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Transcript of © Michael Lacewing Idealism Michael Lacewing [email protected].
![Page 1: © Michael Lacewing Idealism Michael Lacewing enquiries@alevelphilosophy.co.uk.](https://reader034.fdocuments.us/reader034/viewer/2022042515/5514566c550346414e8b53c4/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
© Michael Lacewing
Idealism
Michael Lacewingenquiries@alevelphilosoph
y.co.uk
![Page 2: © Michael Lacewing Idealism Michael Lacewing enquiries@alevelphilosophy.co.uk.](https://reader034.fdocuments.us/reader034/viewer/2022042515/5514566c550346414e8b53c4/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
Idealism
• Idealism: nothing exists that exists independently of minds.– Berkeley: To be is to be perceived (or to perceive): esse est percipi (aut percipere)
• What is a material object, exactly? We think it is ‘mind-independent’, but does this make sense?
![Page 3: © Michael Lacewing Idealism Michael Lacewing enquiries@alevelphilosophy.co.uk.](https://reader034.fdocuments.us/reader034/viewer/2022042515/5514566c550346414e8b53c4/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
Why idealism?• Objection to naïve realism: secondary qualities are subjective, so we don’t perceive objects just as they are.
• Objection to representative realism: primary qualities do not ‘resemble’ objects any more than secondary qualities do.
• So no qualities of ‘material objects’ are mind-independent; we perceive only ‘ideas’. Material objects are just bundles of ideas.
• If we are not idealists, we will fall into confusion or scepticism.
![Page 4: © Michael Lacewing Idealism Michael Lacewing enquiries@alevelphilosophy.co.uk.](https://reader034.fdocuments.us/reader034/viewer/2022042515/5514566c550346414e8b53c4/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
What causes perceptions?
• Options: ideas, my mind, another mind– Not ideas: they are passive– Not my mind: perception is very different from imagining
– So another mind - given the systematicity and complexity of what we perceive, that mind must be God
• Is appealing to God any worse than appealing to material objects? They don’t explain perception either, e.g. how do they cause ideas?
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Illusion and reality• How do I distinguish my ideas from reality (ideas outside my mind)?– A perception is not voluntary– The idea perceived is part of the order of nature (coherent reality)
– The idea is caused by the mind of God
• What of illusions?– We aren’t wrong - it is bent. But we make a mistake if we think it would still be bent out of water. To mark this, we rightly say, ‘The pencil looks bent’.
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In, out, in, out• When objects are not being perceived, then they don’t exist!
• There was a young man who said, Godmust find it exceedingly oddwhen He finds that the treecontinues to bewhen no one’s about in the Quad.
Courtesy of UCL
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Reply 1
• To say an object of perception exists is to say that it is or can be perceived.
• But this conflicts with esse est percipi - to be is to be perceived.
• But should we worry if objects pop in and out of existence if they do so with complete regularity?
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Reply 2: God’s response
• Dear Sir, your astonishment’s odd,I’m always about in the Quad.And that’s why the treecontinues to besince observed by, yours faithfully, God
• Ideas we perceive are not just caused by God’s mind, but exist in God’s mind
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A final objection
• God’s mind can’t contain the kind of perceptions (partial, visual, etc.) that we have.
• God is said to be unchanging, but reality changes all the time.
• Response: the ideas don’t exist in God’s mind in this way (as thoughts). What we see is what God wills us to perceive (so they exist as intentions).