Berkeley's Idealism

[Glassjester]

What’s the Catholic stance (if any) on Idealism?
Specifically, the philosophy described by George Berkeley, in the 18th century - that all that exists are minds and ideas. The physical world exists only as ideas in minds.

His Idealism can be summarized as:

Physical things, such as trees, dogs and tables are things perceived by sense.
Things perceived by sense are ideas.
Therefore, physical things are ideas.

At first glance, it seems laughable, but the more I read, the harder it is to dismiss.
Is his theory in any way incompatible with the teachings of the Church?

 

[fisherman_carl]

St. John says that anyone who denies that Christ came in the flesh is the anti-Christ. So, yeah, I would say it is contrary to Church teaching.

 

[Glassjester]

St. John says that anyone who denies that Christ came in the flesh is the anti-Christ. So, yeah, I would say it is contrary to Church teaching.

That was my immediate reaction, too.

But Berkeley (a bishop in the church of Ireland!) was not rejecting the reality of the external world. And he didn’t question whether Christ came in the flesh - but rather, he questioned what flesh is.

He was making the case that the substratum of the physical world is ideas. That matter itself, although still real, is ultimately made of ideas.

He thought that the physical world is God’s idea, and that He creates in us, the experiences we have when we behold His creation (sense impressions). In Berkeley’s metaphysic God is, in a sense, sharing His ideas with other minds (us).

 

[fisherman_carl]

In philosophy, idealism is the group of philosophies which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing.

Perhaps we have a faulty understanding of idealism. According to this Plato and Augustine are idealist.

newadvent.org/cathen/07634a.htm

Aristotle and Aquinas were realists. Do you believe that numbers actually exist and are not just abstractions? If not then you are may be a realist.

 

[GEddie]

Oh.

You aren’t referring to the college near San Francisco??

 

[Glassjester]

Perhaps we have a faulty understanding of idealism. According to this Plato and Augustine are idealist.

newadvent.org/cathen/07634a.htm

Aristotle and Aquinas were realists. Do you believe that numbers actually exist and are not just abstractions? If not then you are may be a realist.

Plato wasn’t a realist?

From: philosophybasics.com/branch_realism.html

Realism, at it simplest and most general, is the view that entities of a certain type have an objective reality, a reality that is completely ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc. Thus, entities (including abstract concepts and universals as well as more concrete objects) have an existence independent of the act of perception, and independent of their names.

The doctrine had its beginnings with Pre-Socratic philosophers like Thales, Heraclitus and Parmenides, but its definitive formulation was that of Plato and his theory of Forms (see the section on Platonic Realism below).

I could be wrong, but it seems that Berkeley’s idealism transcends the realist-idealist dichotomy by making God the ultimate arbiter of real and unreal. If God thinks it up, it is real. He’s the ultimate Creator.

For Berkeley, God’s ideas are reality.

 

[Glassjester]

Oh.

You aren’t referring to the college near San Francisco??

Haha, nope. Although I’m sure they are very idealistic, too.

 

[fisherman_carl]

Plato wasn’t a realist?

I could be wrong, but it seems that Berkeley’s idealism transcends the realist-idealist dichotomy by making God the ultimate arbiter of real and unreal. If God thinks it up, it is real. He’s the ultimate Creator.

For Berkeley, God’s ideas are reality.

Yes, Plato believed in the world of the forms and the world of particular things. Whereas Aristotle rejected this and considered the forms of things as existing in the things themselves and as an abstract thought in the mind. So Aristotle was more a realist than Plato who believed the real world was the world of the forms.

 

[IWantGod]

Plato wasn’t a realist?

I could be wrong, but it seems that Berkeley’s idealism transcends the realist-idealist dichotomy by making God the ultimate arbiter of real and unreal. If God thinks it up, it is real. He’s the ultimate Creator.

For Berkeley, God’s ideas are reality.

This is interesting. Can you recommend any books?

 

[fisherman_carl]

Plato wasn’t a realist?

I could be wrong, but it seems that Berkeley’s idealism transcends the realist-idealist dichotomy by making God the ultimate arbiter of real and unreal. If God thinks it up, it is real. He’s the ultimate Creator.

For Berkeley, God’s ideas are reality.

I think one has to be careful here because one doesn’t want to become a pantheist thinking that the physical world is made up of God’s thoughts. In other worlds the physical world is a part of God under pantheism. While God is the author of Creation. He is not part of his creation, but sustains it. Perhaps, he sustains it through his eternal thought. But, I would be hesitant to say Creation is composed of thought.

 

[IWantGod]

I think one has to be careful here because one doesn’t want to become a pantheist thinking that the physical world is made up of God’s thoughts. In other worlds the physical world is a part of God under pantheism. While God is the author of Creation. He is not part of his creation, but sustains it. Perhaps, he sustains it through his eternal thought. But, I would be hesitant to say Creation is composed of thought.

I’m not so sure. God is absolutely simple, he is not composed of parts, so if God thinks a hippo, one cannot say the “nature” of the hippo is God’s nature. God thinking the hippo is God.

 

[Glassjester]

This is interesting. Can you recommend any books?

Yes, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge - George Berkeley.

Or, if you’d rather, this lecture from Wheaton College: youtube.com/watch?v=6LM8M6lqc8M

One more recommendation - this limerick:

God in the Quad

Ronald Knox

There was a young man who said, “God
Must think it exceedingly odd
If he finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there’s no one about in the Quad.”

REPLY
Dear Sir:
Your astonishment’s odd:
I am always about in the Quad.
And that’s why the tree
Will continue to be,
Since observed by
Yours faithfully,
GOD.

 

[IWantGod]

Yes, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge - George Berkeley.

Or, if you’d rather, this lecture from Wheaton College: youtube.com/watch?v=6LM8M6lqc8M

One more recommendation - this limerick:

Thanks. Enjoyed the limerick!

 

[Glassjester]

I’m not so sure. God is absolutely simple, he is not composed of parts, so if God thinks a hippo, one cannot say the “nature” of the hippo is God’s nature. God thinking the hippo is God.

I agree.

And it seems to correspond to the idea that “Through Him all things were made,” in reference to the Logos.

If Berkeley’s right, all of creation is literally made and maintained by God’s wisdom.

The idea of the incarnation, through this lens is fascinating.
If human experience is constantly being granted to humans by God, then the incarnation would be God thinking of Himself within His creation, and granting Himself human experience.

For whatever reason, though, I can’t help but feel that Berkeley’s philosophy borders on heretical. Does it?

 

[IWantGod]

I agree.

And it seems to correspond to the idea that “Through Him all things were made,” in reference to the Logos.

If Berkeley’s right, all of creation is literally made and maintained by God’s wisdom.

The idea of the incarnation, through this lens is fascinating.
If human experience is constantly being granted to humans by God, then the incarnation would be God thinking of Himself within His creation, and granting Himself human experience.

For whatever reason, though, I can’t help but feel that Berkeley’s philosophy borders on heretical. Does it?

I don’t think so. But don’t quote me on that; i have not read Berkeley. I have never heard that his ideas were heretical. It depends on how you interpret the data.

I like what you have written. I my self tend toward that view for purely philosophical reasons. I see the act of Existence as a nature (God) because there is nothing greater than existence. I see creation as having no intrinsic existence and absolutely no actuality outside of the power of God’s intellect. To say that we exist in the mind of God is to me the only logical explanation for “creation from nothing”. For me, it is metaphysically impossible to create the nature of “existence” from nothing (especially as being something distinct or independent from God) because existence is the absolute antithesis of nothing; but God can plausibly give actuality to ideas, simply by thinking them (thinking of a nature that is not his nature). This is to me the only philosophical solution and the only realistic escape from pantheism ironically if my concept of existence is correct (I think it is the only logical idea of existence).

If i remember correctly Jacques Maritain was a student of Berkeley’s philosophy before he became a Thomist.

 

[IWantGod]

I don’t think so. But don’t quote me on that; i have not read Berkeley. I have never heard that his ideas were heretical. It depends on how you interpret the data.

I like what you have written. I my self tend toward that view for purely philosophical reasons. I see the act of Existence as a nature (God) because there is nothing greater than existence. I see creation as having no intrinsic existence and absolutely no actuality outside of the power of God’s intellect. To say that we exist in the mind of God is to me the only logical explanation for “creation from nothing”. For me, it is metaphysically impossible to create the nature of “existence” from nothing (especially as being something distinct or independent from God) because existence is the absolute antithesis of nothing; but God can plausibly give actuality to ideas, simply by thinking them (thinking of a nature that is not his nature). This is to me the only philosophical solution and the only realistic escape from pantheism ironically if my concept of existence is correct (I think it is the only logical idea of existence).

If i remember correctly Jacques Maritain was a student of Berkeley’s philosophy before he became a Thomist.

From this point of view, the natural evolution of an actual idea makes perfect sense.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

What’s the Catholic stance (if any) on Idealism?
Specifically, the philosophy described by George Berkeley, in the 18th century - that all that exists are minds and ideas. The physical world exists only as ideas in minds.

His Idealism can be summarized as:

Physical things, such as trees, dogs and tables are things perceived by sense.
Things perceived by sense are ideas.
Therefore, physical things are ideas.

At first glance, it seems laughable, but the more I read, the harder it is to dismiss.
Is his theory in any way incompatible with the teachings of the Church?

I think you just need to read him some more, and then his philosophy will become laughable again; only this time forever.

How does come Berkeley to the conclusion that besides God and him, there are other minds? (Because he was very sure of that, wasn’t him?).

 

[fisherman_carl]

I agree.

And it seems to correspond to the idea that “Through Him all things were made,” in reference to the Logos.

If Berkeley’s right, all of creation is literally made and maintained by God’s wisdom.

The idea of the incarnation, through this lens is fascinating.
If human experience is constantly being granted to humans by God, then the incarnation would be God thinking of Himself within His creation, and granting Himself human experience.

For whatever reason, though, I can’t help but feel that Berkeley’s philosophy borders on heretical. Does it?

I don’t know enough about Berkley (or idealism) to say what is heretical. If it denies any of the articles or dogmas of faith then it is heretical. It occurs to me though that everything you said above could still be true if idealism were not. When it comes to the mind of God I think we are all in agreement that God’s mind can cause things to happen like creation ex nilho. Which brings me to the thought that if creation is composed of God’s thought then it is not realy ex nilo.( Unless you consider thought to come from nothing) . Yet creation ex nilo is a doctrine of faith. So there may be your heretical idea.

 

[fisherman_carl]

I think you just need to read him some more, and then his philosophy will become laughable again; only this time forever.

How does come Berkeley to the conclusion that besides God and him, there are other minds? (Because he was very sure of that, wasn’t him?).

I was listening to a professor tell a funny story about solopism. He wrote to the solopist, “You have convinced me that solopism is true. Now that we have established that you do not exist I will no longer be writing to you.”

The solopist’s life must be dreary. No one to love but himself. No one to talk to but figments of his imagination.

 

[fisherman_carl]

One of the consequences of Berkley’s idealism is that we may not actually exist, if we are just thoughts in the mind of God. But, isn’t the fact that I exist the one thing I can prove to myself? Couldn’t Berkley’s idealism undermine that?