question of influence.
And it seems plausible that Browne influenced Berkeley rather than the
other way around.
6 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
While there is little change in Berkeley's published philosophy up to 1733,
an apparently substantial change comes in Berkeley's second edition of
the Principles and third edition of the Dialogues in 1734. Among other things,
Berkeley adds two important exchanges between Hylas and Philonous
about the concern that spiritual substance ought to be rejected, and he
draws a distinction between notions and ideas claiming that while we lack
ideas of spirits, their mental operations, and relations, we nonetheless pos-
sess notions of them (PHK I 27, 89, 140, 142).
I resist the view that Berkeley's defense of his philosophy of spirit requires
this appeal to notions. In the first edition of the Principles, Berkeley purports
to answer important puzzles about the nature of self-knowledge (PHK I
135,136). He claims to answer the worry that there is a deficiency of knowl-
edge with respect to spirit. He begins, 'The great reason that is assigned for
our being thought ignorant of the nature of spirits, is, our not having an idea
of it' (PHK I 135). The peculiar answer to this problem, according to Ber-
keley, is precisely that there cannot^ an idea of spirit: 'But surely it ought not
to be looked on as a defect in a human understanding, that it does not per-
ceive the idea of spirit, if it is manifestly impossible that there should be any
suchzW^' (PHK I 135).
It is curious that Berkeley felt he had something interesting to say about
our knowledge of spirits without appealing to notions. This fact sits uncom-
fortably with the view that Berkeley introduces notions as a way to salvage
his account of spirit. Berkeley's solution to the worry that our knowledge
of the soul is deficient turns on the very denial that there can be an idea of
spirit, unapologetically announced in the first edition of the Principles. Let
me forewarn, then, that my defense of Berkeley's philosophy of spirit shall
have the possibly dubious distinction of failing to centralize Berkeley's
alleged 'doctrine of notions.' Instead, I focus on Berkeley's philosophy of
spirit prior to his appeal to 'notions' in 1734. It is the 'pre-notion' view
which I defend from the charge of incoherence.
To be sure, the Berkeley of the first editions has views about meaning that
seem relevant to his account of notions. In the first edition of the Principles,
Berkeley writes, Tn a large sense indeed, we may be said to have an idea of
spirit that is, we understand the meaning of the word, otherwise we could not
affirm or deny any thing of it' (PHK I 140); in the second edition this is
changed to include 'or rather a notion.' However, it is only by understand-
ing Berkeley's initial account of spirit that we can begin to assess whether the
subsequent deployment of'notion' flags a substantive philosophical position
that can itself be viewed as a development in Berkeley's position or whether
it was already there present in his 1710 work. 23
Introduction 1
Berkeley's Project
Locke
John Toland argues that our ignorance with respect to the Divine Nature
hardly constitutes a mystery. 11 It suffices that we have ideas of some of the
10 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
Divine Attributes. In making this claim, Toland appeals to Locke's distinc-
tion between nominal and real essence, as well as the Lockean position that
soul and body are equally (un) known. He concludes that our ignorance of
God's nature no more constitutes a mystery than our ignorance of the real
essence of bodies or finite spirits. In response to this, Browne renders myster-
ious not only the Divine Nature, but the properties and attributes of any
spirit whatsoever. As a consequence, one is in no position to look at one's
own mental operations as a way of (however inadequately) understanding
the Divine Attributes. Instead, one may understand any spirit only by way
of analogy.
In particular, Browne notes that we can only comprehend God's infinity
(e.g. eternity, power) through a confused process of accumulation; we
lack any positive idea of it (Letter 44-5). He denies that our own ideas of
spiritual properties can provide us with a 'direct and immediate' concep-
tion of the properties of a pure spirit (such as God, or even the pure
spirit that is within us). Thinking in human beings is performed 'by help
of material Organs, and more immediately by the Fibres of the Brain'
(Letter 42); consequently human spirits are far too interblended with matter
for the mental operations we are conscious of to be representative of a
pure spirit.
Browne denies that our ideas of the properties of spirit are equally
clear and distinct as our ideas of the properties of body. We know many
properties of matter (extension, solidity, divisibility, gravity), we know
only one property of a spirit (namely thought) which itself has many
different modifications (Letter 127-8). The only reason we attribute think-
ing and motion to spirit is because we can demonstrate that matter cannot
think and matter cannot self-move (43). We cannot even clearly distinguish
between thought and motion in a spirit; they may actually be the same.
We know immaterial substance only through negating the properties of
matter. Consequently, Browne denies that we know spirit positively and
immediately.
In the Procedure, Browne likewise denies that we can turn reflection upon
our mental operations and form simple ideas of reflection of them (Procedure
412). One of his concerns is that the objects we immediate perceive come in
through sensation, and the mind operates upon such ideas as are stored
in the memory. In doing this, the mind is conscious of its operations, but
cannot reflect upon itself. The supposition that reflection is possible involves
an illicit abstraction of the operation from the object itself upon which
it is operating.
It is in part because of the fact that these operations cannot be separated
from the materials of sensation that they are incapable of yielding direct
Berkeley's Project 11
In his Essay Concerning the Use of Reason in Propositions (1707), Collins renews
the attack on the mysteries made by Toland. He takes up two related
issues treated by Edward Stillingfleet in the sermon The Mysteries of The
Christian Faith Asserted and Vindicated (1691). One issue concerns the eternity
of God. Stillingfleet argues that God's eternity is mysterious. As one
instance, he argues that it is hard to reconcile Boethius' view that 'Eternity
. . . is the complete, simultaneous and perfect possession of everlasting
life' with the variable activities that God appears to have engaged in over
time (Mysteries 21-2).
In response to this, Collins argues that this Boethian view is incoherent:
'. .. to say God exists all at once, &c. is to say that he actually exists in time
past, present, and to come; that is, that time past is not past, and that time
to come is come, and was always come' (Essay 54). Collins adopts the view
that God exists in time, undergoing succession as there are distinct opera-
tions of God over time (55). 13
The other issue concerns the compatibility of Divine prescience with gen-
uine human liberty. While Stillingfleet views this as a mystery, Collins
argues for an incompatibility between the two and defends a watered down
view of liberty as the '.. . Power to do or forebear several Actions, according
to the Determination of his Mind . . .' (47). This is part of his larger project of
undermining the doctrine of human liberty. And it is related, in some
degree, to Locke's own treatment of the will.
Now the compatibility of divine foreknowledge and human liberty
is the central issue taken up by King in his Sermon on Predestination (1709).
King appeals to a notion of analogy in order to allow that while human
foreknowledge of events and liberty are inconsistent, we understand
God's foreknowledge only analogically and consequently any concerns
about inconsistency are avoided.
King has much the same notion as Browne. However, he claims that
terms such as 'loving' and 'wise' apply to God in the same non-literal way
that physical terms apply to him: Saying that God is wise is like speaking of
the finger of God. For Browne, this is a misunderstanding of analogy, and he
complains about King's slide into metaphor in his Procedure (13-16).
12 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
The difference between the two views is not so great in the end. Browne
had appealed to the notion of analogy in addressing the compatibility of
divine foreknowledge and human liberty in his Letter (456). Browne (just
as Locke and Clarke) had rejected the Scholastic notion of the punctum stans
(permanent instant) (Letter 126). And Collins' Vindication of the Divine Attri-
butes shows how close King's (and Browne's) view comes to yielding a nega-
tive theology that surrenders the game to agnosticism: 'And therefore by
understanding Foreknowledg [sic] in a different sense from what is suppos'd
in the Objection, and not assigning any determinate sense to the word, all
Objections whatever are prevented; for no Man can object to he knows not
what . . .' (16). The problem is that understanding God's foreknowledge as
similar to our own leads to an incompatibility with genuine human liberty.
Yet to depart from our common understanding of knowledge is to drain the
claim that God is all-knowing of any sense whatsoever.
Spirituality
According to Hobbes since 'body' and 'substance' mean the same thing,
'incorporeal substance' is a contradiction in terms. The word 'spirit' in
common usage means 'subtle fluid, and invisible body, or a ghost, or other
idol or phantasm of the imagination.' It can also have metaphorical signifi-
cations as in 'spirit of contradiction.' If'spirit' is ever used to signify 'God'
then this usage
. . . falleth not under humane Understanding; and our Faith therein con-
sisteth not in our Opinion, but in our Submission . . . For the nature of God
is incomprehensible; that is to say, we understand nothing of what he is, but
only that he is; and therefore the Attributes we give him, are not to tell one
another, what he is . . . but our desire to honor him with such names as we
15
conceive most honorable amongst our selves.
does not exclude the materiality of it. While Locke affirms that God is not
extended, his account of spirit moves him closer to Hobbes.
Generally, the existence of God and the immortality of the soul were taken
as the two basic doctrines of natural (as opposed to scripturally revealed
religion). According to Stillingfleet, Locke's position strips away the
rational foundation for belief in the soul's immortality (the argument to
immortality from the immateriality of the soul). And while Locke denies
that his position has any tendency to undermine faith, he is also happy
to accept the immortality of the soul on the basis of revelation alone.20
He points out that most Christians base their belief in immortality upon
revelation, rather than philosophical argument. 21
Like Stillingfleet, Samuel Clarke, in his Letter to Mr. Dodwell (1707), raises
the worry that Dodwell's view that the soul is naturally mortal may have a
tendency to undermine faith in a future state. Those who come to believe in
the soul's natural mortality, Clarke argues, will be inclined to believe that it
perishes at the dissolution of the body and will be disinclined to believe that
God will work 'a perpetual miracle' to keep the naturally mortal soul in exis-
tence in order to inflict eternal punishment upon it. 22
By contrast, in the Procedure Browne grants that while he has provided no
demonstration of the soul's immateriality, it is founded upon the highest
moral certainty which is sufficient to render the refusal of assent inexcus-
able to God. While mathematical demonstrations (based upon clear and
distinct ideas) compel assent, moral proofs (based upon analogical knowl-
edge) ought to determine the judgment but leave latitude for the will. Even
natural religion requires faith, since it is grounded in analogy. This accords
with his confidence in the Letter that he could give a proof for the immateri-
ality of the soul, which while not as strong as a mathematical demonstra-
tion, was at least'. .. as good proof for the immateriality of the Soul, as we can
reasonably expect for any natural or moral truth' which is 'sufficient for the
conviction of any, except those who by their Principles are oblig'd to
oppose it' (Letter 131). Yet this proof is ultimately drawn from passages of
the scripture which he views as a '. . . a plain and express Revelation
of the Immateriality of the Human Soul; and of the Materiality of that in
Brutes' (Procedure 362). The reason for this is that all religious knowledge,
for Browne, depends upon analogical knowledge, and therefore requires
Berkeley's Project 15
Resurrection
In his dispute with Collins, Clarke argues that if the soul is nothing but a
material system, the scriptural doctrine of the resurrection cannot be sus-
tained. Should the same particles be reassembled on Judgment Day, it is
clear that personal identity cannot consist in those particles since they are
ever fleeting. But to restore the power of thinking to the resurrected body
would simply be to create a new person.28 In response, Collins appeals to
Locke's theory of personal identity. 29 But Clarke points out that in Collins'
account of resurrection, it would be possible for God to create several beings
at Judgment Day, all of whom had memories of the same former life.30
Obviously, this would wreak havoc in terms of the distribution of reward
and punishment, not to mention lead to the conclusion that these many res-
urrected individuals would be the same person. But, Collins has no reply
16 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
except a surprising appeal to the scriptural basis of Stillingfleet's views of
resurrection and mystery itself.
Socrates spent his time in reasoning on the most noble and important
subjects, the nature of the gods, the dignity and duration of the soul, and
the duties of a rational creature. He was always exposing the vanity of
Sophists, painting vice and virtue in their proper colours, deliberating
on the public good, enflaming the most noble and ungenerous tempers
with the love of great actions. In short his whole employment was the
turning men aside from vice, impertinence, and trifling speculations to
the study of solid wisdom, temperance, justice, and piety, which is the
true business of a philosopher.32
Though it seems the general opinion of the world, no less than the design
of Nature and Providence, that the end of speculation be practice, or
the improvement and regulation of our lives and actions; yet those, who
are most addicted to speculative studies, seem as generally of another
mind. (3D 167)
On this point, Berkeley is even more specific about what he means in the
concluding paragraph of the Principles.
For after all, what deserves the first place in our studies, is the considera-
tion of God, and our duty] which to promote, as it was the main drift
and design of my labours, so shall I esteem then altogether useless and
Berkeley's Project 17
mortality of the soul. According to Berkeley, these men are unable to con-
ceive of any eternal state devoid of sense perception.5 Perhaps it is for this
reason that they never move beyond immersion in senses to yearn for spiri-
tual things - our natural trajectory. They only experience an ultimate
satiety of the senses, and prefer annihilation to life eternal.
Since Berkeley's aim is to motivate men of speculation to virtue through
establishing the natural immortality of the soul, it is clear that relega-
tion of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul to a matter of revelation
(as opposed to natural religion) would be anathema to him. According to
Berkeley, the immortality of the soul was a truth possibly discovered by
53
some of the heathen philosophers.
Yet, I doubt he would have followed Stillingfleet in worrying that the shift
from natural religion to revelation would have served to undermine faith (at
least of'the vulgar'). Berkeley is clear that while the ancient philosophers
may have used reason to attain this knowledge, this would have simply left
most men in the dark. Consequently, he appeals to the monumental sig-
nificance of the revelation of life immortal through Christ (which people are
predisposed to believe). He is in agreement with Locke that most people do
not believe in the immortality of the soul on the basis of its immateriality.
However, he would have worried (along with Clarke) that the thesis that
the soul is naturally mortal has pernicious consequences. As Clarke points
out, men who do not reason subtly may latch on to this idea and conclude
straightaway that the soul dissipates with the body at the moment of death.
In this way, such a belief can have a tendency to undermine faith. No doubt,
Berkeley would have likewise worried about Locke's understanding the
word 'spirit' in such a way that tends toward viewing it as inflamed air.
Given his views about our chief end and happiness, it would be imperative
for Berkeley to stop free-thinkers from teaching against the soul's immortal-
ity. Yet any appeal to faith or revelation would be insufficient to address
such men. Consequently he would view Locke's (and Browne's) relegation
of the immortality of the soul to a matter of revelation as having dangerous
consequences, making it impossible to address free-thinkers by reason.
Berkeley's abiding concern with Lockean ignorance is central in the
Introduction to the Principles. It is hard not to suppose Berkeley has Locke's
explanation of philosophical perplexity and endless dispute in mind when he
says: 'It is said the faculties we have are few, and those designed by nature for
the support and comfort of life, and not to penetrate into the inward essence
and constitution of things' (PHK I Intro 2). Indeed, if Locke's solution to
philosophical perplexity is to have us 'sit down in a quiet ignorance,' it is
perhaps with Locke in mind that Berkeley speaks instead of having to 'sit
down in a forelorn scepticism.'55 Consider Berkeley's reply:
20 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
We should believe that God has dealt more bountifully with the sons of
men, than to give them a strong desire for that knowledge, which He had
placed quite out of their reach. This were not agreeable to the wonted,
indulgent methods of Providence, which, whatever appetites it may have
implanted in the creatures, doth usually furnish them with such means as,
if rightly made use of, will not fail to satisfy them. (PHK Intro 3)
ideas, they are not extended and therefore indivisible. There are three prob-
lems, however, which afflict this overall strategy.
1. Consciousness
Collins argues that even if Clarke succeeds in showing the natural immortal-
ity of the soul, to secure the ends of religion and morality it must be shown
that we continue to exist in a state of actual thinking after death. To do this it
must be demonstrated that the action of thinking is inseparably connected
to the immaterial substance of the soul. While Clarke may show that the
soul insofar as it has the capacity to think is immortal, this is no proof that it
actually continues to think. Unfortunately, Clarke ultimately does not
have much to say on this point except'. . . my argument is evidently useful to
Religion, by proving at least the Possibility and great Probability of the future
59
state of Rewards and Punishments. . ..'
By contrast, Clarke argues it is absurd that consciousness could exist in so
flux a substance as matter. Because personal identity consists in conscious-
ness, the view would require the transferring of consciousness from one sub-
ject to another (making consciousness quite independent of any particular
subject). 60 To this, Collins replies that it makes no sense to make personal
identity consist in the continuation of the numerically same consciousness,
since consciousness is fleeting with each passing thought. Instead, he appeals
to a Lockean account of personal identity. Clarke complains this is nothing
but a fiction since it would attribute to a subject that which was not in fact
done by it.61
If Collins is correct, it is insufficient to show the soul is naturally immortal.
It needs to be shown that the soul as actually thinking is naturally immortal.
But, if Locke is correct in his criticism of Descartes that the soul does not
always think, then this would be ruled out as an option. Neither does the
Lockean self seem to be an especially good candidate, if Clarke is correct.
The only other solution is to identify the soul as that which is given in con-
sciousness at any one moment. The difficulty with this move is that the soul
would seem to perish with each passing thought.
In their dispute, Collins presents Clarke the following dilemma: If God can
destroy a property of a thinking thing without altering any parts, short of
some argument distinguishing the cases, there is no reason to believe there
is any repugnancy with this occurring due to forces of nature. If, however,
destroying a property of a thinking thing involves the alteration of parts,
then the capacity of God to destroy a power that he has superadded to a
spirit, shows the discerptibility of the soul. If God can superadd a property
(as Clarke grants), why can't he take it away?64
Clarke's response to this last dilemma is curious. Accepting none of these
possibilities, he claims that if God were to destroy a property of the soul, this
would involve some alteration in the substance which is analogous to an
alteration in parts but nonetheless distinct from it. Thus, the soul would
Berkeley's Project 23
Berkeley's views appear to emerge out of these issues. His notebooks begin in
1707 (A. A. Luce dates the beginning of the notebooks around June 1707) ,66
And the nature of his reflections suggests that he was inspired by some of the
Clarke-Collins correspondence as well as Collins' Essay. He starts with
an investigation into time, the immortality of the soul, and the nature of
God's eternity. Berkeley asks whether there is '. . . a succession of ideas in
the divine intellect?' (PC 3). And he proceeds with something like a Lockean
self. In one his earliest entries, Berkeley writes:
Eternity is onely a train of innumerable ideas, hence the immortality of ye
Soul easily conceiv'd. or rather the immortality of the person, y1 or ye soul
not being necessary for ought we can see. (PC 14)
He also seems to have been concerned by the question 'about the Soul or
rather person whether it be not compleatly known' (PC 25). Indeed, Berke-
ley seems to have been trying to work out a view about the soul as substance
by using the self as a kind of starting point:
24 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
Qu: whether being might not be the substance of ye soul or (otherwise
thus) whether being added to ye faculties compleat the real essence and
adequate definition of the soul? (PC 44, cf. PC 154)67
spirits are self-existent; he needs to allow that God can destroy them. But he
does need to show that spirits don't come and go in the way that ideas do.
As we shall see, his answer depends on his controversial views about time.
Conclusion
Substance-Mode Ontology
Modes or accidents are not merely dependent. They are dependent in a way
that is to some degree connected to notions of subject and property.
A second feature, related to the preceding, is that the admission of modes
or accidents into the ontology involves a serious commitment; they secure a
distinctive ontological status. According to the Scholastic view, while sub-
stance and accidents/modes all count as real (as 'being') y privations and
negations do not. Consider Aquinas' distinction between two senses of
'a being.' In the first sense it is 'divided by the ten categories.' In the second
sense, 'anything can be called a being if an affirmative proposition can
be formed about it, even though it is nothing positive in reality.' He writes,
Tn this way privations and negations are called beings, for we say that affir-
mation is opposed to negation, and that blindness is in the eye.'13 Conse-
quently, while there is one sense in which blindness exists and is a being, in
the more robust metaphysical sense, blindness is not so much a being as a
The Rejection of Mode Ontology 29
So that I have the good luck here again to agree with your lordship: and
consequently conclude, I have your approbation in this, that the substra-
tum to modes or accidents, which is our idea of substance in general, is
founded in this, "that we cannot conceive how modes or accidents can
subsist by themselves".24
motivates his insistence that an explication be given in the first place. Berke-
ley's concern is that the philosophical deployment of such expressions
departs from the common meanings. His point is that when philosophers
use common expressions in uncommon ways, they owe an explanation of
what they are talking about. Otherwise, they are deploying unexplained
metaphors. For Berkeley, this means that philosophers must actually pro-
vide some 'common' translation of the philosophically appropriated and fig-
uratively re-deployed expressions.
Yet, if they are asked to explain this thing in addition to extension that
they pretend to see in matter, they do so in ways that indicate that they
have no other idea of this thing than being or substance in general. . . . (SAT
B3,P2,C8, 245, my italics) 27
Philonous works hard to have Hylas agree that '. . . extension is only a
mode, and matter something that supports modes' and that '. . . the thing
supported is different from the thing supporting' (3D III 198). So in confes-
sing that 'I, who am thinking, am distinct from my thought' has Descartes
not granted an important premise in Berkeley's argument? It isn't clear, I
suppose. What is clear is that Berkeley takes Descartes to make this commit-
ment in his reply to Hobbes, and possibly sees Descartes as open to his argu-
ment. By contrast, a view which does not make this distinction is guilty of a
'conflation.' Berkeley presumably rejects this latter position on the grounds
that it involves an abstraction from particular extensions to extension in
general (3D I 1924) and from particular thoughts to thought in general.
It cannot be maintained that Berkeley adopts a Cartesian account of mind.
Locke offers an account of simple ideas and our perception of them which is
deeply informed by the traditional ontological framework. For according
to Locke, there is a contrast between two ways of understanding ideas.
He writes:
To discover the nature of our Ideas the better, and to discourse of them
intelligibly, it will be convenient to distinguish them, as they are Ideas or
Perceptions in our Minds; and as they are modifications of matter in the
Bodies that cause such Perceptions in us. ... (E. 2.8.7, 134)
He continues: '. . . the Powers to produce those Ideas in us, as they are in the
Snow-ball, I call Qualities] and as they are Sensations, or Perceptions, in
our Understandings, I call them Ideas . . .' (E. 2.8.8, 134). In Locke's view,
white may be viewed as a sensation or perception, and it may also be viewed
as a modification or power of matter. When one receives a simple idea of
white, one perceives the accident white, which 'doth really exist, and hath
a Being without me' (E. 4. 11.2, 631). Insofar as 'all simple ideas, all sensible
qualities carry with them a supposition of a substratum to exist in, and
of a substance wherein they inhere,' we may be said to have sensitive
knowledge of the existence of the thing which is white (the thing which
has the quality whiteness) through the perception of the simple idea of
white alone.34
In rejecting the support relation as unintelligible, Berkeley must not only
reject the notion of a (material) substratum - he must also reject this notion
of mode as well. Such items are informed by the relation of inherence, and
cannot be understood without it. In short, once we reject the relation, we
must likewise reject both relata. That Berkeley explicitly rejects this modal
way of viewing ideas emerges in his Dialogues version of the argument
against Lockean substratum. He has Hylas draw this Lockean distinction
between viewing white as an idea or sensation and viewing it as a quality or
power in the object. Hylas says:
The argument concludes with the explicit rejection of ideas viewed as 'so
many modes and qualities.' Philonous claims: 'That is to say, when you con-
ceive the real existence of qualities, you do withal conceive something which
you cannot conceive' (3D I 199). Berkeley does not only reject Lockean sub-
stratum. He rejects the supported items themselves.
According to Locke, the compound idea of substance in general arises
because our simple ideas carry the supposition of support. Lacking the posi-
tive idea of anything specific, we use the abstract, indeterminate idea of
'something' (which is derived from our simple ideas) and compare it with
the idea of an accident in order to form the idea of the relation of support.
The indeterminate idea of 'a mere something' together with the idea of
support are combined to yield the relative notion of substance in general.35
So Locke might appear to have a good answer to Berkeley's challenge to
provide 'support' with content. Yet Berkeley's argument remains effective,
because he challenges Locke's unquestioned assumption that simple ideas
may be viewed as accidents in the first place. In making this move, Berkeley
does not deny that various properties can be affirmed of various different
objects. Berkeley has Philonous remark, 'That the colours are really in the
tulip which I see, is manifest' (3D I 195) .Just as such claims needn't be seen
as requiring a subject in addition to a collection of properties, they needn't
be seen as requiring accidents in addition to the thing itself. Indeed, once
one commits to the existence of modes or accidents articulated within sub-
stance-mode ontology, one may not flout the principle that modes cannot
exist on their own. The only way that Berkeley can avoid this conclusion is to
refuse the starting commitment altogether.
This means that it is not correct to see Berkeley as identifying sensible
qualities with ideas, if we understand the former as 'modes' or 'accidents'.
Consider the passage which probably most clearly suggests that for Berkeley
common objects are collections of qualities. He writes, '. . . to me a die seems
to be nothing distinct from those things which are termed its modes or acci-
dents.' (PHK I 49). Notice Berkeley's careful wording. He avoids commit-
ting to the actual existence of modes or accidents, saying that the die is not
distinct from 'those things which are termed its modes or accidents.' Rather,
such objects are clearly collections of sensible ideas. Berkeley writes, 'Since
it is not a being distinct from sensations; a cherry, I say, is nothing but a
congeries of sensible impressions, or ideas perceived by various senses . . .'
(3D III 249).
The point can be pressed by recognizing that for Berkeley there is hardly
a one-one correspondence between quality and idea. Locke writes that
while qualities are blended and mixed together in the object, ideas of those
qualities (such as cold and hard) enter the mind as simple, unmixed ideas
38 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
(E. 2.2.1, 119). Berkeley, presumably representing Locke's view in an
altered (and antagonistic) way, suggests that what enters the mind is a com-
pounded or mixed idea, which is submitted to an illicit process of'abstrac-
tion' whereby each quality is singled out. He writes:
Berkeley denies that one can 'abstract one from another, or conceive sepa-
rately, those qualities which it is impossible should exist so separated . . .'
(PHK I Intro 10). So he appears to be rejecting the view that the mixed
idea of an object extended, coloured, and moved can be broken down into
distinct simple ideas of its extension, color, and motion. Rather, Berkeley
endorses the view the one may selectively consider certain aspects of a
mixed idea without attending to others (3D I 193). So one needs to be care-
ful in interpreting Berkeley's claim that a die is nothing but what are termed
its modes and accidents. The die is a congeries of mixed ideas. The qualities
are at best aspects of those ideas that may be selectively considered.
The point that I insist upon is that in rejecting 'existence in by way of
mode' as a viable relation, Berkeley cannot retain modes. Yet if Berkeley
does not admit such items into his ontology, how is such a collapse into
such items possible? While Berkeley does not explicitly address Locke's
spiritual substratum, he does address something close in another passage.
He writes:
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 hath 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, soul, spirit, do not stand for different ideas, or in truth, for any idea
at a l l . . . . (PHK I 27)
Locke does not think that we have a positive idea of substance in general.
But the rest of this account applies to Locke. While Berkeley does not expli-
citly draw on his earlier criticism of the support relation, there is also no
reason to believe Berkeley wouldn't be critical of this notion for similar
The Rejection of Mode Ontology 39
reasons. Indeed, it is hard not to believe that Berkeley wants us to read this
passage in light of his earlier comments at PHK 116 and 17 about the sup-
port relation and 'being in general.'
While it is true that Berkeley's argument applies to Locke's notion of a
spiritual substratum, it does not follow that we are left with free-floating
powers. We are no more left with a collection of mental properties or
powers than we are left with a collection of sensible accidents. In rejecting
the relation of support, Berkeley has rejected all of those items. Berkeley
writes instead: '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' (PHK 127). His claim is that there is just one
thing which gets called the will and the understanding. Instead of taking the
Lockean properties, grouping them together, and calling them 'a mind,'
these properties/powers have vanished as viable ontological elements.
Instead there is one 'simple, undivided' being which itself gets considered
both faculties.
One might worry about a collapse of spirit into actual perceptions and
volitions, rather than some collapse into powers or faculties. Yet, Locke
recognizes these general powers as the chief'properties' of the mind. So, if
we were worried that a mind was going to collapse into its properties, this is
precisely the worry we ought to have. And if we are worried about a collapse
into perceptions and volitions, we need to recognize that in Berkeley's view
they cannot be construed as modes and accidents. So there appears to be no
obvious reason why spirit should collapse into perceptions and volitions -
especially since we don't know what they are.
As it turns out, the underlying ontology doesn't matter very much in
terms of Berkeley's account at PHK I 49. After claiming that a die is nothing
but what are termed its modes and accidents, he goes on to claim, '. . . to say
a die is hard, extended and square, is not to attribute those qualities to a
subject distinct from and supporting them, but only an explication of the
word die.' He does not claim, 'To say a die is hard, extended, and square is
to attribute group membership to those qualities which together comprise a
die.' His explanation is so general that it works just as well in the case of
spirit. He can claim 'To say a spirit wills and understands is not to attribute
those faculties to a subject distinct from and supporting them, but only
an explication of the word spirit' without it turning out that a spirit is a col-
lection of properties. Instead, the ontology of subject and property has
been rejected. There is a simple, active being which is called both will and
understanding.
To be sure, it is a profound and perplexing question what this 'simple,
undivided' being is supposed to be and why Berkeley believes he is entitled
40 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
to it. There are other questions, too. What, if not modes or accidents, are
ideas? What are mental operations? How do they relate to spirit? In brief,
what sort of picture do we have once substance-mode ontology is stripped
away? I answer these questions over the next several chapters. The impor-
tant point now is that this situation is different from the traditional,
inevitable, sad state of affairs in which Berkeleian spirit has been immedi-
ately and without further ado relegated to a collection of ideas, perceptions,
and volitions.
Chapter Three
Berkeley claims that a spirit is a simple, undivided active being that is called
both will and understanding (PHK 1 27). Given Berkeley's early notebook
entries as well as the considerations generated by the Clarke-Collins debate
(discussed in chapter one), it seems reasonable to believe spirit is deeply
bound up with consciousness. Yet this is complicated by the fact that
within this very section Berkeley claims '. . . there can be no idea formed of
a soul or spirit. . .;' and '. . . spirit or that which acts, that it cannot be of itself
perceived, but only by the effects which it produceth.' 1
The position is shocking. In the first edition of the Principles, Berkeley
often uses 'idea' and 'notion' interchangeably. Andrew Baxter remarks in
his Enquiry (1733), 'Motion extends not only to the images of corporeal
2
objects in the fancy, but to whatever is the object of the understanding.'
Does Berkeley mean to deny that spirit is an object of understanding at all?
Or does he simply mean to deny that it can be 'painted in the imagination'
as Baxter (and Descartes) would likewise agree? I propose the former.
At PHK I 1, Berkeley surveys all the objects of human knowledge. And spirit
4
is absent from this list, only mentioned after in section 2.
Yet the view that Berkeley denies that spirit is an object of knowledge is
paradoxical: How can Berkeley provide a demonstration of the natural
immortality of the soul if it isn't an object of knowledge? Only by salvag-
ing some room for knowledge of spirit without rendering his denial trivial
can we understand his view. Showing how this can be done will constitute
our entrance into Berkeley's philosophy of spirit.
The Cogito 7
Berkeley's Dualism
Purity of Spirit
Berkeley's claim that spirits and ideas are so different that they have noth-
ing in common seems radical. It suggests that terms such as 'thing' and
56 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
'knowledge' apply to spirits and ideas equivocally. Indeed, Berkeley warns
of equivocation. Does Berkeley mean that spirits and ideas are to 'thing' as
financial institutions and river-sides are to 'bank'? Scholastic examples of
pure equivocation do not go that far. For Aquinas dog (the animal), dog-
star, and dog-fish (canis marinus] are equivocals. In such cases it seems that
the only connection is the fact that the star and the fish are named after
the animal.
Yet, if Berkeley means that spirit and idea are equivocates in this sense,
the position remains extreme. One wonders whether Berkeley doesn't
mean something else. Aquinas recognizes analogy as a mean between the
extremes of pure equivocation and simple univocation. Analogical predi-
cation would allow a kind of equivocation without going too far. Medicine,
urine, and the animal itself are all called 'healthy' where 'health' is predi-
cated of them analogously. Given that there are relationships between
spirit and idea, perhaps Berkeley means that terms such as 'being' are pre-
dicated of spirit and idea analogously. The interpretation, however, has
too many difficulties.
There are key differences between pure equivocity and analogy, and Ber-
keley represents spirits and ideas in terms of the former. Analogy requires
some commonality between the analogates. The healthy urine and the
healthy animal have in common the health itself which resides in the
animal. Yet Berkeley's account of spirit and idea conforms to the definition
of pure equivocation. Cardinal Cajetan (1468-1534), an influential system-
atizer of Aquinas' notions of analogy explains, 'By an equivocal name diverse
things are so signified that, as such, they are united only by the external
word.' And again:
As regards equivocals, those natures - that of the dogfish and that of the
ordinary dog are entirely different in essence. For this reason what-
ever dog predicates of a dogfish it in no way predicates of an ordinary
dog, and vice versa. Therefore, it is only with respect to the name that an
equivocal term is said to be, and really is, more common or greater than
7
the equivocates.
This is what Berkeley alleges: ' Thing or being is the most general name of all,
it comprehends under it two kinds entirely distinct, and heterogeneous, and
which have nothing common but the name . . .' (PHK I 89). And: 'Spirits
and ideas are things so wholly different, that when we say, they exist, they are
known, or the like, these words must not be thought to signify any thing
common to both natures' (PHK I 142).
Berkeley is clear that we can learn nothing about the nature of spirits from
the nature of ideas. This doctrine is essential to his claim that we cannot
Purity of Spirit 57
have an idea of spirit. Yet this suggests that spirit and ideas are equivocal,
not, analogous, since one is supposed to be able to gather knowledge about
one analogate from the other. That is how one secures knowledge of God
from finite beings.
And Berkeley does explicitly endorse a doctrine of analogy in Alciphron.
He suggests that some (King and Browne) have misunderstood analogy, 8
sides with Cajetan's account of it, and alleges that wisdom is predicated ana-
logically of God and man (ALC IV 17-22, 165-171). Given his endorse-
ment of analogy between God and finite spirit, and his insistence that
spirits and ideas have 'nothing common but the name' it would seem that
the latter is not Berkeley's way of expressing an analogy between spirits
and ideas. Instead, it is Berkeley's way of denying it.
One response is to suppose that as Berkeley grew more mature as a philo-
sopher, he became more sympathetic to the subtlety of analogy. Berkeley's
views may have evolved on this question. However, in his early letter to Per-
cival, Berkeley indicates that he is already well acquainted with analogy
and that he rejects the Irish version of it. Moreover, in his Essay (1709) Ber-
keley aims to show that while tangible figure, extension, and motion share
common names with visible figure, extension, and motion, they are none-
theless 'entirely different' ( 137). Not only do they not belong to the same
species, we merely '. .. imagine a likeness or an analogy between the
immediate objects of sight and touch' ( 145). If this is an earlier, rudimen-
tary view of a young Berkeley, one wonders why Berkeley appended the New
Theory of Vision to the initial editions of Alciphron. Indeed, it is hard to avoid
the fact that Berkeley's negative answer to the Molyneux question has a
bearing on his attitude toward the central trope of Irish analogy as promul-
gated by Browne, King, and Synge.
Young Berkeley even recognizes that general terms can have multiple sig-
nifications. He writes in the Introduction to the Principles,'. .. in truth, there
is no such thing as one precise and definite signification annexed to any gen-
eral name, they all signifying indifferently a great number of particular
ideas' (PHK Intro 18). The point is even sharper in the Manuscript Introduc-
tion (99), where he writes, 'Whereas there is in Truth a Diversity of significa-
tions in every general name' ('an homonymy or' is lined out and 'Diversity'
and 'general' are inserted).
Contrast this with Hobbes' account of the distinction between univocity
and equivocity (which leaves no room for analogy):
Univocall [names] are those which in the same train of Discourse signifie
alwayes the same thing; but Equivocall [names are] those which meane
sometimes one thing, and sometimes another. Thus, the Name Triangle is
58 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
said to be Univocall, because it is alwayes taken in the same sense; and
Parabola to be Equivocally for the signification it has sometimes of Allegory
or Similitude, and sometimes of a certaine Geometrical figure. Also every
10
Metaphor is by profession Equivocall.
Almost as a response, Berkeley writes, '. . . there is no one settled idea which
limits the signification of the word triangle. 'Tis one thing for to keep a name
constantly to the same definition, and another to make it stand every where
for the same idea . . .' (PHK Intro 18). For Berkeley, there is something of
analogy concealed within general terms. General terms apply analogically
11
to a range of ideas.
Moreover, Berkeley's account of our knowledge of God is virtually the
same in the Dialogues and in Alciphron. While in the former, Berkeley does
not explore the Scholastic notion of analogy, he affirms in both works that
we acquire some conception of God by leaving out the imperfections of our
finite spirit. And although Berkeley's immaterialism is not explicit in Alci-
phron, his extreme dualism is. Euphranor writes of soul and body as '.. .
things so very different and heterogeneous' (ALC VI. 11 241) which
hardly seems like a change from Berkeley's position in the Principles.
Even in the Principles, Berkeley discusses the notion of a scale of reality.
He contrasts imagined and sensible ideas saying, 'These latter are said to
have more reality in them than the former: by which is meant that they are
more affecting, orderly, and distinct, and that they are not fictions of the
mind perceiving them' (PHK I 36). This sense of'reality' hardly applies to
spirits. Instead of a placing both spirit and idea on the same scale of being, it
seems Berkeley thinks there are two different scales.
tyc
Part II: Berkeley, Browne, and Divine Analogy
Browne and Berkeley agree that we use our selves to conceive the various
attributes of God; we conceive the Divine Attributes mediately. For
Browne the imperfection in us is so deeply part of our mental operations
that they can only provide an analogical conception of the attributes as
sounds and smells might be used to provide an indirect conception of light.
The reason for this imperfection is that our spirit and body are so inter-
blended that all mental operations are the effect of the joint operation of
the two. As Browne later remarks in the Procedure (97), the reason why
words ('apprehends,' 'separates') are borrowed from bodily actions in
order to describe our mental operations is because mind and body are so
intermixed that we are under a necessity to describe 'the modus' of our var-
ious operations in this way. Whenever we attempt to form notions of think-
ing we imagine them as motions and agitations of the soul.27 Consequently,
we have no direct grasp of a pure spirit's operations, and can only under-
stand them analogically.
In the Procedure, Browne distinguishes between divine metaphor and
divine analogy (132146). The latter involves a real correspondence
between the divine and the human, whereas the former does not. While
speaking of God as bodily involves divine metaphor, the attribution of intel-
lect, wisdom, and passions to God (or any pure spirit) involves analogy
(although passions in a lesser degree) (Analogy 43-8).28 This means that
terms such as 'wisdom' and 'love' do not apply to God (or any pure spirit)
in the proper, literal sense of the word. They are used in what he calls an
analogous sense, where we use the notion of what we find in our own soul as
an analogue for what is in God (or any pure spirit).
For Berkeley we are able simply to omit our imperfections and augment
our powers and thereby form a direct conception of God's attributes without
difficulty. Philonous explains in Three Dialogues:
Purity of Spirit 63
For all the notion I have of God, is obtained by reflecting on my own soul
heightening its powers, and removing its imperfections. I have therefore,
though not an inactive idea, yet in my self some sort of an active thinking
image of the Deity. (3D III 231-2)
In Alciphron Berkeley further clarifies that body, sensations, and passions all
involve defect in their 'proper signification' and are consequently applied to
God only in a metaphorical sense. However, knowledge and wisdom do not
involve defect in their 'proper signification' and consequently 'may be
attributed to God proportionably, that is, preserving a proportion to the
infinite nature of God' (ALCIV21, 170).
On the face of it, it is easy to understand Berkeley's response to Browne.
While Browne sees mental operations as the joint product of spirit and body,
Berkeley has rejected the notion of material substance altogether. Corporeal
things (real ideas and collections thereof) are passive and inert. Insofar as
they are merely effects of spirit, there is no way mental operations could be
the joint product of both.
Yet there are some peculiar questions which need to be answered: (1)
Given Berkeley's departure from Browne, why does he continue to say that
mental operations are explained in terms borrowed from sensible things?
Browne's own motivation has been abandoned. (2) Given that no mental
operation involves a deep interblending of spirit and body, why does he
think that passion and sensation are imperfections?
One of the major issues driving the disagreement between the two men is
that, according to Browne, some type of mental conception, complex
notion, or idea is required in order for a term to have any significance (Ana-
logy 534-5). On this point, Browne is very clear. He takes it that we are con-
scious of all of our mental operations (Analogy 410-1). If we were not,
according to Browne's view, terms such as 'thought' and the like could
have no meaning. Moreover, it is through this consciousness that we can
form complex notions of our activities and our mind.
Browne is led to his view about analogy through his commitment to the
theses that every intelligible term requires some mental conception annexed
to it and that the notion of ourselves cannot be purged of imperfection.
Terms which refer to our own mental operations are given content precisely
through the particular notions that we have of them. Since imperfection is a
64 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
part of these notions, he needs an 'analogous' use of the terms where our
imperfect notions are used to understand God.
Berkeley denies that we need some idea or notion in order for words to
count as significant. Consequently, it is not surprising that Browne takes
Berkeley to task for this 'modern loose and illogical' use of 'idea' (Analogy
525) urging him to restrict it only in 'the true logical Sence, as limited to
the Direct and Immediate Perception of external and sensible Objects only . . .'
(Analogy 541). In denying that we have an idea (or notion) of grace, Berke-
ley is not merely denying that there are sensible or imaginable ideas of it.
Rather, he is denying that we have any mental 'conceptions' or 'complex
notions' in Browne's sense as well. His view emerges in Alciphron.
Alciphron complains to Euphranor of the endless controversy surround-
ing the Christian notion of 'grace' and challenges Euphranor to provide a
clear and distinct idea marked by the term. 'Grace' in its vulgar sense (as
either beauty or favour) is easily understood. However, when used to
denote an active principle which influences the mind of men, it is unintelli-
gible. While men attempt to explicate the notion by appealing to force; the
latter is clear and intelligible but the former is not.
In response, Euphranor challenges Alciphron to form an idea of 'force'
exclusive of its 'subject and effects.' The latter, who has just defined force as
'. . . that in bodies which produceth motion and other sensible effects' (ALC
VII 6 294) finds that he can form no such idea. Euphranor then exploits this
concession to argue that since 'force' can be recognized as a meaningful term
despite the fact that no idea of it can be formed, by parity the same should
be allowed of the term 'grace' which cannot find an idea separate '. . . from
God the author, from man the subject, and from virtue and piety its effects'
(ALC VII 7 296).
In the Analogy, Browne agrees that the idea of force cannot be separated
off from its subject and effects. And he says the same is true of thinking and
willing. 'Yes surely; it is the same senseless Ridicule as if you bid a Man try to
form a Conception of Thinking or Willing, exclusive of any Object of Thought
or Desire, and of a Mind operating' (545). Yet, he maintains that 'in the
concrete' (without separating it off from subject and effect), one must have
some sort of mental conception of the thing in question in order for terms
such as 'motion' and the like to be meaningful.
Berkeley's response to Browne's criticism in their private correspondence
brings out the crucial difference between the two. Berkeley claims that
Browne's 'fundamental error' is his 'refusing to acknowledge that undeter-
mined words can convey true conceptions to the mind' (391). He continues,
'. . . and if a power, however described by its effects, excites no notion in the
mind till its intrinsic activity be understood, 'tis strictly impossible indeed
Purity of Spirit 65
we should any ways attain the least conception of our Maker' (391-2). And
then, 'For if a power, only described by its effects, be perfectly unknown, till
its intrinsic nature be found out, all powers either divine or humane [sic] are,
to use your Lordship's words, involved in midnight darkness' (392). And
then, 'But so confident I am of the assertion, that I readily will trust the
whole debate upon this issue. Let your Lordship but explain one single
power in the whole creation, independently of its effects, and by its true
internal nature, and I am a convert to analogy' (392). Berkeley is saying,
pace Browne, that we have no conception of any 'intrinsic activity' whatso-
ever. We know powers only through the effects which they produce.
This is shocking claim. One would have thought consciousness of volition
counted as a kind of access to 'intrinsic activity.' And discrete 'volitions' had
played an important role in Berkeley's earlier thought. Berkeley wrote in his
notebooks: 'The Will not distinct from Particular volitions' (PC 615). How-
ever, the flurry of entries toward the end of the notebooks indicates an
important change in Berkeley's thinking.
First, he moves away from multiple volitions to the view that spirit is one,
ongoing act: 'We see no variety or difference betwixt the Volitions, only
between their effects. Tis One Will one Act distinguish'd by the effects.
This will, this Act is the Spirit, operative, Principle, Soul etc.' (PC 788. cf.
PC 854). Second, Berkeley abandons this notion of one ongoing volition as
well. He writes T must not give the Soul or Mind the Scholastique Name
pure act, but rather pure Spirit or active Being' and 'The Will & Volition
are words not used by the Vulgar, the Learned are banter'd by their mean-
ing abstract Ideas' (PC 870 and PC 867, cf. PC 849, PC 871). By the time
we get to Berkeley's published views in 1710 and 1713, volitions are nowhere
to be found among the things that exist: ' Thing or being . . . comprehends
under it ... spirits and ideas' (PHK I 89). Apparently he has dropped the
claim that 'Thing comprehends also volitions or actions. Now these are
no ideas' (PC 644).
When Berkeley observes in the Principles, 'Men have imagined they could
frame abstract notions of the powers and acts of the mind, and consider them
prescinded, as well from the mind or spirit it self, as from their respective
objects and effects' (PHK I 143), he does not simply mean that one is incap-
able of separating activities or powers off by themselves (as Browne would
maintain). Berkeley means that there is no perception of any such acts or
powers at all: One is aware only of oneself and one's effects. One's self insofar
as it makes such items can be called a power (namely 'the will'), but there is
no further 'intrinsic activity' as a third element of consciousness.
Berkeley is suggesting that our understanding of the Christian mystery
'grace' is on par with our understanding of the mental operations of finite
66 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
spirits, some of the Divine attributes, and even force. In all cases, we under-
stand and define the relevant terms by appealing simply to cause, subject,
effects, and circumstances. Thus defined, we likewise understand the con-
ditions under which statements about them can be true. What we lack, how-
ever, is a precise idea or notion answering to the specific term that would let
us know about the 'intrinsic activity' involved. This is why Berkeley speaks
of Browne's 'refusing to acknowledge that undetermined words can convey
true conceptions to the mind.' According to Berkeley, terms such as 'grace,'
'inspiration,' 'discourse,' and so forth can be meaningful even though there
is no distinct notion corresponding to the term.
Now if there is an 'intrinsic nature' of activity of which we are unaware
with respect to grace, this would constitute a 'hidden mystery.' However,
Berkeley claims that the reason we have no idea of any intrinsic activity con-
cerns illicit abstraction. This is the Berkeleian kiss of death; and it suggests
that there is no such thing at all.
Indeed, the discussion of the mysteries in Alciphron involves some concern
with abstract ideas and pointless dispute (ALC VII 9 299-301). Berkeley
suggests that the mysteries only become open to dispute in advanced philo-
sophical speculation. Crito complains of the minute philosophers who con-
found Scholasticism with Christianity (ALC VII 19 300).
Berkeley claims that language has different functions. He says, '. . . the
true end of speech, reason, science, faith, assent, in all its different degrees,
is not merely, or principally, or always, the imparting or acquiring of ideas,
but rather something of an active operative nature, tending to a conceived
good' (ALC VII 14 307). To propose that there is some unknown notion of
intrinsic activity (available to God, say), suggests that the function of terms
such as 'grace,' 'inspiration,' and 'discourse' is to convey (general) ideas
(where the function has now somehow failed). The better view is that the
function of such terms has been misunderstood and consequently resulted
in endless dispute. Thus Berkeley (pace Browne) places mysteries such as
'grace' on par with 'mysteries' such as number and force because it is his
general view that any controversies concerning such terms arise from the
mistaken view that there is a settle, determined, abstract idea.
One objection is that this interpretation deflates the notion of'mystery.'
There is nothing 'beyond our reason,' since one has a handy definition of
grace already (which omits any specification of the intrinsic activity), and
there is nothing left to know. It invites the question: Is Berkeley actually on
Toland's side?
He is not. For Berkeley, the supreme good is eternal life through Jesus
Christ. Berkeley is clear that there is a mystery in the traditional sense that
we do not have the appropriate ideas to grasp the good that is in store for us
Purity of Spirit 67
in the future state. The challenge of faith is to accept God's word that it shall
be infinitely great and to act accordingly. Even though mysteries such as
'grace' do not themselves conceal something incomprehensible and perplex-
ing (abstract) they have a functional role to play in guiding us toward our
mysterious end. We may lack an idea how original sin is transmitted. Yet
while there is no possible clear and distinct idea or notion of it, we nonethe-
less understand what the words mean (defined in terms of cause, subject, and
effect). Any hope for an additional mental conception of the intrinsic
activity is misguided however, since the point of the term is not to convey
such a conception, but to produce 'a salutary sense of ... unworthiness'
necessary to guide us toward our great end (ALC VII. 10, 301).
Another sort of mystery comes into play when we stop to consider the
radicalism of Berkeley's view concerning action. It can be appreciated by
considering some comments that Locke makes. Locke finds that he has
ideas of only two kinds of action - namely thinking and motion.
. . . many words, which seem to express some Action, signify nothing of the Action,
or Modus Operandi at all, but barely the effect, with some circumstances
of the Subject wrought on, or Cause operating; v.g. Creation, Annihila-
tion, contain in them no Idea of the Action or Manner, whereby they are
produced, but barely of the Cause, and the thing done. (E. 2.22.11, 294)
Besides acquiring the ability to create ideas ex nihilo, finite spirits are simple
in something like a divine sense. Like God, they lack accidents to be gained
or lost. The creation of ideas does not involve any intrinsic changes within
spirit itself. Neither does the passive reception of ideas. The only variable
features are elements of consciousness which are entirely distinct from spirit.
Recall Browne's concern that a complex idea cannot represent God (who
is supposed to be simple).38 Berkeley can answer this problem since it turns
out that finite spirits are simple in this sense as well and can therefore serve as
a representation whereby we conceive God. Recall the concern raised by
Collins that the mind appears capable of gaining and losing various differ-
ent mental properties. According to Berkeley, the soul could never be
divided in this way, since it doesn't have any distinct faculties or powers
that it can lose:
. . . the soul is without composition of parts, one pure simple undivided
being. Whatever distinction of faculties or parts we may conceive in it
arises only from its various acts or operations about ideas. Hence, it is
repugnant that it should be known or represented in some parts and not
in others, or that there should be an idea, which incompletely resembles it.
(Manuscript version of PHK I 138)
Activity
Contrast this lean account of imagination with the position that voli-
tion is something like the act of choosing. First, it seems entirely possible
that one form the volition and yet the subsequent idea fail to appear.
If so, occasionalism with respect to the mind looms large. This is a dis-
aster, given Berkeley's intention to answer Malebranche's occasionalism
even with respect to bodily movement (PC 548). The problem of occasion-
alism within the mind is solved in my interpretation, however, since an
imagined idea is produced insofar as it is perceived. There can never be an
unfulfilled volition.
Moreover, volitions may require a kind of ideational content to guide the
action. If not, it is hard to see why one particular volition should lead to the
particular upshot that it does. But one can wonder whether the ideational
content of the volition guiding the production of the idea resembles it. If so,
there is part of an action resembling an idea, thereby undermining the view
that spirits and ideas are entirely distinct. 7 Furthermore, it is no longer clear
why the imagined idea is needed, since a resemblance of it has already been
produced.8 Any subsequent production is redundant. But if there is no
resemblance between the volitional content and the imagined idea, it is
hard to see how such content can represent the idea produced. And we
have the question how the volition itself is caused. Does this lead to an
infinite regress?9 If not, why can't the account of how we produce volitions
be straightaway applied to imagined ideas?
In the proposed interpretation one does not need to perceive the content
of what one is going to produce before one produces it. The very production
of an idea is one with the perception of it. One is not a sighted agent because
one perceives one's content before one creates it, but because it is through
the perception that one creates it. Whenever one acts, one is aware of what
one is doing, and it is through this awareness that one acts. Consequently,
Berkeley has a powerful response to Malebranche who claims T deny that
my will produces my ideas in me, for I do not see even how they could pro-
duce them, because my will, which is unable to act or will without knowl-
edge, presupposes my ideas and does not produce them.' 10 For Berkeley the
will acts precisely through causing ideas; and it causes them by perceiving
them. The will is not blind, yet it does not presuppose the having of ideas in
order to act.
This accords with experience. One does not usually need to think about
what one shall think before one thinks it. One simply thinks it. I bet this is
why Berkeley wonders in his notebooks: 'Qu: whether the Will can be the
object of Prescience or any knowledge' (PC 875). The error is to suppose
that consciousness is the vehicle by which ideas are produced. The account
suggests there is no third thing. To expect any such thing is to confuse an
74 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
object of perception with acting itself. One cannot wait to first perceive one's
intrinsic mental activity, one must act through perceiving.11
Passivity
Notice a problem which confronts my own thesis that Berkeleian ideas are
not modes of mind, but only objects of perception. Berkeley often represents
sensible ideas as sensations. He has Philonous remark:
But how is it possible that pain, be it as little active as you please, should
exist in an unperceiving substance? In short, do but consider the point,
and then confess ingenuously, whether light and colours, tastes, sounds,
& c. are not all equally passions or sensations in the soul. (3D I 197)
Berkeley has Philonous argue that a great many sensible things such as
intense heat, intense cold, sweetness, bitterness, odours, and apparently
sounds and colours as well, involve pain or its opposite, pleasure. 12 Philo-
nous claims, '. . . the intense heat immediately perceived, is nothing distinct
from a particular sort of pain' (3D III 176). And while it is not clear, how far
Berkeley takes this thesis to expand, the fact remains that many sensible
ideas are pains (or pleasures), and furthermore, all sensible ideas (even
indifferent ones) are to be understood as like pleasures/pains (3D I 191-2).
But pains and pleasures seem to be mental states. Indeed, there is a tension
that arises in Philonous' identification of intense heat with a pain. One
wants to deny that heat is a property of the mind, while affirming that pain
is such a state. 13
One way to address this problem is to recognize that ideas/sensations have
both a cognitive and an affective side to them. 14 One can say that sensible
ideas have a positive or negative valence. Hylas remarks, '. . . things regard
us only as they are pleasing or displeasing: and they can please or displease,
only so far forth as they are perceived' (3D III 262). Yet it also seems the two
are so fundamentally blended that they are distinguishable in name only.15
When one experiences an intense heat, one does not merely experience
pain, but burning pain. In general, it seems difficult to separate the positive
valence from the sweetness or the negative valence from bitter.
There's a more serious problem. Given that an intense heat has a negative
valence, it appears difficult to see how God could perceive such an idea with-
out experiencing pain. 16 Yet Berkeley explicitly denies that God suffers pain
on the grounds that to suffer a pain would constitute an imperfection (3D
III 240). This suggests that while God might have ideas of our sensations,
these ideas are not themselves sensations. However, it is hard to see how
Actions and Passions 15
God can have ideas which are even qualitatively like our painful sensations
without experiencing pain. 17
The problem is central for our purposes since according to Berkeley, '. ..
as we conceive the ideas that are in the minds of other spirits by means of our
own, which we suppose to be resemblances of them: so we know other spirits by
means of our own soul, which in that sense is the image or idea of them . . .'
(PHK I 140, my emphasis). Berkeley gives no indication that this claim
fails to extend to what God perceives. It would be strange if it did, since we
use our own soul as an active idea or image of God (3D III 231-2). How can
we do this without implicating our ideas? This point comes out when Philo-
nous explains how we conceive of our ideas existing in some other mind
(God) as follows:
. . . it is very conceivable that they [sensible ideas] should exist in, and be
produced by, a spirit; since this is no more than I daily experience in
myself, inasmuch as I perceive numberless ideas; and by an act of my
Will can form a great variety of them, and raise them up in my imagina-
tion (3D II 215, my insert)
The problem is how to reconcile Berkeley's views about divine analogy with
the view that intense heat is painful and God does not experience pain.
The problem unravels once we turn to Berkeley's solution. In his response
to Hylas' concern that God might suffer pain, Philonous elaborates his
account of what 'suffering' pain involves. In the first part of his response,
Philonous points to a key difference between God's perception and our own:
While we receive ideas of sensation passively, God does not. This differ-
ence suggests a possible solution to the problem: God can perceive painful
heat without being in pain since to be in pain is to perceive a pain passively.
Since God is never passive in his perception, while he can perceive intense
heat, doing so does not require that he actually suffer pain.
It is natural to suppose the reason why somebody is in pain has to do
with the qualitative character of the thing (its valence). Yet my proposed
76 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
solution says that while the valence of the object perceived is relevant to a
person being in pain, the idea does not actually hurt the person unless she
suffers it (perceives it passively). What God perceives when he perceives
pain is like what we perceive. He perceives the same negative valence. Yet
God is not in pain because God does not passively receive it.
This solution may seem strange. Yet, if we consider that it is possible for
finite minds to produce ideas of the imagination which are like copies of sen-
sible ideas, then the strangeness abates. According to Berkeley, the fainter
ideas we produce can 'resemble' the original ideas we receive by sensation.
So we can imagine ideas of a negative valence without actually being pained
by them. Berkeley can say that the reason painful ideas pain us is because
they have been perceived passively. Berkeley considered imagination a
way for understanding Divine perception in his own philosophical note-
books. He writes:
God May comprehend all Ideas even the Ideas wch are painfull &
unpleasant without being in any degree pained thereby. Thus we our
selves can imagine the pain of a burn etc without any misery or uneasiness
at all. (PC 675)
My proposal is therefore a solution to the problem which Berkeley could
have endorsed. Given that it is the only obvious one available, there is evi-
dence that Berkeley actually held the view, and there is no evidence that he
did not, we ought to attribute it to him.
An objection points out that imagined pain is far less strong and
vivid than the sensed idea. One might say that it is not the difference
with respect to activity/passivity that determines whether an idea hurts, but
the strength and vivacity. Since one would expect God's idea to be rather
strong and vivid, it still ought to follow that God is in pain when God per-
ceives intense heat.
This is not so much an objection to this interpretation as it is an objection
to Berkeley's solution. Perhaps it is a good objection. But I do not see how it
undermines the argument in favour of attributing this position to Berkeley.
In order to do that, it would have to be shown that this position is implaus-
ible. It is surely controversial. However it is hardly out of contention. This
active/passive solution is as every bit compatible with the given facts as is the
faintness solution. We can willfully imagine pain without suffering it. The
question is why. One difference between sense-perceived and imagined
ideas is force or vivacity. Another difference concerns agency. Why is it
wrong to appeal to the latter?
Berkeley might respond as follows: It is true that imagined ideas are
faint and weak, while sensible ideas are vivid and strong. This difference
Actions and Passions 11
concerns the fact that while the cause (God) of sensible ideas is excep-
tionally powerful, the cause (me) of the imagined ideas is unimpressive.
Yet it is not my lack of power that accounts for my imagined pain's failure to
hurt me. Suffering pain is a weakness, not a strength. No matter how strong
my imaginative powers should expand, I could never somehow hurt myself
through sheer imagination. The reason for the lack of pain in imagination
has nothing to do with my weakness, but my activity in perception.
A related concern with the construal of God's perception along the lines of
human imagination is that while we can admit that there is some type
of awareness or perception involved in imagination, the fanciful production
of ideas seems a far way off from knowledge. God is supposed to understand,
while imagination seems chimerical. Yet we needn't construe God's per-
ception as effectively tantamount to imagination. The point is only that we
can use human imagination to appreciate why the difference between active
and passive perception matters when it comes to the experience of pain.
Only to the extent that imagination is free of defect can it be attributed to
God in a way that is not metaphorical.
While human imaginative powers are limited by prior sensory experi-
ence, we should not want to attribute this limitation to God. This may
leave us unclear about how God could actively perceive ideas which resem-
ble our own without having sense-perceived them first.19 Similarly, we can
say that insofar as imagination involves something of the 'unreal' this only
has to do with human imperfection, and we should omit it as we strive to
understand divine perception. This, too, may leave us struggling. But then,
our understanding of God is 'extremely inadequate' (3D III 231).
So this proposed solution can serve to explain how God's ideas can resem-
ble our own despite the fact that God does not suffer pain. An important
upshot is that the identity principle (that ideas are states of perceiving) is
refuted by means of a new argument. What is experienced in the case of pain
is actually distinct from the state of being in pain. In order to be in pain, it is
not sufficient to perceive something painful. One must perceive the painful
object passively. And since what is perceived can also be perceived actively,
it follows that what is perceived is distinct from the perception of it.
This conclusion is important because it overturns the natural view that
Berkeley does not distinguish between pain and the awareness that we have
of it. 20 We may speak of the pain qua object of awareness, and the awareness
one has of the object. The difference matters, because it is precisely the mod-
ality of awareness (whether it is passive or active) which determines whether
one is actually in a state of pain.
Admittedly, it seems harder to see why we should call the object of aware-
ness a pain at all. Consider an intense heat. This intense heat is not a mental
78 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
episode. It is a painful, intense heat such that whenever it is passively per-
ceived by a spirit, that spirit will be in pain. Why call the painful heat a pain?
We can allow 'pain' to be used as a relative expression. Painful heat (ever
perceived by God) is only an actual pain on the condition that the heat is
passively perceived by a perceiver. In such a view, Berkeley could refer to
objects which are passively perceived as 'sensations.' One motivation for
allowing this way of speaking would be the fact that while no longer mental
properties, the variable elements of consciousness are still mind-dependent
entities (incapable of existing except as elements of consciousness) and are
still caused from without.
We are now enabled to distinguish between the passivity of spirits and the
passivity of ideas. This is important, since if spirits and ideas share the same
22
kind of passivity then spirits and ideas will have something in common.
Fortunately, the passivity of spirits consists in perceiving ideas passively
(perceiving ideas that are caused by God). However, ideas do not possess
this kind passivity since they don't perceive ideas at all. They are passive in
the sense only that they are created and destroyed by spirits, incapable of
perceiving or producing other ideas.
Removing this concern removes one good motivation for assuming that
spirits are likewise active or volitional in sense-perception. Berkeley does
seem to have endorsed such a volitional view in the notebooks (PC 821,
854). But it also seems to be a view he abandoned. Philonous denies that
volition and action are involved in smelling and seeing (3D I 196). More-
over Berkeley writes to Johnson 'That the soul of man is passive as well as
active, I make no doubt.' 23 One might insist that 'sense perceiving' is in
some sort a 'doing.' But if so, it does not involve volition in it. It involves
affective ideas; it seems better to view this as a kind of'undergoing.' 24
We are also enabled to dispel a reason for supposing sensible ideas
and divine ideas cannot resemble each other. By identifying awareness and
idea, one is tempted to say that sensible ideas are passive, while divine ideas
are active. Such a view is a distortion of Berkeley's position; the active/
passive distinction is the main grounds for distinguishing spirits and ideas.25
Admittedly, Philonous distinguishes his view from that of Malebranche:
T do not understand how our ideas, which are things altogether passive and
inert, can be the essence, of any part (or like any part) of the essence or sub-
stance of God, who is an impassive, indivisible, purely active being' (3D II
213-4). Yet this doesn't mean God does not perceive ideas which are passive
and inert (instead, perceiving 'active ideas'). 26 It means that nothing pas-
sive can be part of God; there is no passive state which God is in. 27
Finally, we can provide the beginning of Berkeley's conception of the pas-
sions. Let's first note what Locke says about love:
Actions and Passions 79
Thus any one reflecting upon the thought he has of the Delight, which any
present, or absent thing is apt to produce in him, has the Idea we call Love.
For when a Man declares in Autumn, when he is eating them, or in
Spring, when there are none, that he loves Grapes, it is no more, but that
the taste of Grapes delights him; let an alteration of Health or Constitu-
tion destroy the delight of their Taste, and he then can be said to love
Grapes no longer. (E. 2.30.4, 230)
the taste.
Spirits are simple, active beings (PHK 127). Yet given that they are passive,
why are they generally characterized as active? And given that they can
be characterized as both, why are they characterized as simple?29 More-
over, how can the difference between activity and passivity be determined?
In the one case a finite spirit is the cause of the idea it perceives, while in
the second case a finite spirit perceives an idea which is caused by God. How
can this difference be known to a spirit given that only spirits and ideas
are elements of conscious awareness? The additional awareness of volitions
in the first case might solve this last problem. Yet it is something that my
interpretation rejects.
The first step is to recognize that will and perception can be blended
together in imagination as a form of active perception. Imagining a unicorn
involves both will and perception since it is through the perception that one
brings the idea into existence. The second step is to recognize that just as
perceiving and willing are blended together in imagination, so too, sensa-
tion and passion are blended together in passive perception: Experiencing
a delightful taste and being delighted by the taste are one and the same.
There is an important analogy in the two cases. In the case of active per-
ception, one is not aware of some third volitional element. The sheer
80 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
consciousness of one's effects and oneself qua agent constitutes the produc-
tion of the effects. Similarly, the phenomenology of pain and pleasure is
not a distinct element of consciousness. One perceives one's objects and
oneself, just as one similarly perceives in the case of active perception. The
phenomenology of experiencing pain and pleasure is tantamount to passive
perception itself. To experience pain and pleasure is all one with passive
perception.
The third step is this: The T' of self-awareness unifies active and pas-
sive perception. In the case of the active production of ideas, there are no
intervening vehicles of production to constitute discrete modes existence.
Likewise, passive perception itself is not some intrinsic state of spirit. There-
fore, there are not two conflicting modalities of existence, there is only one
simple T.'
Now even though spirits are not active in sense-perception, it would
appear that they must always be active in order to exist. How can one be
aware of oneself as both an agent and a patient at the same time given the
T' is simple? While to suffer is all one with receiving an idea from without,
this may not be the same as consciousness that one suffers. Such a conscious-
ness requires an awareness of oneself, and to be aware of oneself is to be aware
of oneself qua agent. This is fortunate, since consciousness that one is passive
also requires consciousness that such ideas are independent of one's own will
which, in turn, requires an awareness of oneself qua willing agent. We can
say that to be aware of oneself as a patient is to be aware of oneself as an
agent (as usual) while undergoing the phenomenology of being in pain or
pleasure. It is to be aware of oneself as a suffering agent.
This is possible because the difference between activity and passivity does
not concern a difference in subject or object, but the fact that in passive per-
ception ideas are produced from without in an agent that produces its own
ideas. Despite the fact that one continues thinking actively, the phenomen-
ology of pain and pleasure does not undermine one's awareness of oneself as
an agent. It makes one aware of oneself as an agent that has perceived ideas
that are not one's own.30
Desire
While positive and negative values are blended with a great variety of sen-
sory contents yielding a variety of delights and discomforts, this appears
Actions and Passions 81
Mental Activities
Bodily Movement
Even Berkeley's claim that finite spirits have an impact upon the world is
hard to understand. If God causes all sensible ideas, how can finite spirits
do anything but produce their own imagined ideas? At PHK I 147 Berkeley
writes, '. . . in affecting other persons, the will of man hath no other object,
than barely the motion of the limbs of his body; but that such a motion
should be attended by, or excite any idea in the mind of another, depends
wholly on the will of the Creator' (cf. 3D III 237). Yet even granting the
impact is limited, the concern that since God is the author of all ideas of sen-
sation (PHK I 29), it is impossible for finite spirits to have any impact upon
the world at all (including their own bodies) would remain.36
When we turn to the second part of Philonous' reply to Hylas' concern
that God should feel pain, we find an answer. Philonous claims that we
have a sensible body which involves the connection between corporeal
motions and sensations:
It seems that the 'corporeal motions' are precisely the ideas that we our-
selves are supposed to cause. And the distinction that Philonous draws sug-
gests that they are not sensations.37 What are they, if not sensations?
While Berkeley draws a distinction between ideas of sensation (produced
by God), and ideas of imagination (produced by us), it is not clear that
this distinction is exhaustive. Ideas of sensation are also characterized
by strength, vivacity, and coherence, while the latter are characterized by
their weakness and lack of vivacity. Berkeley does not distinguish reality
from fancy by appealing to the causal source of an idea. Rather, it is in
terms of the latter characteristics. He writes, 'The ideas of sense are allowed
to have more reality in them, that is, to be more strong, orderly, and coher-
ent than the creatures of the mind . . .' (PHK I 33, cf. 36).
This leaves open the possibility that our ideas of corporeal motions can be
like ideas of sensation in these 'reality-making' respects. They can count as
real despite the fact that we cause them.38 Philonous points out that these
86 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
corporeal motions are attended by pleasure and pain. This is important,
since while he must regard these corporeal motions as real, he is likewise
denying that they can constitute pleasure and pains. We know why. They
are not passively perceived; they are actively perceived. Yet they are vivid,
strong, and fit within the causal order by constituting the occasions of sensi-
ble ideas, thereby affording us dominion over a small part of the real world
(our bodies). They constitute a distinct class of ideas ('internal kinesthetic
ideas' if you will) which we cause in exactly the same way we cause imagin-
ary ideas. Everything else is up to God.39
Our sensible body is governed by Divine Laws, just as any sensible object.
To lose the capacity to see can be accounted for by the fact that it is no
longer true that corporeal motions (such as opening one's eyes) are occa-
sioned by visible sensations. Consequently, finite spirits have a constraint
placed on their perception. They can only sensibly perceive certain objects.
This means that rather than viewing the body as the instrument by which
we see, the fact that we need eyes is a defect or constraint upon a finite spirit's
capacity to perceive. Berkeley writes to Johnson:
Now it seems very easy to conceive the soul to exist in a separate state (i.e.
divested from those limits and laws of motion and perception with which
she is embarrassed here), and to exercise herself on new ideas, without the
intervention of these tangible things we call bodies. It is even very possible
to apprehend how the soul may have ideas of colour without an eye, or of
sounds without an ear. (Works II, Berkeley to Johnson II, 6, 282)
Pray are not the objects perceived by the senses of one likewise perceivable
to others present? If there were an hundred more here, they would all see
the garden, the trees, and flowers as I see them. But they are not in the
same manner affected with the ideas I frame in my imagination. Does
not this make a difference between the former sort of objects and the
latter? (3D III 246-7)
It is evident that the things I perceive are my own ideas, and that no
idea can exist unless it be in a mind. Nor is it less plain that these ideas
or things by me perceived, either themselves or their archetypes, exist
independently of my mind, since I know myself not to be their author, it
being out of my power to determine at pleasure, what particular ideas I
shall be affected with upon opening my eyes or ears. They must therefore
exist in some other mind, whose will it is they should be exhibited to me.
(3D III 214)
Philonous links the expressions 'my own ideas,' 'these ideas,' and 'things
by me perceived'; and the context in this passage suggests that they are
interchangeable. Philonous takes the following two possibilities seriously:
My ideas exist independently of my mind and the archetypes of my ideas
exist independently of my mind. Yet the fact that he takes the first possibility
seriously shows that for Philonous, it is allowable to say 'my own ideas' exist
independently of my mind.
Philonous suggests that the question whether to individuate ideas per per-
ceiver is merely a verbal affair. 'But who sees not that all the dispute is about
a word? to wit, whether what is perceived by different persons, may yet
have the term same applied to it?' (248) Of course, if'the term same be taken
in the vulgar acceptation, it is certain . . . that different persons may perceive
Identity and Time 93
the same thing; or the same thing or idea exist in different mind.' (247). But
there are philosophers who 'pretend to an abstracted notion of identity' and
are in disagreement about the correct account of 'philosophical identity'
(247). Any attempt to arbitrate a merely verbal dispute by appealing to a
'simple, abstracted idea of identity' (248) fails since, according to Philonous,
'. .. I know not what you mean lay your abstracted idea of identity' (248). Surely
allegations of pretending to a simple, abstract idea of philosophical identity
is Berkeley's kiss of death. The point is that any attempt to bring some fine-
spun ontology to bear on the question of individuation is nothing short of an
illicit abstraction.
Philonous also recognizes, in his own view, there can be archetypes.
He does this because, while his account allows different perceivers to 'per-
ceive the same thing,' it seems we truly have lost the external world that
the materialist could believe in. Despite the fact that two finite perceivers
sometimes perceive the same thing, there is no guarantee that what they
perceive will exist even when they do not perceive it. In order to secure this
sort of mind-independence of what we perceive, we need to appeal to what
God perceives. However, this appeal to divine archetypes does not under-
mine the preceding claim that there is no fact of the matter how to numerically
individuate what I perceive and what God perceives. For a divine archetype
(or idea) is simply the content of God's perception. The two moves that
Philonous makes are thus compatible and necessary.13'14
This means that Berkeley's spirit-idea ontology departs from substance-
mode ontology in an important way. In traditional substance-mode ontol-
ogy, substances not only 'support' modes, they individuate them through
inherence. 15 In Berkeley's view, while spirits support ideas, they do not indi-
viduate them through this support.
We can easily distinguish between the relation of support that is supposed
to obtain between supporter and supported, and the capacity of substance to
individuate such items. Consider the following analogy. Suppose four pillars
used to support a platform and contrast this with one pillar used to support
the platform. In both cases there is genuine support. In the former case all
four pillars support one and the same platform. Thus we can have support
despite the fact that it is shared support.
Yet, while it is true that Berkeleian substances lose their capacity to indi-
viduate items through supporting them, there is another way in which sub-
stances may be said to gain a kind of superiority over the items to which they
lend support. Spirits have a self-identity which ideas lack. Ideas become
things for which numerical identity between perceivers is ontologically
inapplicable. Far from undermining the substantiality of spirit, Berkeley
only affirms it in an idiosyncratic way.
94 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
Insofar as there is no fact of the matter how to individuate sensible ideas
per perceiver, there is likewise no fact of the matter how to individuate them
over time. The only way the idea I perceive now could return to me later,
numerically one and the same, would be for God and I to perceive numeri-
cally one and the same idea. Yet there is no fact of the matter whether this is
the case. Likewise, the only way in which the sensible idea I perceive now
could be numerically distinct from the qualitatively identical idea that I
perceive later would require that such ideas cease to exist when I cease to
perceive them. However, there is no fact of the matter whether such sensible
ideas are dependent or independent of me, and consequently no fact of the
matter whether they are numerically distinct through perceptual interrup-
tion. Contrast this with the case of imagined ideas. I may imagine the same
unicorn over the course of a week (every day at midnight for one minute).
Here, I can distinguish between multiple productions of ideas which come
into existence and then cease. They cease to exist since their existing at all
consists in being perceived by me.
This interpretation squares nicely with the text. For in attempting to
answer worries about bodily resurrection, Berkeley writes: 16
But do not the most plausible of them depend on the supposition, that a
body is denominated the same, with regard not to the form or that which is
perceived by sense, but the material substance which remains the same
under several forms? Take away this material substance, about the identity
where all the dispute is, and mean by body what every plain ordinary
person means by that word, to wit. . . only a combination of sensible qua-
lities, or ideas: and then their most unanswerable objections come to noth-
ing. (PHK I 95)
Any view which requires that qualitatively identical sensible ideas be
numerically individuated by perceptual interruption has no good explana-
tion of how the fact that bodies are collections of sensible ideas is supposed to
solve the problem of resurrection. If the ideas do not continue to exist inter-
mittently, how can the collection of such ideas continue to exist intermit-
tently? And if the collection can't exist intermittently, how is resurrection
going to be possible? The only 'solution' such an interpretation proposes is
the destruction of identity over time so that any account of resurrection
would be one which appealed to the same verbal fiction used to smooth
over the consequences of such a view.
By contrast, a view that qualitatively identical ideas which are percep-
tually intermittent can be numerically identical does explain resurrection. 1?
Yet, it also seems to fail as an explanation of Berkeley's elucidation of bodily
resurrection by appealing to other examples in nature. 18
Identity and Time 95
All the parts of this corporeal world are in a perpetual flux and revolution,
decaying and renewing, perishing and rising up again. The various suc-
cessions and returns of light and darkness, winter and summer, spring and
autumn, the renovation of plants and fruits of the earth, all are in some
sort so many instances of this truth (Works VII Sermon 8, 107).
When I deny sensible things an existence out of the mind, I do not mean
my mind in particular, but all minds. Now it is plain they have an
existence exterior to my mind, since I find them by experience to be inde-
pendent of it. There is therefore some other mind wherein they exist,
during the intervals between the times of my perceiving them: as likewise
they did before my birth, and would do after my supposed annihilation.
(3D III 230-1)
But if Berkeley allows that objects exist before he was born, why should he
not allow for objects to exist while he is sleeping? Yet if he allows this, then
there is a time when he is sleeping, and he has given up his solution to pro-
blem of intermittent existence.23
Berkeley's problem is serious. The sheer vulgar use of time-words in which
you bid 'your servant meet you at such a time, in such a place, and he shall
never stay to deliberate on the meaning of those words . ..' (PHK I 97)
cannot solve this problem. How can the perceived rising and setting of the
sun serve as a 'public' (conventional) way of measuring time that serves
pragmatic purposes, if it is true that at the metaphysical level, each finite
spirit occupies a different time-line? How is intersubjectivity possible given
that there is no simultaneity?24
Identity and Time 97
It is too easy to construe Berkeleian times as individual ideas which are like
frames in a moving picture. 5 In this view, times would move more quickly
should the rate of temporal succession increase. Yet this view cannot be
correct since it presupposes time itself in the calculation of the rate of
succession (the number of ideas that succeed each other per minute or
second). To the extent that Berkeley's view is a radicalization of the posi-
tion offered by Locke, we must understand it in a different way (E. 2.14.4-5,
182~3). For Locke, the duration of one's existence or anything else is mea-
sured by the succession of ideas: The greater the succession (i.e. the greater
the number of changes in ideas), the greater the duration. If time is nothing
but the succession of ideas then it ought to be measured against the back-
drop of a thing's existence.
Berkeley's view that the rate of temporal succession may vary requires a
fixed thing or event against which the rate is itself is to be measured. Such
things exist in the mind of God. While God may not himself experience
change-requiring succession, he may order ideas in a particular way such
that finite spirits will perceive them in a given sequence.27 Indeed, Berkeley
himself speaks of'the Course of Nature' by which he means 'the motions,
changes, and decays, and dissolutions which we hourly see befall natural
bodies . . .' (PHK I 141). Thus a history of the natural world may exist in
the mind of God as an ordered set of ideas with respect to their perceptibility
to finite spirits. Due to this ordering, finite spirits may exist 'simultaneously'
insofar as they perceive the same event or object that is part of the Course of
Nature. Likewise, they can exist 'before' or 'after' each other as they per-
ceive different events located within the Course of Nature (contrast, for
example, the finite spirit who perceives the Flood, with the finite spirit who
perceives the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II).
We now have a way to say that the speed of time varies per finite percei-
ver. Suppose two finite perceivers are observing the same tree which is about
to be chopped down. One perceiver can experience a greater succession of
ideas (caused by his thinking many successive thoughts), while another per-
ceiver may have very few thoughts. Time moves faster for the first perceiver
and consequently more time elapses and the duration is therefore longer.
Because the latter observes very little change, by contrast, the duration of
the event is very short.
An objection to this position is that in allowing for this divine sequencing,
I have represented Berkeley as re-introducing an objective time-line which
all finite spirits can occupy. How does this square with Berkeley's subjecti-
vizing of time? For Berkeley, temporal duration is a function of the subjec-
tive succession of ideas. An objective ordering of ideas is not the same as
there being an objective duration of each of those ideas. Any ordering of
98 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
events which appeals to time units will fail. While the ordering can tell us
that the Fall occurred before the Flood, it cannot tell us how long the Flood
lasted or how long the Fall took. The Scriptures teach us that it rained for
forty days and forty nights. Howsoever true this may be, the measurements
themselves appeal to events which occur in the Course of Nature. But how
long does it take for the Earth to spin on its axis? The actual temporal dura-
tion of the time in between the Sun's rising and setting is not to be deter-
mined by appeal to further events within the Course of Nature. The
duration is to be determined by the succession of ideas within a finite mind.
For one person those forty days and forty nights might have been exception-
ally long, for another person they might have passed rather quickly.
28
Because of this, a man (following Johnson's example, call him John)
can say that events actually occurred while he was sleeping. He can admit
that he slept for an entire day during which many things took place.
He would be admitting that there are certain ordered ideas in the mind of
God that other people perceived while he was unconscious. One might say
that there were certain events in the Course of Nature which he did not wit-
ness or attend (i.e. at which he did not exist). In this way it would look as
though John had an intermittent existence (or at least that his spirit was
intermittent, while his body continued on).
Fortunately, while these events may have had some duration for others,
they had no duration for John. In other words, since the events that John
missed had no duration for him, his failure to perceive them constituted no
gap in his existence. Johnson, who is watching John sleep, can say the very
same thing. 29 He can say that John does not exist during a sequence of events
which occur in between two states of wakefulness. By this he can mean that
there are certain events which his friend does not perceive. Johnson can also
recognize that the duration of the events is ultimately relative to the percei-
ver. So while the events have some duration for him, they have no duration
for John who has slept through them. In other words, while it is true that
John does not exist while he (or rather his body) is sleeping, the period of
his sleeping has no duration for John, and consequently his non-existence
during that period is of no consequence (to him).
This is why Berkeley writes: 'Certainly the mind always & constantly
thinks & we know this too In Sleep & trances the mind exists not there is no
time no succession of ideas' (PC 651, my emphasis). Some commentators
have represented this comment as a mistake. 30 On the contrary, it brings
out the true paradoxical nature of Berkeley's claim that the resurrection fol-
lows the next moment after death. 31 One may have a gappy existence inso-
far as there are a great many events one does not witness (i.e. at which one
does not exist), which are nonetheless attended by many others during the
Identity and Time 99
period between death and resurrection. Since these events are of no duration
for one, no time passes at all between one's death and resurrection, and res-
urrection follows immediately upon one's death.
The account points to the radically different ways in which spirits and
ideas are related to the course of nature and time. The sensible ideas are
part of the Course of Nature. They are elements in an objectively ordered
history of natural bodies which come to be and which pass away. But while
these ideas constitute the Course of Nature, a spirit witnesses various differ-
ent sections of the Course without itself being part of it. It is to some extent
because spirits are not constituents of the Course of Nature but perceivers of
it, that they are shown to be naturally immortal. Their relationship to the
history of the world is fundamentally different from sensible ideas.
What drives this important difference between spirits and ideas is Berke-
ley's rejection of mode ontology. The variable elements of consciousness are
no longer modes of mind or acts of thinking; they are things in their own
right. So there is a sense in which spirit does not undergo change. There are
no intrinsic changes in spirit. Spirits are now 'apart' from the changes in a
way that they had not been before.
This is important in addressing concerns that naturally arise with
Berkeley's account. Insofar as the 'I' is nothing other than what is revealed
in self-consciousness, one might worry that since the consciousness that
accompanies all thoughts is as variable as the thought itself, the T' will be a
numerically distinct representation with each passing thought.
These problems do not arise on Berkeley's account since the substance-
mode account of thought has been rejected. Numerically one T' is 'present'
at various different events insofar as it perceives certain ideas which consti-
tute the Course of Nature. The only changes are changes in ideas, not spirit
itself which undergoes no intrinsic changes such as supposed in the preced-
ing concerns. Indeed, the entire issue of establishing whether spirit SI at
time tl is the same is spirit S2 at t2, is to formulate things inappropriately
in Berkeley's account. Berkeley is not saying that SI and S2 are the same
just in case S2 is responsible for the actions for which SI is responsible. One
proceeds with numerically one agent, which may then exist at various dif-
ferent events insofar as it witnesses them. Agents do not continue to exist in
or through time. Rather, they perceive various moments of time. They have
eternal life in case the succession of ideas is infinite^ mortal life in case the
succession is finite. They are not numerically identical over time, so much
as numerically identical prior to time as the required center of temporal
elapse. Because of this they are not fleeting or perishable in the way that
ideas are. Johnson's concern that esse is percipere undermines the natural
immortality of the soul is turned on its head.
100 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
An important upshot is that Berkeley can be viewed as offering an
elegant way to elucidate what had been abandoned by Locke, Clarke,
Collins, Browne, and King an understanding of the eternal now as a
permanent instant. Johnson tells Berkeley that he cannot understand the
eternal now except in terms of Clarke's claim that God knows everything
at once. At any point in time, God knows everything that has been, is, and
will be as if it were present to him.
For Berkeley this becomes the very explanation for what it means to say
that God is outside time: 'By the TO vvv I suppose to be implied that all
things, past and to come, are actually present to the mind of God, and that
there is in Him no change, variation, or succession. A succession of ideas I
take to constitute Time . . . .' If it is possible to conceive of God perceiving all
ideas (past, present, and future) without change or succession (as Clarke
allows) then, in Berkeley's view we have successfully conceived of God's
atemporality.
Insofar as no time passes for God (there is no succession) and he compre-
hends everything in the ordered Course of Nature, we can likewise concep-
tualize how God is at every point in time whole. God perceives all of the
ideas which constitute the Course of Nature at once, just as finite perceivers
perceive some of these ideas successively. As finite perceivers exist at certain
events, God exists at all of the events which occur in the Course of Nature (he
perceives them). Berkeley thereby allows us to understand God's eternity
(like his infinite power) in a way that goes beyond mere augmentation (in
this case, infinite succession).
Moreover, Berkeley is in a good position to accommodate Stillingfleet's
mystery how the eternity of God is reconcilable with his many successive
actions. While we can conceive of God's eternity in terms of his succession-
less perception of the entire course of nature, we must accordingly conceive
of all actions as occurring in time (3D III 254). This is not radical, since
Aquinas allowed that certain names (importing relations to creatures)
were applied to God temporally (names such as 'Creator'). 33 Thus, God's
divine activity outside of time is, for Berkeley, a genuine mystery. Philonous
remarks, 'God is a being of transcendent and unlimited perfections: his
nature, therefore, is incomprehensible to finite spirits' (3D III 254). 34 This
makes sense. To understand God's agency as it is in itself (rather than as it
relates to us) would be to understand God's very existence. This is some-
thing Berkeley would not countenance.
Yet while we may be under an obligation to conceive of God's actions as
performed in time, it does not follow from this that we must conceive of God
as undergoing any genuine succession. For we do not undergo any real suc-
cession. The only changes we perceive are in the objects we perceive. We can
Identity and Time 101
be said to undergo a change insofar as 'something new befalls us' (3D III
254). But this is only a relational change, and it is an imperfection only inso-
far as it entails that we are in time.
This brings us to Berkeley's reconciliation of divine prescience with
human liberty. The problem is not one easily solved by any philosopher.
Yet one of the difficulties which appeared to make this problem especially
vexing was the inability to conceive the TO vvv. Unless God atemporally
perceives all things at once, it seems hard to conceive how he could know
human action in advance without undermining human liberty. Clarke, dis-
tinguishing certainty and necessity, thought that it sufficed that God know
everything that is to happen before it does happen (just as human beings can
sometimes know what somebody is going to do before they do it). In this
way, he hoped to make sense of the TO vvv without any appeal to thepunctum
stans. Yet short of positing God's knowledge of causal preconditions, it is a
little mysterious how God should secure certain knowledge of contingent
events in the future. Once God exists outside of time and can perceive all
at once, however, it is easier to conceive how God could know a contingent
action without knowing a causal precondition. So in showing how this can
be conceptualized, Berkeley achieves something of importance.
Chapter Seven
Hylas' first objection may have been inspired by Baxter's objections. Baxter
mistakenly believed that Berkeley allowed that material substance was not a
contradiction in terms (so this would be an important corrective). And he
raised the parity of reasoning worry that as Berkeley was not entitled to
conclude a material substance on the basis of the qualities perceived, so too,
Berkeley could not infer the existence of any other spirits. He also worried
about Berkeley's denial that there was an idea or notion of spirit.8
Hylas' second objection, however, seems to have originated from Berke-
ley himself, who had considered such objections in his own earlier note-
books.9 For example, Berkeley writes:
Say you the Mind is not the Perceptions. But that thing whch perceives.
I answer you are abus'd by the words that & thing these are vague empty
words without a meaning. (PC 581)
This raises interesting questions. Did Berkeley at some early point accept the
objection posed by Hylas? And if so, why did he change his mind? 10
It is worth noting that at PC 523, Berkeley has already remarked Tt seems
improper & liable to difficulties to make the Word Person stand for an Idea,
The Spirit and the Heap 107
or to make ourselves Ideas or thinking things ideas' after noting that for
Locke knowledge is only about ideas (PC 522). He also affirms at PC 547
and 563 that we have an intuitive knowledge of our own existence distinct
from that of our ideas. Does Berkeley no longer accept 'thinking thing' as
intelligible? Note that at PC 672, Berkeley responds to the claim that there
is no idea of'the unknown substratum of Volitions & Ideas' by arguing that
there can be no such idea unless the substratum is itself, absurdly, an idea
(echoing the view endorsed at PC 523).
The proto-Humean passages (PC 577, 578, 579, 580, 581) begin 'We
think we know not the Soul because we have no imaginable or sensible
Idea annex'd to that sound. This the Effect of prejudice' (PC 576). This
suggests that in what follows, Berkeley is speaking in the voice of his oppo-
nents. It is a voice which says that words are only significant if they have ideas
annexed to them. To be sure the verso entry 576a may seem to undermine
this interpretation:
The concern that in rejecting material substance, Berkeley must reject spiri-
tual substance is connected to the view that Berkeley rejects material sub-
stance because it cannot be perceived and/or because there is no idea of it.
Turbayne remarks, 'But this concept of mind is inconsistent with the rest of
Berkeley's system. He should have suffered the gravest embarrassment in
retaining mental substance, although it is unperceivable, and in rejecting
material substance, because it is unperceivable . . . .' 1 1 We need to recognize
that this argument is not one that Berkeley ever made. 12 Philonous is happy
to allow Hylas to infer the existence of material substratum. The problem is
not that he can't perceive it but that the notion of inherence is vacuous.
108 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
The irony is that this misreading of Berkeley has obscured the importance
of his claim that spirits cannot be perceived. Far from an embarrassment,
this is a central thesis that reflects Berkeley's denial that ideas are states
of mind and his emphasis on the distinction between consciousness of
ideas and consciousness of oneself. It is fundamental to understanding his
answer to the concern that we lack an idea of spirit. It is fundamental to
understanding his very ontology. It is entirely missed as a consequence
of this reading.
One reason for this misunderstanding is that Berkeley is often read
through Hume. The inability to perceive substance and our lack of an idea
of it is central to Hume's rejection of both material and spiritual substance.
The interesting question is this: Given Berkeley's account of spirit has sur-
vived any parity of reasoning concerns, how is Hume supposed to have
responded to it?
The question is important given that it has been established beyond doubt
that Hume read Berkeley and was influenced by him in important ways.
The worry that Hume didn't read Berkeley was raised by Richard Popkin.
And while somewhat extreme, the worry was important in combating the
crude caricature of an empiricist triumvirate according to which Hume is
the successor of Berkeley and informed almost exclusively by his predeces-
sor's thought. Since then, we have clear documentation of the fact that
Hume read Berkeley prior to the completion of the Treatise.1^
Of course, we also have internal evidence of the influence. In one of his
three published references to Berkeley,14 Hume recognizes him as ' a great
philosopher' and praises Berkeley's views on abstraction as '. . . one of the
greatest and most valuable discoveries that has been made of late years in
the Republic of Letters . . . ' (T. 1.1.7.1, 17; SBN 17). 15 Additionally, both
Ayers and Raynor have defended the importance of Berkeley's doctrine of
minima sensibilia for Hume. 16 Hall and Ayers have defended Hume's use of
the notion of'outness.' 17 Ayers points to the importance of the vulgar view-
philosophical view dialectic in both Berkeley and Hume. 18 And Raynor has
defended Hume's appeal to Berkeley's argument that primary qualities
cannot be abstracted from secondary qualities, and so must be equally
mind-dependent (T. 1.4.4.8, 150 and ECU 12.15, 202-3; SBNE 155). 19 ' 20 ' 21
Given that Hume was influenced by Berkeley, the question of how Hume
responds to Berkeley's account of spirit is an important question about
the nature of the relationship between Berkeley's philosophy and Hume's.
Since the old story about the triumvirate has been cleared away, we ought
to reassess Hume's response to Berkeley. It has already been suggested by
Raynor that Hume's own account of the mind may have been inspired
by the second of the two 1734 exchanges.22 The question I wish to ask is why
The Spirit and the Heap 109
Hume adopted that account of mind. Did Hume reject Berkeley's account of
spirit because he thought it was incoherent? Did Hume misunderstand Ber-
keley's account of the mind as somehow contrary to empiricist principles? 23
Or did Hume have something more interesting to say?
That the latter might be the case is suggested by one of his three published
references to Berkeley:
. . . most of the writings of that very ingenious author [Berkeley] form the
best lessons of scepticism, which are to be found . . . Bayle not excepted.
He professes, however, in his title-page (and undoubtedly with great
truth) to have composed his book against the sceptics as well as against
the atheists and free-thinkers. But that all his arguments, though other-
wise intended, are, in reality, merely sceptical, appears from this, that
they admit of no answer and produce no conviction. Their only effect is to cause
that momentary amazement and irresolution and confusion, which is the
result of scepticism. (EHU 12.15, 203, note 38, SBNE 155)
This is perverse high praise, elevating Berkeley above Bayle.24 Note that
Hume doesn't identify Berkeley's arguments as sceptical on the grounds
that they lead to a kind of egoism. Hume labels Berkeley's arguments scep-
tical on these grounds alone: That they admit of no answer and produce no
conviction.
As Raynor has argued, Hume has Berkeley's Dialogues in mind in this pas-
sage. 5 And when Hylas and Philonous dispute the meaning of the word
'scepticism,' it is expanded beyond doubting everything (3D I 172) to '. . .
distrusting the senses . . . denying the real existence of things, or pretending
to know nothing of them' (3D I 173). So it is appropriate that Hume should
define it in a new way as well. Indeed, as Raynor observes,26 Hume's
remarks draw on Hylas himself who says:
While Hume writes 'we sit down contended,' Berkeley complained 'we sit
down in a forelorn scepticism' in apparent response to Locke's proposal
that 'we sit down in quiet ignorance.' Is Hume's allusion accidental?
It seems hard to believe, since Berkeley complained that God should give us
a desire for knowledge and then place it out of reach; Hume gives a response
in this passage: Once we realize that the desire can't be satisfied, the desire
goes away. Recall that in the Dialogues the definition of scepticism is
expanded to include pretending to an ignorance of things (see 3D III 228),
a definition which applies to Locke's ignorance of the real nature of things -
the very sort of ignorance that Hume is here espousing.
The remark has a bearing on Berkeley's views about our desire for immor-
tality and our desire to know whether the soul is immortal. Hume's accusa-
tion is that the philosopher who attempts to discover 'ultimate principles'
The Spirit and the Heap 111
does not show himself very knowledgeable about human nature. This fits
nicely with Hume's view that Berkeley's conclusions fail to produce convic-
tion. Unlike Berkeley, Hume is initiating a broad inquiry into human
nature; it is not one which reaches for the 'ultimate principles':
For to me it seems evident, that the essence of the mind being equally
unknown to us with that of external bodies, it must be equally impossible
to form any notion of its powers and qualities otherwise than from careful
and exact experiments, and the observation of those particular effects . . .
'tis still certain we cannot go beyond experience; and any hypothesis, that
pretends to discover the ultimate original qualities of human nature,
ought at first to be rejected as presumptuous and chimerical. (T Intro 8,
5, SBN xvii)
and cannot be distinguished into parts; by abiding Hume means that the self
does not undergo any variation. This is virtually the first time that Hume
deploys the expression 'self and the fact that he considers it in a section dis-
tinct from the preceding indicates his care in distinguishing it from 'sub-
stance.' 29 It seems clear that he is using it in a specifically philosophical
way that was pioneered by Locke. 30
The argument Hume deploys in both sections (and the one he applies
throughout the Treatise rather frequently) runs as follows: First, Hume
denies that there is any impression of the target item. He then appeals to
his principle (T 1.4.6.2, 164, SEN 251): Tt must be some one impression
that gives rise to every real idea,' concluding that there is no idea of it. And
finally, while he tends not to mention this important assumption, Hume
appeals to the thesis that terms require annexed ideas in order to count as
intelligible. He concludes that the target item is a kind of nonsense.
The semantic principle which Hume relies on is one which Berkeley expli-
citly rejects. Yet this is a principle which Hume at no point bothers to
defend. Moreover, when Hume initially runs this argument against the
soul as supporting substance and then against the simple and continued
self, he stops at the conclusion that there is no idea of the itern^ leaving the
semantic commitment unspoken. The conclusion that Hume explicitly
reaches against the soul and self could not be expected to rule out Berkeleian
spirit, since Berkeley would have agreed with the conclusion in both cases.
More strikingly, while Hume seems mainly happy to deny that as a
matter of fact there is any such impression he also flirts with Berkeley-style
arguments to the effect that there could not be such an impression. In 'Of the
immateriality of the soul' Hume argues that it is very difficult, if not impos-
sible to conceive of an impression of soul-substance: 'For how can an impres-
sion represent a substance, otherwise than by resembling it? And how can an
impression resemble a substance, since, according to this philosophy, it is
not a substance, and is one of the peculiar qualities or characteristics of a
substance?' (T 1.4.5.3, 153, SBN 233). 31
According to the target view, impressions are not substances (they are dif-
ferent from them). Consequently they cannot resemble substances, and so
cannot constitute likenesses of substance. This is a line of reasoning straight
out of Berkeley's work. According to Berkeley, ideas cannot resemble spirits
because the two are so unlike. 32
Arguably, a similar flirtation with Berkeleian reasoning appears in 'Of
personal identity': 'For from what impression cou'd this idea be deriv'd?
This question 'tis impossible to answer without a manifest contradiction
and absurdity . . . self or person is not any one impression, but that to
which our several impressions and ideas are suppos'd to have a reference'
The Spirit and the Heap 113
(T 1.4.6.2, 164, SEN 251). It is hard to spot the absurdity. Hume goes on
in the passage to note that an impression of a simple, abiding self ought to
continue constant and invariable, while there is no such constant impres-
sion. Yet this hardly seems like an absurdity since it is at least possible that
an impression should continue constant and uninterrupted.
I suspect the absurdity does not concern constancy but the fact that
impressions are supposed to have a reference to self in the first place. The
following remarks about constancy would not contribute to the absurdity
claim so much as help establish the empirical claim that there is, in fact, no
impression. Instead, Hume is tacitly relying on the same sort of reasoning
which he has already used. For a simple and abiding impression to represent
a simple and abiding self, the self would have to be sufficiently similar to that
impression to be represented by it. In the target view, a self is not an impres-
sion but that to which impressions are referred (hence it is different). Hume
once again appears to appeal to a Berkeley-style argument to reach a con-
clusion which Berkeley would have accepted.
If Hume's main arguments against the soul as substance and the simple,
abiding self are arguments which reach conclusions that Berkeley would
have accepted, how does Hume address Berkeley? The closest Hume comes
to addressing Berkeley in the main body of the Treatise is not in any of these
sections, but the earlier section 'Of scepticism with regard to the senses.'
Here Hume undertakes to show that the appearance of a perception in the mind is
distinct from the existence of a perception. He does this to undermine the appar-
ent contradiction that a perception exists 'without being present to the
mind.' He then provides an account of what it means to say that an object
(a perception) becomes present to the mind. For Hume, this amounts to
the fact that the perception makes a causal impact upon the bundle. To be
conscious of a perception is for the perception to make a causal impact upon
the bundle. Hume's point is to show that the beliefs of the vulgar (namely
that objects exist without being present to the mind) are at least coherent
(although false) ,33 Two remarks are in order.
First, Hume is fairly clear about the nature of Berkeleian mind-
dependence. The question is not whether a perception (qua mode) can
exist without a substance in which to inhere. The 'palpable contradic-
tion' is that a thought should exist without 'appearing in the mind.' What
Hume is interested to combat is the widely held view that there is no such
thing as a thought absent from conscious awareness.
Second, his strategy in solving this problem begs the question against
Berkeley. He asserts that the mind is a heap of perceptions and therefore a
perception can exist without appearing in the mind insofar as it can be
broken off from the causally connected heap.
114 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
Curiously, an argument nowhere to be found in the Treatise appears in
Hume's Appendix retraction where he is supposed to be summarizing the
arguments that led him to view the mind and self as a bundle of perceptions
in the first place: According to the doctrine of the philosophers, when one
views a table and a chimney, nothing is present but perceptions. Yet accord-
ing to the doctrine of the vulgar, the table and chimney can and do exist
separately (independent of the mind). The doctrine of the vulgar 'implies
no contradiction.' Therefore, the view that perceptions can and do exist
independent of the mind likewise implies no contradiction.
This is clearly an argument against Berkeley. It parallels Philonous' con-
cluding remarks in the Dialogues that he is for reconciling the views of the
vulgar and philosophical (3D III 262). However, it is noteworthy that it
should appear (for the first time) when Hume is rehearsing his reasons for
coming to doubt his own account of the self. It is likewise noteworthy that
Hume should finally, for the first time, explicitly state the semantic principle
behind his main argument (T. Appendix 11, 399, SEN 633).
Had Hume supposed that Berkeley's own account was incoherent (i.e.
that Berkeley's own principles led to a Humean account of the mind), it is
very hard to understand why an argument of this type should appear in the
Appendix at all. It would be wholly unnecessary. Yet it does appear, and it
appears well before Hume remarks:
For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself,
I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold,
light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never catch myself
at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but
the perception.1
In 'Of personal identity' Hume lodges his Complaint after running his main
argument against the idea of a simple and continued self. The Complaint is
118 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
sometimes taken as a further objection to the claim that there is such an idea
of the self. While there is a tight connection between Hume's denial that
there is an impression of a simple, continued self and his denial that such a
self may be perceived, the Complaint itself does not strictly deny that such
a self may be perceived. It consists of the following two claims: (1) When-
ever one enters into oneself, one always perceives perceptions; (2) Whenever
one enters into oneself, one perceives only perceptions. The conjunction of
these two claims constitutes Hume's argument in favour of his own concep-
tion of the self.
After arguing against the simple and continued self, Hume raises the
question, 'But farther, what must become of all our particular perceptions
upon this hypothesis? . . . After what manner, therefore, do they belong to
self; and how are they connected with it?' (T. 1.4.6.3, 164-5, SEN 252).
Hume never calls into question the existence of a self. The issue concerns
what the self is and how perceptions are related to it. The question has
special force, because after arguing against the idea of the simple, con-
tinued self, Hume argues that all perceptions are distinct existences and
require nothing to support them. The positive argument in favour of his
own conception of self, flowing from the Complaint, runs: 'When I turn my
reflection on myself, I never can perceive this self without some one or
more perceptions; nor can I ever perceive any thing but the perceptions.
'Tis the composition of these, therefore, which forms the self (Appendix
11,399, SEN 634).
One reason that Hume's Complaint has been mistaken for a further
objection to the view that the self is simple and abiding, is that in his original
formulation of this argument, Hume grapples with a metaphysician who
rejects the claim that only perceptions may be perceived, maintaining that
he perceives a simple and continued self. But Hume is not at this stage
arguing against a simple and continued self. He has already done that.
After 'loosening his perceptions' by arguing that they are distinct existences,
he defends claims (1) and (2) in an argument designed to establish that the
self is a heap of perceptions.
It is far from clear what Hume means when he speaks of'entering most inti-
mately into what he calls himself and 'turning his reflection on himself.'
One suspects he thinks about himself through memory and imagination. 9
What does seem clear to me is that in providing an argument in favour of
his account of the self, Hume is thereby providing a positive argument in
favour of his own account of self-consciousness. Given that Hume has rejected
the view that whenever we think we are intimately conscious of a simple and
continued self, it makes sense that Hume should then provide an account of
The Elusive Subject 119
Now note that one of the most striking features of the Complaint is the
emphasis on 'perception.' Hume does not 'catch' himself without a percep-
tion; he 'observes' nothing but the perception. The stubborn metaphysician
may 'perceive' something simple and continued. Could Berkeley have been
that stubborn metaphysician? Could Hume have intended his talk about the
perceivability of the self to somehow include Berkeley's non-perceptual
The Elusive Subject 121
Hume has left us with a paradox. Given that distinct perceptions are dis-
tinct existences, it follows that the perception of one's existence must be
nothing more than the perception of the various perceptions. Yet given
that no real bound can be perceived between distinct existences, no such
perception of one's own existence is possible. In this way, he returns us to a
state of perplexity that echoes that of Locke's perplexity about the soul.
Hume has left us with a new paradox that calls into question our very aware-
ness of our own existence.
The only solutions Hume allows involve the perception of one's existence.
Did the perceptions inhere in a substance, one would have the older model of
consciousness found in Descartes and Locke. In perceiving one's mental
states qua modes, one would thereby perceive one's existence. Did one per-
ceive a real bound among one's perceptions, one would thereby perceive
oneself. The possibility of non-perceptual awareness is excluded from the
range of solutions. Once again, Berkeley occupies the peculiar status of
being silenced from the outset. Rather than accepting Berkeley's position
as a possible solution, Hume is prepared to accept the paradox. 19 ' 20 ' 21
However, the paradox appears to be the consequence of Hume's rejection
of Berkeley. For if the vulgar are correct, it must be possible for perceptions
to exist without appearing to the mind. The only account which allows for
this is one which fails at providing a satisfactory account of self-awareness.
Yet Hume scarcely misses a beat, using this as more evidence in favour of
scepticism. It is little wonder, since this problem has so little affect upon
his project. It is a problem which only afflicts Hume's account of present
self-awareness.
While consciousness that one exists requires something more than the per-
ception of plurality, there is no difficulty in allowing for a mind as a loose
mental system. Hume's project of accounting for the human mind is in no
way stymied by this problem. Hume does not even need this awareness in
order to ground his account of personal identity, since reflection upon past
perceptions through memory and imagination would alone suffice. Indeed,
this account of personal identity seems sufficient to generate the very idea of
the self as a bundle of perceptions, and Hume's Book II account of the pas-
sions pride and shame remains unhindered.
Hume's privilege of the sceptic is an especially interesting move, if we con-
tinue to keep Berkeley in mind. It is not a privilege that Berkeley ever pos-
sessed, given his intention to destroy scepticism. We might recall Hume's
remarks in the Introduction, '. . . the writer may derive a more delicate satis-
faction from the free confession of his ignorance, and from his prudence in
avoiding that error, into which so many have fallen, of imposing their
conjectures and hypotheses on the world for the most certain principles'
The Elusive Subject 123
(T Intro 9. 5; SEN xviii). One wonders whether Hume's paradox hadn't
been anticipated from the outset. If so, far from being a serious problem
with his theory, it may have constituted a final solution in addressing Berke-
ley's conception of spirit.
Hume's Complaint has been connected to the theme that the self is myster-
iously elusive. I say 'theme' rather than 'thesis' since it is far from clear
what the elusiveness thesis amounts to. I suspect this is one reason for
the mystery surrounding it. Consequently, I should qualify that my foray
into this murky quagmire is limited in scope. Given the host of variations
played upon this theme throughout the history of Western Philosophy - in
Kant, Fichte, Schopenhauer, Sartre, Russell, Wittgenstein, Anscombe, and
the like - it would be vain to promise a complete account.
Consider Colin McGinn's formulation of an example of 'philosophical
perplexity':
And there is a second source of ontic elusiveness, equally familiar from the
history of thought on the subject of the subject: the systematic transcen-
dence of the self in acts of self-awareness. If I try to focus on myself,
making the referent of T the object of my apprehension, then the subject
of this focus inevitably transcends its object. When I think of myself that
which thinks occurs as subject; thus I never become merely an object of
my own apprehension. The self always, and systematically, steps out
of cognitive reach. .. . Qua subject I can never be an intentional object to
22
myself. Yet it is qua subject that I have my essence.
McGinn's proposed treatment of philosophical perplexity is what he calls
'transcendental naturalism,' a view which to some degree echoes Locke's,
in that it supposes that such perplexities '. . . arise in us because of definite
inherent limitations on our epistemic faculties . . . ,' 23 A more attrac-
tive approach is a Berkeleian view that this alleged problem is a distinctively
philosophical one, built upon the mistakes and confusions of philosophers
themselves.
This problem might be best treated that way because it is clearly a philo-
sopher's problem. Despite Gilbert Ryle's suggestion that these issues arise
even for children, the nature of this specific problem is difficult to explain
to anybody - never mind children.24 And I doubt that it has occurred to
many people who have not been raised on modern Western philosophy.
A further indication of this is that the problem is often formulated by
124 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
appealing to a 'subject of experience.' Chisholm, for example, speaks of. . .
25
the thesis according to which one is never aware of a subject of experience.'
But what is a subject of experience? This is certainly a philosophical expres-
sion used only by philosophers. I have never once heard this expression
uttered on the bus, or even over too many drinks in the wee hours of the
morning by friends who were not themselves philosophers already intro-
duced to the expression. What does it mean?
The Oxford English Dictionary provides two different philosophical defi-
26
nitions of'subject':
5. Philos. A thing which is perceived, thought of, known, etc.; spec, a thing
which is external to or distinct from the apprehending mind, subject, or
self. (Opposed to SUBJECT n.9. Cf. OBJECTIVE n. 1).
There is a contrast between the subject (of accidents) and the subject (versus
objects). Both probably derive from the same grammatical notion of a sub-
ject, yet when deployed within philosophical contexts, there is an important
difference. Contrast the accounts by Aristotle and Russell: 'The subject
[hypokeimenon] is that of which the other things are said, but which itself is
never [said] of any other thing,' 27 and 'We will define a "subject" as any
entity which is acquainted with something. . . . Conversely, any entity with
which something is acquainted will be called an "object." '28
The difference concerns a contrast in philosophical categories. For exam-
ple, Quassim Cassam speaks of '. . . a form of dualism which has had a pro-
found influence on much theorizing about the nature of self-consciousness,
The Elusive Subject 125
namely, a dualism of subject and object.' He goes on to explain, 'The cen-
tral thesis of this form of dualism is that the categories "subject" and
"object" are mutually exclusive.' I take it that he means philosophical cate-
gories. After all, it is odd that 'subject' and 'object' should carry such weight.
And I suspect one reason for the significance of these categories is this very
dualism which tells us that the subject cannot be an object to itself.
Yet there is considerable room for overlap between these two notions of
'subject'; it is presumably for this reason that the two notions are generally
collapsed in discussions concerning the mind. The mind can be a subject of
mental states which represent objects. Or, as the OED suggests, the mind
could be a subject in which its own objects (i.e. ideas) 'inhere.' Here it
would be a little unclear whether ideas are accidents, or whether ideas
'inhere' only in the sense that they depend upon the mind for their existence.
For present purposes I distinguish between what I will call the 'older sub-
ject' (in which accidents inhere) and the 'modern subject' (as opposed to
objects), while recognizing that modern philosophical usage actually blurs
the two.
Yet even this clarification is insufficient to help us understand what 'sub-
ject of experience' means. Consider that when one stares into a mirror, one
sees oneself staring. Staring is something that is typically done by 'perceiv-
ing subjects.' Is one not aware of oneself as a subject? If so, the subject can be
an object (to itself). Why then does McGinn complain that 'the subject' is
ever beyond cognitive grasp? Something else must be meant by 'subject of
experience.' The problem is that in denying that one ever has any cognitive
grasp of it, one worries that there is no content to the expression at all, and
hence no grounds for the problem.
There is a related perplexity about the way in which Hume's Complaint is
supposed to connect to the elusiveness theme. While there is a sense in which
Hume is taken to originate the thesis, there is another sense in which Hume
is supposed to fall prey to it. In this second sense, the worry is that Hume was
'looking in the wrong place.' He was expecting to find 'the subject' among
the 'the objects' and in so doing, he could not 'catch it' for all his stumbling.
The two versions are in tension with each other. Is the Complaint an
instance of insight or blindness?
The tension is connected to the fact that there are two possible theses
involved. There is the thesis that one is never aware of 'the subject of experi-
ence' at all. And there is the weaker thesis that the subject of experience
can never be 'an object to itself.' The latter leaves open the possibility that
one can be aware of'the subject' but not aware of it 'as an object.' There
could be radically contrasting modes of awareness grounding a dualism
between the categories of 'subject' and 'object.' As Cassam puts it:
126 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
The suggestion, then, is that it is a monstrous contradiction that a subject
should ever become an object for itself, because awareness of something
as an object, and awareness of it qua subject, are mutually exclusive modes
30
of awareness.
The latter would seem a more palatable version since this awareness of
the subject would at least provide the expression 'the subject of experience'
with content.
Yet it is the stronger thesis which is usually attributed to Hume. Fortu-
nately, Hume does not postulate anything which exists, continuing to
escape his awareness of it. He takes the fact that we have no idea of a simple
and abiding self as grounds for denying that the term 'self so used has sense
at all. This contrasts with McGinn's formulation of the elusiveness theme
according to which there is a subject of experience which is never an object
of cognition. Perhaps McGinn's thesis ought to be weakened to allow for
some awareness of the subject, awareness that does not constitute awareness
of something 'as object.'
What is supposed to be at stake is a sort of non-sensory awareness which
has sometimes been called 'introspection' which is connected with the con-
tent of the expression 'subject of experience.' The notion, when used philo-
sophically, suggests a kind of inner examination of one's mental life. Yet we
need to keep in mind that even for Locke there is a distinction between
reflection and consciousness. Reflection is something that one only does
occasionally; consciousness is something that accompanies all thoughts.
It is the latter we are interested in, when we investigate the grounds for self-
knowledge with respect to propositions such as: T am in pain,' T see a tree,'
T feel tired.' In such cases, one does not necessarily stop to investigate one-
self through an inner scrutiny. The awareness accompanies the event quite
immediately. Indeed, philosophers such as Shoemaker and Evans argue
that this sort of awareness is not to be modeled on sensory awareness
and that it does not involve a sort of inner examination. 31 While it is no tri-
vial matter to specify how 'introspection' might be analogous to sense-
perception, one way is for the cognition of one's own mental states to involve
mediating ideas (as in Locke) and/or higher-order cognition which takes
lower-order cognition as objects.
Taken in this way, 'introspection' provides the resources for an elusive-
ness worry (as a kind of infinite regress). One version of this is formulated
by Ryle.32 A higher-order reflection or report cannot take itself as an
object, and so with each higher-order reflection, there is always something
else to be reflected upon. It therefore appears that higher-order reflections
generate new objects of possible reflection (infinitely). 33
The Elusive Subject 127
So: where Descartes would have said that I am certain that "I have a
tickle", the only thing Hume is aware of is the tickle itself. The self
The Cartesian ego - is an entity which is wholly mysterious. We are
128 Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
aware of no such entity that 'has' the tickle, 'has' the headache, the visual
perception, and the rest; we are aware only of the tickle, the headache, the
visual perception, itself. 35
As formulated, the point is too strong. Hume is rejecting any self distinct
from his perceptions; he is rejecting a self that is simple and abiding. He is
also interested in arguing that the self is nothing but a bundle of perceptions.
He, too, is aware that 'I have a tickle.' The difference concerns how this
awareness is analyzed. Given that a Humean bundle itself perceives percep-
tions by having perceptions as causally connected elements, why shouldn't
we say that to be aware of the heap is ipso facto to be aware of oneself as a
subject of experience? To be sure, this seems intuitively wrong. And it
seems intuitively wrong because we philosophers have something else in
mind when we speak of a subject of experience. Hume's analysis of con-
sciousness does not provide us with content for our notion 'subject of experi-
ence.' What does?
We have two candidates from which to choose. In the older model, the
subject is related to accidents. Consequently, this model more properly
reflects the older notion of'subject.' In Berkeley's model, the subject is con-
trasted with objects. Consequently, it more properly reflects the modern
notion of'subject.'
The contrast can be deepened by recognizing that in the older model, it
makes sense to say that the subject is an object of consciousness. One's con-
sciousness is wholly self-consciousness. In perceiving various different
mental states, one perceives that one exists; in securing knowledge of these
states, one secures knowledge of oneself. In Berkeley's model, one is only
aware of items distinct from oneself. One is aware of oneself only as a thing
that exists qua perceiver of those items distinct from oneself. Berkeleian
spirit, unlike the Cartesian mind, possesses no intrinsic properties. Rather,
it is a bare active existent, related to its various different objects.36
Another way to understand the contrast is to recognize the Berkeleian
model of self-consciousness as 'de-centered' since one is only ever conscious
of oneself in relation to something else. When one is aware that one perceives
a tree, one is centrally aware of the tree and only in a de-centered way aware
of oneself as a distinct perceiver of it. By contrast, in the older model, con-
sciousness is centered. While in seeing the tree one does not see oneself, there
is another modality of perception which accompanies the seeing: the con-
scious awareness that one sees the tree. This modality of self-awareness is
itself centered insofar as the central object of consciousness is oneself.
As I have argued, when Hume grapples with a stubborn metaphysician
who claims to perceive something simple and continued, this metaphysician
The Elusive Subject 129
There are deep questions about modern Western philosophy itself. Even if
it is false that the self is a mere subject of experience, to what extent has this
been assumed? To what extent has self-consciousness been understood as
de-centered? And to what extent have kinds of self-awareness only been
accepted as genuine to the extent that they are de-centered? The questions
have force, once we recognize that the older model of consciousness accepted
by Descartes and Locke was not de-centered. If de-centered self-awareness
is privileged in philosophy, it is a bias which derives from Berkeley's peculiar
philosophy of spirit.
I conclude this book by observing that it is strange and yet illuminating to
learn that the distinctively modern concern about an elusive subject should,
in part, derive from Berkeley's philosophy of spirit. Berkeley had been con-
cerned with theological issues like the natural immortality of the soul, our
knowledge of God, and the Christian mysteries. Such concerns emerged
within the context of Anglican theology, the Irish notion of analogy, and
the harnessing of the 'way of ideas' by free-thinkers such as Toland and
Collins. By stripping back the self to a bare T am' Berkeley hoped to answer
these concerns. Yet in splitting the cogito to produce it, the distinctively
modern elusive subject was born. It survived only because it was found and
then hidden by David Hume. Lingering like a ghost in Hume's Treatise and
the mythologized Complaint, it has continued to exert a deep influence on
our understanding of modern subjecthood.
Perhaps now that the Berkeley's philosophy of spirit has been vindicated
from the charge of incoherence, Berkeley can have an even greater impact
upon our understanding of contemporary issues concerning the philosophi-
cal concept of the subject of experience. The price, however, may be the
recognition of the uncomfortably idiosyncratic history of contemporary
philosophical concepts as well as the power of a mythologized history in
obscuring, and thereby engendering, philosophical perplexity of its own.
Notes
Introduction
Chapter One
1. For discussion of Berkeley's proof of the natural immortality of the soul see Harry
M. Bracken, 'Berkeley on the Immortality of the Soul,' The Modern Schoolman 37
(1960), 77-94 and 197-212 and Berman (1994), 58-70. As a consequence of his
views about time, thinks Berman, Berkeley can show that the soul is absolutely
immortal. While I agree that Berkeley's view about time is important to his view
about natural immortality, I do not think that absolute immortality follows from it.
2. All references to Locke's replies to Stillingfleet are from The Works of John Locke
(London. 1823), Volume 4.
3. Bracken (1960) emphasizes the importance of this dispute in understanding Berke-
ley's demonstration of the natural immortality of the soul. Bracken cites the follow-
ing notebooks entries as evidence that Berkeley was familiar with the dispute: PC
517 and PC 700. He also cites PC 720 as evidence of Berkeley's departure from
Toland. See Luce's editio diplomatica of Philosophical Commentaries (Thomas Nelson
and Sons: Edinburgh. 1944), 720 note. Further evidence of his concern with
Toland's (and possibly Collins') views may be found at PC 350 and 350a.
4. Dodwell, An Epistolary Discourse Proving from the Scriptures and the First Fathers that the
Soul is a Principle Naturally Mortal.. . abbr. (London. 1706).
5. Clarke, A Letter to Mr. Dodwell (London. 1707).
6. Norris, A Philosophical Discourse concerning the Natural Immortality of the Soul
(London. 1708).
7. All references to the ClarkeCollins correspondence are from The Works of Samuel
Clarke (London. 1738), four volumes, vol. III. Reprinted by Garland (1978).
8. Collins, An Essay concerning the Use ofReasonin Propositions (London. 1707). Reprinted
by Garland (1984).
9. Introduced by David Berman and edited by Andrew Carpenter. The Cadenus
Press (Dublin, 1976).
10. Citations of An Essay concerning Human Understanding [E] refer to book, part, section,
and page from (ed.) Peter H. Nidditch (Clarendon: Oxford University Press, 1975).
136 Notes to Pages 8-25
11. Christianity not Mysterious, 74-87.
12. Boethius, trans. V.E. Watts, The Consolation of Philosophy (The Folio Society. 1998)
Book5, Sec. 6, 169.
13. This contrasts with the view he defends in his dispute with Clarke, An Answer to
Mr. Clarke's Third Defence (1708), 864. Clarke was quick to point this out to him in
A Fourth Defence of an Argument (1708), 893.
14. Locke E. 2.17.16, 219; Clarke, A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, sec. V.
See also Sermon IV: Of the Eternity of God (Works I 2).
15. Leviathan (London. 1651), Part 3, Ch. 34.
16. Locke, A Letter to the Right Reverend Edward, Lord Bishop of Worcester . . . (1697) 34-6,
Mr. Locke's Reply to the Bishop of Worcester's Answer to his Second Letter (1699) 483-92.
17. SeeBerman(2005),96.
18. Browne worries how a property can be essential to one being and only accidental
to another. If to remove an originally essential property makes a thing cease
to be what it is, the addition of it to another ought to make it become some-
thing else. Since thought is supposed to be taken as essential to spirit, to add
the property of thought to matter is to effectively make it a spirit. See Procedure
(150-2,444).
19. Stillingfleet, The Bishop of Worcester's Answer to Mr. Locke's Second Letter (London.
1698), 27-9.
20. Mr. Locke's ... Answer to his Second Letter, 476.
21. Ibid., 477.
22. Letter to Do dwell, 740-1.
23. Procedure, 234-47.
24. An Argument concerning the Human Souls seperate Subsistance (London. 1699), 67. For a
discussion of Layton see John W. Yolton, Thinking Matter: Materialism in Eighteenth-
Century Britain (University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis. 1983), 36-9.
25. Berman (1994), 66-70, draws interesting connections between Coward's Farther
Thoughts concerning Human Soul (London, 1903) and Berkeley's theory of time.
26. Stillingfleet (1698), 44.
27. Mr. Locke's ... Answer to his Second Letter (303-4, 331-2).
28. A Third Defence of an Argument (1708), 851-53.
29. An Answer to Mr. Clarke's ThirdDefence (1708), 875-9.
30. A ThirdDefence, 851-3.
31. Rand (1914), 69.
32. Ibid., 68.
33. Sermon VII,'On Eternal Life' (Works VII 108). See ALC VI 11,241.
34. For other discussions of this natural desire see Berman (1994), 58 and Stephen R.L.
Clark, 'Berkeley on Religion,' in Kenneth P. Winkler (ed.), The Cambridge Compa-
nion to Berkeley (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. 2005), 398-99.
35. Sermon IX, 'Anniversary Sermon before the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel,' (WorksVII 114-5).
36. Ibid., 115.
37. Guardian Essay no. 89, 'Immortality' (Works VII 222).
Notes to Pages 8-25 137
38. WorksVll 115.1 take it that this is consistent with Berkeley's claim in the notebooks
that sensual pleasure is the Summum Bonum (PC 769) 'once rightly understood.'
39. Sermon IV, 'On the Mission of Christ' (Works VII 48).
40. ALC III. See also Guardian Essay no. 55, 'The Sanctions of Religion' (Works VII
200-1).
41. An Essay towards preventing the Ruin of Great Britain (Works VI 69).
42. Sermon I, 'On Immortality' (WorksVll 11).
43. Ibid., 13.
44. Guardian Essay no. 27, 'The Future State' (WorksVll 183-4).
45. Ibid., 184.
46. 'On Immortality', 13.
47. Ibid., 14-15.
48. 'On Eternal Life' (WorksVll 108); cf. ALC VI 11.241.
49. 'Immortality' (WorksVll 223).
50. Ibid., 223.
51. 'The Future State,' 183.
52. Passive Obedience (1112) sec. 5-6 (WorksVl 19-20), Sermon IX (Works VII 114-5).
53. 'Immortality' (WorksVll 222-3).
54. 'On Immortality,' 9.
55. E. 1.1.4, p. 45; PHK I Intro 1.
56. Rand (1914), 73.
57. A Letter to the Learned Mr. Henry Dodwell (1707), 752.
58. Reflections on Mr. Clarke's Second Defence (1707), 815-6.
59. A Fourth Defence of an Argument (1708), 904.
60. A Second Defence of an Argument (1707), 787.
61. A Third Defence, 844-5.
62. A Philosophical Discourse concerning the Natural Immortality of the Soul (London. 1708).
63. Johnson to Berkeley III Worksll 289. Johnson also wonders what Berkeley thinks
of animal souls and how this affects his argument. One deficiency of this mono-
graph is my failure to discuss this important issue. It is also a failure on Berkeley's
part.
64. A Reply to Mr. Clarke's Defence (1707), 773.
65. A Second Defence of'an Argument (1707), 793.
66. A.A. Luce, 'Another look at Berkeley's Notebooks,' Hermathena 110 (1970), 5-23.
For a dissenting opinion see Bertil Belfrage, 'George Berkeley's "Philosophical
Commentaries" A Review of Prof. A.A. Luce's Editions' in Logik Rdtt och Moral
(ed. S6renHallden<tf0/.) Lund: Studentlitteratur, 1969, 19-34.
67. It is hard to believe that Berkeley means something so abstract as 'being in general.'
Instead, he has his own specific being or existence (as given in self-consciousness) in
mind.
68. In Alciphron, Berkeley (like Clarke) denies that personal identity can obtain while
memory fail. Moreover, he thinks that the memory account violates the law of the
transitivity of identity, and cannot serve as an account of personal identity.
Euphranor argues (pace Alciphron) that personal identity is itself a mystery on a
138 Notes to Pages 26-40
par with the mysteries about the Trinity (ALC VI.8, 298-99). The transitivity
argument was apparently first formulated by Henry Grove. See Raymond Martin
and John Barresi, The Naturalization of the Soul: Self and Personal Identity in the Eight-
eenthCentury (Routledge. 2000), 72.
Chapter Two
1. Stephen Daniel argues that for Berkeley spirit is not a thing but the sheer existence
of its ideas (and its very activity of willing and perceiving). See his 'Edwards, Ber-
keley, and Ramist Logic,' Idealistic Studies 31:1 (Winter 2001), 55-72; 'The Ramist
Context of Berkeley's Philosophy,' British Journal for the History of Philosophy 9:3
(October 2001), 487-505; 'Berkeley, Suarez, and the 'Esse-Existere' Distinction,'
American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 74:4 (Fall 2000), 621-36; 'Berkeley's Stoic
Notion of Spiritual Substance,' in Stephen H. Daniel (ed.), New Interpretations of
Berkeley's Thought (Humanity Books. Amherst, NY. Forthcoming). For a critique
of Daniel's position, see Ott and Hight (2004). For other rejections of the substance
view, see Muehlmann (1992), Turbayne (1959), and A.C. Lloyd, 'The Self in Ber-
keley's Philosophy,' in Essays on Berkeley: A Tercentennial Celebration (ed. John Foster
and Howard Robinson) (Clarendon: Oxford. 1985), 187-209.
2. See Michael Ayers, 'Substance, Reality, and the Great, Dead Philosophers,' Amer-
ican Philosophical Quarterly 7:1 (1970), 38-49. He identifies 'independent support'
and 'causation' as the two main features which denominate Berkeleian spirit as sub-
stance in the common tradition (48). In his introduction to Ayers (ed.), George Ber-
keley: Philosophical Works including the Works on Vision (Everyman. 1975), he speaks of
a 'single, shared concept of substance' (xxvi). He explains it as follows: 'Roughly,
substances are the ultimate constituents of the universe upon which the phenomena
depend' (xxvi). According to Hight and Ott the moderns shared the view that
'Substances persist through change and are ultimately simple by being indepen-
dent of every other kind of thing' (6).
3. While distinctions can be drawn among 'mode,' 'accident,' 'property,' 'attribute,'
Berkeley treats them as virtually interchangeable (and I will, too).
4. This interpretation was developed by Edwin B. Allaire, 'Berkeley's Idealism,'
Theoria 29 (1963), 229-44. For a discussion of this account, see Muehlmann's intro-
duction to Berkeley's Metaphysics where he provides further bibliographical informa-
tion of the various articles in defense and in criticism of this view. See
also George Pappas, Berkeley's Thought (Cornell University Press: Ithaca. 2000),
128-131.
5. For 'the adverbial account' see Pitcher (1977), 189-203, Margaret Atherton
(1983), and William H. Beardsley, 'Berkeley on Spirit and Its Unity,' History of Phi-
losophy Quarterly 18: 3 (2001) 259-77. For critical assessment, see Kenneth Winkler
(1989), 290-300 and George Pappas (2000), 124-28.
6. See Phillip D. Cummins, 'Berkeley's Ideas of Sense,' Nous 9 (1975), 55-69. See also
Cummins (1989).
Notes to Pages 26-40 139
7. See Grave (1968), 309, Winkler (1989), 298 note 18 and 309-12, and Fred Wilson
'On The Hausmans' "New Approach",' in Muehlmann (1995) 87.
8. It is sometimes claimed that Berkeleian ideas inhere in spirit, despite the fact
that Berkeley never makes this claim. See Turbayne (1982), 297. For this general
tendency to analogize, see Ayers (1975), xxv, xxviii and Winkler (1989), 192 and
note 42.
9. Chapter 2, Ia20 in Aristotle's Categories and De Interpretation, J.L. Ackrill (trans.)
(Clarendon: Oxford. 1963), 4.
10. I do not mean that all predication involves accidents/modes. I mean only that acci-
dent/modes are predicated of their subjects. For a discussion of the distinction
between predication and inherence in the medieval Aristotelian tradition and
Spinoza, see John Carriero, 'On the Relationship between Mode and Substance in
Spinoza's Metaphysics,' Journal of the History of Philosophy 33:2 (1995), 245-73.
11. Stillingfleet, A Discourse in Vindication of the Trinity (London. 1697), 236.
12. Citations of Descartes are from John Cottingham, Robert Stroothoff, and Dugald
Murdoch (trans.), The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, 2 volumes [CSM] (Cam-
bridge University Press: Cambridge. 1984), or from John Cottingham, Robert
Stroothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny (trans.), The Philosophical Writ-
ings of Descartes, Volume III. The Correspondence [CSMK] (Cambridge University
Press: Cambridge. 1991), and Charles Adam and Paul Tannery (eds), Oevres deDes-
cartes, 12 Volumes [AT] (Paris. Leopold Cerf, 1897-1910, reprinted Vrin, 1964-
76). Citations made by volume and page.
13. On Being and Essence, 2nd ed. (trans.) Armand Maurer (Pontifical Institute of Med-
iaeval Studies: Toronto. 1968) Chapter 1, sec. 2, 29-30.
14. Ibid., sec. 3, 30.
15. Ibid., sec. 5, 32-3.
16. See Charles J. McCracken, 'Berkeley on the Relation of Ideas to the Mind,' in Phil-
lip D. Cummins and Guenter Zoeller (eds) Minds, Ideas, and Objects: Essays on the
Theory of Representation in Modern Philosophy (Ridgeview: California. 1992), 187-
200, 190.
17. Third Meditation, AT VII 40, CSM II 27-8.
18. Replies to First Set of Objections, AT VII 102-3, CSM II 74-5.
19. For an attempt to defend this position see William H. Beardsley, 'Berkeley on Spirit
and Its Unity,' History of Philosophy Quarterly 18:3 (July 2001), 259-77, esp. 272~3.
20. Cummins (2005), 217.
21. Beardsley (2001), 270-1.
22. For example, Michael Ayers, Locke: Epistemology and Ontology (Routledge. 1991),
two volumes, volume II, 15-128, Edwin McCann, 'Locke's Philosophy of Body,'
in Vere Chappell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Locke (Cambridge University
Press: Cambridge 1994), 56-88.
23. Stillingfleet, Vindication, 238.
24. Locke, A Letter ... to Worcester (1697), 19.
25. The argument offered at PHK I 16 and then again in the Dialogues is aimed
at Locke. In both cases, the target position involves the denial that there is any
140 Notes to Pages 41-54
positive idea or notion of the substratum and the affirmation that there is a
relative notion of it. This is a distinctively Lockean position. See Mr. Locke's Letter to
the Right Reverend Bishop of Worcester (212). For the view that Berkeley may not be
attacking Locke, see Berman, 'On Missing the Wrong Target,' reprinted in
Berman (2005).
26. There is some parity between PHK I 17 and PHK I 27, where Berkeley attacks the
view that there is a complex idea of spiritual substance involving an idea of each of
the principal powers and an idea 'of substance or being in general with the relative
notion of its supporting . .. .' There is a contrast between the idea of substance (or
being) in general and the relative notion of its supporting. If so, this is not a view
that Locke would have endorsed since his idea of substance in general is not inter-
changeable with the idea of being in general, and his idea of substance in general is
identical with the relative notion of a supporter (rather than that an idea to which
the relative notion is added). This suggests that the target view at 27 is more robust
than the Lockean view, and that, by parity, so too is the view attacked at 17. Possi-
bly, Berkeley intends the expression to be sufficiently unclear to allow a criticism of
Locke's deflated 'something in general' as well as the more robust 'ens.' For a differ-
ent interpretation, see Daniel Garber, 'Something-I-Know-Not-What: Berkeley
on Locke on Substance,' in Ernest De Sosa (ed.), Essays on The Philosophy of George
Berkeley (D. Reidel Publishing. 1987), 27-42.
27. Citations of The Search after Truth [SAT] are from Thomas M. Lennon and Paul J.
Olscamp (trans, and eds) (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. 1997).
28. I am grateful to Larry Nolan for helping me to see how Berkeley positions his work.
29. Winkler (1989) uses this passage to raise similar concerns about the status of mental
acts in Berkeley's ontology (309-12).
30. See also PC 784 and 785.
31. Berman (2005) appeals to these passages to suggest that Berkeley's argument
against substratum may be intended against Descartes.
32. Third Set of Objections and Replies, Reply to Third Objection, AT VII 177, CSM
II 125.
33. Locke (1697) 7.
34. I do not take this to mean that Locke necessarily identifies the idea and the power as
somehow the same thing. The point is that the simple ideas carry with them a sup-
position. For a related discussion (and a different account of Berkeley's response to
Locke) see John Carriero, 'Berkeley, Resemblance, and Sensible Things,' Philoso-
phical Topics 31: 1, 2 (2003) 21-46.
35. Locke (1697), 19,21.
36. See Winkler (1989), 65-75.
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
1. Collins Essay (1707), 48-9, An Answer to Mr. Clarke's Third Defence (1708), 872. See
also A Philosophical Inquiry concerning Human Liberty (1717).
2, For a thorough discussion of Berkeley's arguments for liberty against the free-
thinkers in Alciphron, see Genevieve Brykman, 'On Human Liberty in Berkeley's
Alciphron VII,' in Stephen H. Daniel (ed.), New Interpretations of Berkeley's Thought
(Humanity Books. Amherst, NY. Forthcoming).
3. See Berkeley & Malebranche: A Study in the Origins of Berkeley's Thought (Clarendon:
Oxford. 1934), 84. See also 'Mind-dependence in Berkeley,' Hermathena 57
150 Notes to Pages 88-101
(1941), 117-27. T.E. Jessop is known for a similar view, and there has been talk
of a 'Luce-Jessop' interpretation, although the interpretations were apparently
developed independently. See Luce on this point in The Dialectic of Immaterialism:
An account of the making of Berkeley's Principles (Hodder and Stoughton: London.
1963), 9. This interpretation is frequently referred to as a 'common-sense realist'
reading. I have avoided using this name for two reasons. First, as George Pappas
shows, the position may involve a group of different theses. See, for example,
Pappas, 'Berkeley and Common Sense Realism,' History of Philosophy Quarterly
8 (1991), 27-42. The only claims that I am interested in are formulated on pages
88-9. Second, the expressions 'common-sense' and 'realism' may be used by
philosophers in so many different ways. An example of this is that while Luce
took himself to be defending ^naive realism' by arguing that material things are
composed of sense data, Pappas takes common-sense realism to involve the
claim that 'no macro-physical object has sens a (phenomenal individuals) as
constituents.' Contrast Pappas (1991), 28 with Luce's 'A critique of Professor H. H.
Price's refutation of the naive realist theory of perception,' Hermathena 50 (1936),
6085. Luce expressed discomfort with the term 'realism,' only endorsing it
later on in his career. Contrast, for example, his Berkeley's Immaterialism (Thomas
Nelson and Sons: London. 1945), 28 with what he says in The Dialectic of
Immaterialism (166).
4. See David Berman, 'Berkeley's Quad: The Question of Numerical Identity,' Idea-
listic Studies 16 (1986), 41-5; Berman (1994), 50-2; Jonathan Dancy, Berkeley: An
Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell. 1987), 41-56; Marc A. Right, 'Defending Berke-
ley's Divine Ideas,' Philosophia 33: 1-4 (2005), 97-128; George Pappas, 'Berkeley,
Perception, and Common Sense,' in Turbayne (1982), 321; Berkeley's Thought
(Cornell University Press: Ithaca. 2000), 200-1; David Raynor, 'Berkeley's Ontol-
ogy,' Dialogue 26 (1987), 611-20; John Yolton, Perceptual Acquaintancefrom Descartes
to Reid (Blackwell: Oxford. 1984), 132-7; Perception and Reality: A history from Des-
cartes to Kant (Cornell: Ithaca. 1996).
5. See Charles McCracken, 'What Does Berkeley's God see in the Quad,' Archivfilr
Geschichte der Philosphie 61 (1979), 280-92; 'Berkeley's Realism' (forthcoming);
Robert McKim in Cummins and Zoeller (1992); George Pitcher (1977), 201-3;
'Berkeley on the Perception of Objects,' Journal of the History of Philosophy 24
(1986), 99-105, Kenneth Winkler (1989), 300-9; David Yandell, 'Berkeley on
Common Sense and the Privacy of Ideas,' Journal of History of Philosophical Quarterly
12 (1995), 411-23.
6. For a related formulation from which this one originally derived, see McKim
(1992), 220.
7. Jessop also accepts (2) and (3). See his Works Introduction to the Principles, 10-11.
8. While these claims are related, they are also distinct. One may assert (2) without
holding (1), although it seems hard to see how (2) is not, in Berkeley's universe at
least, necessary for (1). While (3) presupposes (2), (3) does not necessarily follow
from (2). It may be the case that while God perceives whatever I perceive, he only
perceives it on the condition that I perceive it, too.
Notes to Pages 88-101 151
9. See Leopold Stubenberg, 'Divine Ideas: The Cure-Ail for Berkeley's Immaterial-
ism?' Southern Journal of Philosophy 28: 2 (1990), 221-49. Stubenberg argues that
because different finite spirits have different perspectives, it is impossible for them
to perceive ideas which are exactly alike. This objection is at its strongest in the case
of vision where the spatial positioning of the perceiver matters. The concern is a bit
harder to press with respect to sound, smell, touch, and taste. I wonder why two
perceivers can't have exactly resembling visible ideas so long as they occupy the
same vantage point at different times.
10. According to Right (2005), God and finite perceiver share numerically identi-
cal sensible ideas (97), while it is unknown to us from our sensory standpoint
whether two finite perceivers who perceive qualitatively identical sensible ideas
perceive two qualitatively identical ideas or one numerically identical idea (114).
It strikes me as highly un-Berkeleian to suppose a subtle metaphysical question
(whether our ideas are numerically distinct) beyond our knowledge. Berkeley
would be inclined to say that such discussions are fine-spun metaphysical nonsense.
This is why he ridicules the 'abstract philosophical' idea of identity in the Dialogues
discussion of sameness.
11. I read Philonous' claim that Tf the term same be taken in the vulgar acceptation, it
is certain .. . that different persons may perceive the same thing .. .' (3D III 247) as
the claim that the vulgar attribute numerical identity on the basis of qualitative identity.
For discussion of this issue, see Donald Baxter, 'Berkeley, Perception, and Identity,'
Philosophy andPhenomenological Research 51:1 (1991), 85-98, 89-90.
12. One may deny this by attributing to Berkeley a distinction between private
sensible ideas and public qualities and things (such as tables and trees) construed
as collections of the private ideas (held by the different perceivers). However, Ber-
keley argues for the independence of sensible things on the basis of their being
caused against one's will suggesting that sensible ideas are independent as well
(3D II 214).
13. This is a nice consequence of my view, since in the Lucian-style interpretation God
and finite perceiver perceive numerically identical ideas, Philonous' appeal to
archetypes must be rejected as not reflecting Berkeley's true view.
14. There are probably as many interpretations of this passage as there are inter-
preters. See Michael Ayers, 'Divine Ideas and Berkeley's Proof of God's Existence,'
in Essays on The Philosophy of George Berkeley, Ernest Sosa (ed.), (D. Reidel Publish-
ing: Dordrecht. 1987), 115-42; Baxter (1991), David Braybrooke, 'Berkeley on the
Numerical Individuation of Ideas,' The Philosophical Review 64:4 (1955), 631-6;
Daniel Flage, 'Berkeley, Individuation, and Physical Objects,' in Individuation and
Identity in Early Modern Philosophy, Kenneth F. Barber and Jorge J.E. Gracia (eds),
(State University of New York Press: Albany. 1994), 133-54; Luce (1934) 84;
Pitcher (1977) 146-51; Raynor (1987) 617-8; Stoneham (2002), 266-70, Stuben-
berg (1990); Winkler (1989) 302-4.
15. Muehlmann (1992) is correct that Berkeleian substance does not fulfill one of the
three major functions that he claims substances are supposed to fulfill (namely
individuation), 1745. Hight and Ott (2004) are too dismissive of the view that
152 Notes to Pages 88-101
substances had an important role to play with respect to individuation. Substances
commonly played a key role in individuating the modes which inhered in them.
Even Locke himself, whom Muehlmann, Hight and Ott recognize as departing
from this view, assigns substance an important role in his reasoning: 'All other
things being but Modes or Relations ultimately terminated in Substances, the
Identity and Diversity of each particular Existence of them too will be by the
same way determined' (E. 2.27.2, 329).
16. For a fascinating and comprehensive examination of Berkeley's views on bodily res-
urrection, see Marc A. Hight, 'Berkeley and Bodily Resurrection,' Journal of the His-
tory of Philosophy (forthcoming).
17. According to Hight (ibid.), while there is a fact of the matter whether qualitatively
identical perceptually intermittent sensible ideas are numerically identical, this is
not something that we know. The important point is that such questions are idle and
hence do not undermine the analogies of resurrection that Berkeley gives to make
bodily resurrection seem plausible. See my preceding note 10.
18. For a similar discussion of resurrection, see ALC VI. 11, 241.
19. 'On Eternal Life,' Works Vll 108.
20. I Corinthians 15:42-4.
21. Works II Berkeley to Johnson IV, 293.
22. For thorough and provoking discussion of the concerns see I.C. Tipton (1974),
272-92; see also Pitcher (1977), 203-11. For attempted solutions, see A.A Luce
(1963) 176-81; Grayling (1986), 174-83; H. Scott Hestevold, 'Berkeley's Theory
of Time,' History of Philosophy Quarterly 7:2 (1990), 179-92, See also E. J. Furlong,
'On Being "Embrangled" by Time,' in Turbayne (1982), 14855.
23. Hestevold's solution requires that Berkeley retreat into Descartes' position by sup-
posing that we think while sleeping (187).
24. Grayling tries to solve the difficulty by appealing to a pragmatic and public
(although not metaphysically objective) notion of time (179).
25. See Hestevold (1990), 181.
26. See Tipton (1974), 274, Pitcher (1997), 210, Grayling (1986), 179.
27. Hestevold likewise appeals to God to secure an atemporal ordering, although to a
different end.
28. Works II Johnson to Berkeley III 289.
29. For a powerful discussion of the problem that multiple perspectives seems to intro-
duce for Berkeley, see Tipton (1974).
30. Pitcher (1977), 207, Grayling (1986), 181-2.
31. Works II Berkeley to Johnson IV 293.
32. Ibid.
33. Summa Theologica I Q,13. Art. 7.
34. This may suggest that we have a better comprehension of the divine intellect than the
will. For perception does not require a beginning or end, while actions (in time) do.
35. A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, sec. V and Sermon IV: Of the Eternity
of'God (Works I 2).
36. See Stillingfleet's Vindication (1697), 282.
Notes to Pages 102-116 153
Chapter Seven
1. See Brykman (1993), 412.
2. For a list of five apparent uses of'notion,' see Desiree Park, Complementary Notions
(Martinus Nijhoff: The Hague. 1972), 54-5.
3. There are many interpretations of the 'doctrine of notions.' In one interpreta-
tion, notions are concepts of spirits and their acts, or they are spirits and their acts
themselves qua understood in the mind. See Harry M. Bracken, 'Berkeley and
Mental Acts,' Theoria 26 (1960), 140-6, Bracken, Berkeley (St. Martin's Press:
New York. 1974), 82-5 and 135-48, Park (1972), 15-16, and Tipton (1974), 270.
In another, notions are identified with mental acts (Flage, 1987, Ch. 5). A third
account understands 'notion' in terms of the instrumentalist use of terms. A.D.
Woozley, 'Berkeley's Doctrine of Notions and Theory of Meaning,' Journal of
the History of Philosophy 14 (1976), 427-34, Brykman (1982) 613-4, Brykman
(1993), 413-4.
4. Imagined ideas are produced by an act of the mind, and this does not mean we
know them by notions. What Berkeley has in mind is that in order to 'perceive' a
relation we imaginatively compare two different ideas. There is no third thing
which we perceive. Consequently we have no idea of it.
5. For another discussion of the parity dispute, see Phillip Cummins, 'Hylas' Parity
Argument,' in Turbayne (1982), 283-94.
6. That Berkeley even gives an argument is interesting, since he usually says that
we are aware of ourselves as distinct from ideas. Cummins takes the claim that
one idea cannot perceive another as a metaphysical principle from which Berkeley
concludes from the experienced empirical self to an unexperienced substantial
self (291). In my interpretation, the 'empirical self is the 'substantial self.' The T
is bound to its ideas in consciousness, the T continues through time, numeric-
ally identical.
7. For a similar point see Garber (1987), 34-6.
8. For discussion of Baxter's criticisms see Harry M. Bracken, The Early Reception of
Berkeley's Immaterialism: 17101733, revised ed. (Martinus Mijhoff: The Hague.
1965), Ch. 5; Brykman (1984), 518-31; Brykman (1993), 406-9; CJ. McCracken
and I.C. Tipton, Berkeley's Principles and Dialogues: Background Source Materials
(Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. 2000), Ch. 15.
9. For the intriguing view that Berkeley may have been influenced by Hume see Colin
M. Turbayne, 'Hume's Influence on Berkeley,' Revue Internationale de Philosophie 39
(1985), 259-69.
10. For different accounts of these passages see McCracken (1984), 598, Beardsley
(2001) 2607. A standard view has been to reject them on the grounds many are
marked with the '+' sign. A. A. Luce suggested that mark was used as an obelus to
black-list discarded entries. This has been disputed by Bertil Belfrage. See Luce
(1970) and Belfrage, 'A New Approach to Berkeley's Philosophical Notebooks,' in
Sosa (1987), 217-30.
154 Notes to Pages 102-116
11. Turbayne(1959),85.
12. According to this traditional view Berkeley infers a substantial soul. For a nice
response see Atherton (1983).
13. See R.H. Popkin, 'Did Hume ever Read Berkeley?,' Journal of Philosophy 56 (1959)
535-545; Philip P. Wiener and Ernest C. Mossner in the same volume (533-5,
992-5) and Antony Flew and Wiener (twice) in Journal of Philosophy 58 (1961)
50-1, 207-9, 327-8. A letter (August 31, 1737) was discovered in which Hume
encourages Michael Ramsay to read Berkeley's Principles in order to better under-
stand 'the metaphysical parts of my reasoning,' reprinted in Popkin's 'So, Hume
did Read Berkeley,' Journal of Philosophy 61 (1964), 773-78. Nonetheless, Popkin
urges that Berkeley's influence was minimal. Discussion then focuses on whether
Hume used the Principles in composing the Treatise. See Roland Hall, 'Hume's
Actual Use of the Principles,' Philosophy 43 (1968) 278-80, Graham P. Conroy,
'Did Hume Really Follow Berkeley?' Philosophy 44 (1969) 238-80, Hall, 'Yes,
Hume Did Use Berkeley,' Philosophy 45 (1970), 152-3. Michael Morrisroe Jr. pro-
vides evidence of a letter to Ramsay prior to the completion of the Treatise (Septem-
ber, 29 1734) in which Hume expresses his 'Pleasure to read over again today
Locke's Essays and the Principles of Human Knowledge by Dr. Berkeley .. ..' See
'Did Hume Read Berkeley? A Conclusive Answer,' Philological Quarterly 52:2
(1973), 310-5, 314-15.
14. The second reference is from the first Essay (cited below). The third is from his 1763
essay 'Of National Characters' in which Hume references Berkeley's Alciphron. See
Eugene Miller (ed.), David Hume: Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1985), 209.
15. Citations of A Treatise of Human Nature [T] refer to book, part, section, paragraph,
and page. All references are from David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton (eds),
(Oxford University Press: Oxford. 2000). I include page references for L.A. Selby-
Bigge (ed.) with revisions and notes by P.H. Nidditch (2nd ed.) [SEN] (Clarendon:
Oxford. 1978).
16. D.R. Raynor '"Minima Sensibilia" in Berkeley and Hume,' Dialogue 19 (1980),
196-9; M. R. Ayers, 'Berkeley and Hume: A question of influence,' in R. Rorty,
Schneewind, and Skinner (eds), Philosophy in History (Cambridge University Press:
Cambridge. 1983), 303-27; D.R. Raynor, 'Hume and Berkeley's Three Dialogues,'
in M.A. Stewart (ed.), Studies in the Philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment (Oxford
University Press: Oxford. 1990), 231-50.
17. Hall (1968), 280, Hall (1970), 152, Ayers (1983), 320.
18. Ayers, 316-20.
19. Citations of An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding [EHU] refer to section, para-
graph, and page. All references are from Tom L. Beauchamp (ed.) (Oxford Uni-
versity Press: Oxford. 1999). I also include page references for L.A. Selby-Bigge
(ed.) with revisions and notes by P.H. Nidditch (3rd ed.) [SEN] (Clarendon:
Oxford. 1975).
20. Raynor (1980), 234.
21. For further discussion see McCracken and Tipton (2005), Ch. 16.
22. Raynor (1990), 236-7.
Notes to Pages 117-132 155
23. This view is endorsed by Raynor (1980), 236.
24. See Ayers (1983), 305.
25. Raynor (1980), 233-4.
26. Ibid., 234.
27. Popkin( 1964), 778.
28. In the Abstract, Hume s a y s ' . . . that the soul as far as we can conceive it, is nothing
but a system or train of different perceptions . . . all united together but without any
perfect simplicity or identity (Abstract 28, 414; SEN 657).
29. Donald Ainslie aptly notes that many commentators have supposed this section to
concern substance. In 'Hume's Anti-cogito,' unpublished ms.
30. George Pappas defends the view that Hume is arguing against both Locke and Ber-
keley. See Hume Studies 18:2 (1992), 275-80.
31. See Norton and Norton annotation to this passage.
32. This argument applies to non-Berkeleian accounts of a soul in which impressions
inhere in substance as modes and properties. Hume's point is that there can be no
positive idea of the substance, since impression and substance are so different.
33. According to Muehlmann, sensible qualities are mind-dependent for Berkeley only
insofar as they are sensations. By attributing to Berkeley a congeries account of
mind, Muehlmann then charges Berkeley with a lack of resources to secure the
dependence of sensations upon the bundle (and he draws on this Humean passage
to make the criticism). See Muehlmann (1992) 182 and 290. I take this to be a defi-
ciency of his reading.
34. Raynor (1980), 243.
35. T 1.1.4.2.40, 138, SEN 207-8.
36. T Abstract 407, SEN 646.
37. T 1. Introduction 9, 5, SEN xviii.
Chapter Eight
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Index
'the philosophers' 16-17, 19, 30, 33, 34, scepticism 17, 19-20, 109-10, 113,
65,83,89,93, 108, 114-16, 119, 115-16, 121-2
123-4, 128 Schmaltz, Tad 141n.l2
Pitcher, George 134n.8, 142n.22, Schopenhauer, Arthur 123
146n.5, 147n.l6, 150n.5, 151n.l4, selective attention 84
152n.22 self 1-2, 21, 23-4, 46, 49-50, 52, 54, 63,
Pitson, A.E. 156n.lO 65,70,72,80, 102, 106, 111-15,
Pittion Jean-Paul 134n.l6 117-24, 122, 124, 126-30
Plato 6 as spirit or soul 23, 41, 46, 140n.l,
Popkin, Richard 1 08-9, 1 54n. 1 153n36
positive idea or notion 1 40n.25 versus subject of experience 131-2
power 9, 15, 22, 36, 38-9, 43, 47, 63-5, sense perception as active 148n.24
68-71,87, 111 sensations 27, 36-7, 44-5, 48, 51-2, 63,
privacy of ideas 90-2, 1 5 1 n. 1 68-9,74-5,78,81,83,85-6,
publicity of ideas 91 149n.37, 149n.39
punctum stans 12, 100-1 5<?<? Boethius Shoemaker, Sidney 126, 155n.2,
pure spirit see Browne, Peter 158n.36, 158n.38, 158n.39, 158n.40
simple ideas 10-11,31, 36-8, 44, 70, 1 27
qualities 28, 30-1, 36-9, 85, 94, 106, simplicity
108, 111-12, 114, 119 see modes of soul/spirit 22~3, 24, 39, 41, 69,
79-80
Ramsay, Michael 1 54n. 1 3 of self 111-13, 117-18, 156n.lO
Raynor, David 1 08-9, 1 50n.4, 1 5 1 n. 1 soul
154n.23 versus spirit 13
real distinction (Cartesian) 3 see also animals; immortality;
real being 28,31 incorporeality; incorruptibility;
reality 58, 77, 85, 149n.38, 149n.39 imperishability; simplicity
realism see common-sense realism Socrates 16
reasoning, parity of 1 , 23-4, 1 04-6, 107 spirit
153n.5 distinct from ideas 42~3, 50, 56, 61-2,
reflection 5, 1 0, 43-4, 46-7, 54, 69-70, 70
81, 105, 118-20, 122, 126-7, 141n.4, imperceptible 41, 52, 103-4, 107-8,
142n.23, 156n.lO, 156n.l6 120
see consciousness meaning of term 12-14, 24, 70, 102
reflex act see reflection no idea of 1,6, 41-3, 51-2, 57, 103,
reflexion see reflection 105, 107-8
relation 104 see also soul; self; T
relative idea or notion 140n.25, 146n.39 Stevenson, Gordon 156n.l7
representationalism, theological 4 Stillingfleet, Edward 8, 1 1-12, 15, 19,
resurrection 9, 1 5-1 7, 23, 25, 88, 94-5, 28-9,31-2, 104
99, 152n.l6, 152n.l7 Stoneham, Tom 142n.30, 149n.39,
revelation 14-15, 19,70 151n.l4
Russell, Bertrand 123-4 Stroud, Barry 156n.8
Ryle, Gilbert 123, 126, 127, 157n.34 Stubenberg, Leopold 151n.9, 151n.l4
substance
salvation 17 Berkeleian 93, 102
Sarker, Husain 157n.34 featuresof 26, 138n.2, 151-2n.l5
Sartre, Jean-Paul 123 in general see being in general
Index 173
immaterial see immateriality understanding (faculty of) 38-9, 41, 55,
material 1-2, 9, 12, 14, 26, 30, 32~3, 70,79, 107, 141n.4
35,63,90,94, 102, 104-8, 111 spirits not objects thereof see spirits,
substantiality principle 3 imperceptible
Substratum (Lockean) 31-2, 35-7
Berkeley's rejection of 35-6, 38-9 volition 39-40, 44, 6 1 , 65, 67, 72-3,
material see substance, material 78-9, 146n.5, 146n.7
subject 2, 117, 124, 125, 128-9, 131-2 'the vulgar' 16-17, 19, 65, 89, 92, 96,
elusive 2, 117, 123, 125-31 108, 113-15, 119, 122
suggestion 82
summum bonum 137n.38 see eternal life
superaddition of thought 5, 9, 13, 22~3 Warnock, G. 133n.5
support relation see inherence Weiner, Phillip 154n.l3
as perception 30,42,53-4, 113-14, will (faculty of) 24, 39, 55, 7 1 , 73, 79-80,
143n.39 82,88, 107, 149n.39
Swift, Jonathan 5 Williford, Kenneth 145n.30
Synge, Edward 4, 57 Wilson, Catherine 146n.l
Wilson, Fred 139n.7
Taylor, C.C.W. 146n.l Wilson, Margaret 141n.l8
Thiel, Udo 141n.l2, 141n.l3, 156n.l7 Winkler, Kenneth 133n.3, 134n.8,
Thomas, George 147n.l6 138n.5, 139n.7, 139n.8, 140n.29,
time 25,95-101, 158n.37 140n.36, 144n.23, 146n.5, 146n.6,
Tipton, Ian 140n.l, 147n.l5, 152n.22, 147n.l6, 149n.40, 150n.5, 151n.l4
152n.29, 153n.3, 153n.8, 154n.21 Winnett, Arthur 144n.25, 145~6n.36
Tolandjohn 132, 134n.ll, 135n.3 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 117, 123
see mysteries Woozley, A.D. 146n.8, 153n.3
Trinity College 5
Turbayne, Colin 107, 133n.4, 133n.6, Yandell, David 150n.5
139n.8, 153n.9 Yoltonjohn 136n.24, 150n.4.