Berkeleian Principles in Ecological Realism: An Ontological Analysis

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Notes

¹The term epistemological realism is used in contradistinction to skepticism.

²'For them, to exist is to be perceived' (Dancy, 1998b, pp

³In accordance with the standard method, reference to Berkeley's original text is by paragraph numbers (Dancy, 1998a, p. 70). References to J. Dancy's editorial notes will be made by page numbers.

⁴It is perhaps more accurate to say that God imagines rather than perceives the reality that surrounds us, as it originates within the Divine Mind.

⁵In accordance with the standard method, reference is to the pagination of the text printed in The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, by A.A. Luce and T.E. Jessop, London: Nelson & Sons, 1948 (Dancy, 1998a, p.71). That pagination is printed beside the text in the cited edition.

⁶Ideas that constitute things have no power or agency in them; only minds have agency. Things are there to specify the offerings of the Uncreated Mind intended for the created minds (Berkeley, 1710/1998c, § 65).

⁷Citation is to p. x of A. C. Fraser's 1871 edition of Works of George Berkeley (Vol. 1).

⁸Cited in section “Direct pick up of ambient information”

⁹We will deal with the ontological relation between Mill and Berkeley in a later section.

¹⁰It is important not to underestimate the acknowledgment of value these authors make in relation to Gibson's study of ambient information. Hamlyn refers to Gibson's 1966 book as the “most interesting and exciting book that has appeared in psychology for a very long time” (1968, p. 361) and to his work in perception as “of the greatest importance for our understanding of that phenomenon” (1977, p. 5). Neisser finds that “Gibson's insights are too far-reaching and too provocative to be ignored. They shed an entirely new light on the problems of perception. … By offering us a new description of the stimulus for vision, he has presented us with a new vision of theoretical possibilities as well” (Neisser, 1977, p. 27)

¹¹See footnote 5.

¹²The full title of Principles(Berkeley, 1710/1998c) is “A treatise concerning the principles of human knowledge: Wherein the chief causes of Error and Difficulty in the sciences, with the grounds of scepticism, atheism and irreligion, are required into.” The full title of Dialogues(Berkeley, 1713/1998b) is “Three dialogues between Hylas and Philonous: In opposition to sceptics and atheists.” See also §40, § 89, § 93 in Principles and pp. 262–263 in Dialogues.

¹³“Hylas” (meaning “materialist”) and “Philonous” (meaning “lover of mind”) (Berkeley, 1713/1998b, p. 11, editorial notes) are the two characters between whom the dialogues take place. Berkeley is in the person of “Philonous.” “Hylas” is the vessel with which Berkeley presents what he understands to be the general counterarguments of the target audience reluctant to accept his “immaterialism.” “Hylas” also makes convenient counterarguments that help Berkeley convey his message and/or make it more convincing.

¹⁴This is not to say that Berkeley's idealism does not create a potential for skepticism, Hume being the case in point. But this requires the removal of the axiom that God is the substratum for what is perceived, which is unthinkable for Berkeley.

¹⁵Now, in relation to mediation in perception, it is still possible to go beyond what Berkeley means by it here and argue that even if one allows the immediate detection of sensible ideas specifying the offerings, inference and memory—mediation—is still needed to understand the associated offerings. However, this raises a question for the notion of direct perception in general—Dicker (1992) raises the criticism in relation to Berkeley, and Heil (1979, 1981) raises it in relation to Gibson.

¹⁶Berkeley's § 2 is taken directly from Molyneux's Dioptrica Nova: “Distance of itself, is not to be perceived; for 'tis a line (or a length) presented to the eye with its end towards us, which must therefore be only a point, and that is invisible” (1692, cited in Pitcher, 1977, p. 5).

¹⁷Clearly, the temptation—should it still be there despite the preceding sections of this article, which discuss the essential utility of direct perception to Berkeley's ontological and epistemological enterprise—to attribute an indirect theory of perception to Berkeley on account of the opening argument of his New Theory of Vision should be dampened more than sufficiently by having also to attribute it to Gibson.

¹⁸To appreciate further the congeniality of Berkeley's criticism of the traditional view with the Gibsonian one see chapter 2, “Descartes' Legacy and Gibson's Challenge,” in Reed (1988).