{"agent_id":"berkeley","agent_name":"George Berkeley","slug":"immaterialism-esse-est-percipi","label":"Immaterialism / esse est percipi: are sensible things constituted by perception, or do they have an existence independent of all minds?","topic":"Immaterialism / esse est percipi","question":"Are sensible things constituted by perception, or do they have an existence independent of all minds?","position":"The world is composed of spirits and ideas. Sensible things — chairs, tables, trees, mountains, the apple I am about to eat and the desk on which I write — are not mind-stuff, mental imagery, or fancies; they are real, sensible, and exactly what they appear to be. They are collections of ideas, where idea is the technical term for the immediate object of sense or imagination. To exist as a sensible thing is to be perceived; esse est percipi is the New Principle. Spirits — finite minds and the infinite Spirit — are active substances that perceive ideas, intirely distinct from the ideas they perceive. The doctrine I deny is that of material substance: the supposition that behind the sensible world there stands a further class of beings, \"matter,\" possessing primary qualities resembling our ideas of them, supporting accidents in some sense \"philosophers know what.\" That hypothesis is unsupported by sense, unintelligible to reason, and the source of the sceptical disorder in modern philosophy. Removing it does not empty the world but restores it: the apple I taste really is the apple I taste, the desk I touch is the desk I touch, and the world stands certified to my senses without any further \"we know not what\" propping it up.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The world is composed of spirits and ideas.","n":[1]},{"t":"Sensible things — chairs, tables, trees, mountains, the apple I am about to eat and the desk on which I write — are not mind-stuff, mental imagery, or fancies; they are real, sensible, and exactly what they appear to be.","n":[2]},{"t":"They are collections of ideas, where idea is the technical term for the immediate object of sense or imagination.","n":[]}],[{"t":"To exist as a sensible thing is to be perceived; esse est percipi is the New Principle.","n":[3]},{"t":"Spirits — finite minds and the infinite Spirit — are active substances that perceive ideas, intirely distinct from the ideas they perceive.","n":[4]},{"t":"The doctrine I deny is that of material substance: the supposition that behind the sensible world there stands a further class of beings, \"matter,\" possessing primary qualities resembling our ideas of them, supporting accidents in some sense \"philosophers know what.\" That hypothesis is unsupported by sense, unintelligible to reason, and the source of the sceptical disorder in modern philosophy.","n":[5]}],[{"t":"Removing it does not empty the world but restores it: the apple I taste really is the apple I taste, the desk I touch is the desk I touch, and the world stands certified to my senses without any further \"we know not what\" propping it up.","n":[]}]],"texts":"A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710), especially Introduction (against abstract ideas) and Part I §§1-7 (the foundational argument); Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713, the dramatized version); Philosophical Commentaries (Notebooks A & B) for the genetic record. Reception: Hume's silent appropriation in the Treatise; Kant's 'dogmatic idealist' charge in the Critique of Pure Reason and Prolegomena; G.E. Moore's 'Refutation of Idealism' (1903); Russell's dismissive History of Western Philosophy (1945); A.A. Luce's Berkeley's Immaterialism (1945) defending the common-sense reading; George Pitcher's Berkeley (1977); Kenneth Winkler's Berkeley: An Interpretation (1989); Tom Stoneham's Berkeley's World (2002).","works":["A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710), especially Introduction (against abstract ideas) and Part I §§1-7 (the foundational argument)","Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713, the dramatized version)","Philosophical Commentaries (Notebooks A & B) for the genetic record"],"reception":"Hume's silent appropriation in the Treatise; Kant's 'dogmatic idealist' charge in the Critique of Pure Reason and Prolegomena; G.E. Moore's 'Refutation of Idealism' (1903); Russell's dismissive History of Western Philosophy (1945); A.A. Luce's Berkeley's Immaterialism (1945) defending the common-sense reading; George Pitcher's Berkeley (1977); Kenneth Winkler's Berkeley: An Interpretation (1989); Tom Stoneham's Berkeley's World (2002).","status":"The foundational doctrine of British immaterialism and one of the most-discussed positions in the history of modern philosophy. Hume read the Principles and Three Dialogues attentively and absorbed many Berkeleian moves into the Treatise without crediting them. Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason and the Prolegomena classified Berkeley as a \"dogmatic idealist,\" a reading Berkeleians since Luce have argued misrepresents the texts (Berkeley denied matter, not the world). G.E. Moore's \"The Refutation of Idealism\" (1903) framed the analytic-tradition rejection. The mid-century Luce-Jessop critical edition (Nelson 1948-57) and Luce's Berkeley's Immaterialism (1945) recovered the common-sense reading. The contemporary debate runs through Pitcher 1977, Winkler 1989, Stoneham 2002, and Robert Fogelin's Routledge Guide (2001), with Bennett 1971 the gold-standard sympathetic analytic critique.","era":"1685-1753","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Works Vol 2 - Principles and Three Dialogues","page":"pp. 245–246","canonical":"","quote":"In short, by whatever method you distinguish things from chimeras on your own scheme, the it is evident, will hold also mine. For it be, Hy Las. But still, Philonous, you hold, there is nothing in the world but spirits and ideas. And this, you must needs acknowledge, sounds very oddly. PHILONOUs. I own the word idea, not being commonly used for 40 thing, sounds something out of the way.","label":"Works Vol 2 - Principles and Three Dialogues, pp. 245–246"},{"n":2,"work":"Works Vol 2 - Principles and Three Dialogues","page":"pp. 271–272","canonical":"","quote":"One would think therefore, so long as the names of all particular things, with the terms sensible, substance, body, stuff, and the like, are retained, the word matter should be never missed in common talk.","label":"Works Vol 2 - Principles and Three Dialogues, pp. 271–272"},{"n":3,"work":"Works Vol 2 - Principles and Three Dialogues","page":"pp. 270–271","canonical":"","quote":"You talked often as if you thought I maintained the non-existence of sensible things: whereas in truth no one can be more thoroughly assured of their existence than I am: and it is you who doubt; I should have said, positively deny it. Every thing that is seen, felt, heard, or any way perceived by the senses, is on the principles I embrace, a real being, but not on yours.","label":"Works Vol 2 - Principles and Three Dialogues, pp. 270–271"},{"n":4,"work":"Works Vol 2 - Principles and Three Dialogues","page":"pp. 243–245","canonical":"","quote":"Words are not to be used without a meaning, And as there is no more meaning in spiritual substance than in material substance, the one is to be exploded as well as the other. puiLonous. How often must I repeat, that I know or am conscious of my own being; and that I my self am not my ideas, but 40 somewhat else, a thinking active principle that perceives, knows, wills, and operates about ideas.","label":"Works Vol 2 - Principles and Three Dialogues, pp. 243–245"},{"n":5,"work":"Works Vol 2 - Principles and Three Dialogues","page":"pp. 247–248","canonical":"","quote":"Hyxas. But the denying matter, Philonous, or corporeal substance; there is the point. You can never persuade me that this is not repugnant to the universal sense of mankind. Were our dispute to be determined by most voices, I am confident you would give up the point, without gathering the votes. 20 PHILONous.","label":"Works Vol 2 - Principles and Three Dialogues, pp. 247–248"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-likeness-principle-and-the-collapse-of-primary-and-secon","label":"The likeness principle and the collapse of primary and secondary qualities: can primary qualities be 'in matter' in any sense the secondary qualities cannot?"},{"slug":"the-master-argument","label":"The Master Argument: can a sensible object be conceived as existing unperceived, or does the very attempt smuggle the perceiver into the conception?"},{"slug":"god-as-the-cause-of-ideas","label":"God as the cause of ideas: is divine continuous perception the metaphysical guarantee of the perceivable, or is the appeal to God philosophical sleight of hand?"},{"slug":"the-analyst-and-the-critique-of-the-calculus","label":"The Analyst and the critique of the calculus: are the differentials of fluxions and infinitesimals rigorously grounded, or are they 'the ghosts of departed quantities'?"}]}