berkeley's argument for idealism, by samuel c. rickless

Berkeley’s Argument for Idealism, by Samuel C. Rickless. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2013. Pp. xiii + 207. H/b £35.00.

This book is a tightly argued, carefully researched, and markedly sympathetic

treatment of what Rickless sees as Berkeley ’s ‘sophisticated and elegant

argument for idealism’ (p. 186). The book contains several episodes that

lay the groundwork for this project, including a long chapter on Berkeley ’s

distinction between mediate and immediate perception and an innovative

chapter on his ontology of sensible objects. There are also extended passages

criticizing recent work on Berkeley by Margaret Atherton, Martha Bolton,

Georges Dicker, Robert G. Muehlmann, George Pappas, Kenneth Winkler,

and others. This review will focus on Rickless’s own reconstruction of

Berkeley ’s main argument, which Rickless rightly sees as prefigured in early

sections of the Principles of Human Knowledge but deployed fully in the first

of the Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous.

Rickless’s reconstruction has four stages (p. 186; see also pp. 6–8, pp. 141–5).

The first stage argues that sensible objects are nothing but collections of sens-

ible qualities. The second stage argues that secondary qualities are ideas in

minds. The third stage argues that primary qualities are ideas in minds. The

final stage concludes from those three propositions that sensible objects are

nothing but ideas in minds, which is Berkeley ’s idealism.

The first stage has four independent premisses: that sensible objects are

perceived by sense; that everything that is perceived by sense is immediately

perceived; that the only things that are immediately perceived are (individ-

ual) sensible qualities and collections of sensible qualities; and that sensible

objects (like apples and tables) are not individual sensible qualities. It then

follows that sensible objects are nothing but collections of sensible qualities

(conclusion of the first stage).

The second stage has the most complex structure of the four. It starts from

Berkeley ’s claim that certain intense secondary qualities, namely intense heat

or cold, putrid odors, disgusting tastes, and (Rickless adds) very loud noises

and very bright colours are, when immediately perceived, phenomenally

indistinguishable from particular sorts of pains. From this, it is inferred

that these secondary qualities are particular sorts of pains. It is added that

moderate degrees of these same secondary qualities are, when immediately

perceived, phenomenally indistinguishable from particular sorts of pleasures,

and inferred that those qualities are particular sorts of pleasures. From those

two inferred propositions, it is further inferred that all secondary qualities are

pleasures or pains, and from that result it is concluded that all secondary

qualities are ideas in minds (conclusion of the second stage).

The third stage starts from Berkeley ’s anti-abstractionist claim that it is

impossible to mentally separate primary from secondary qualities. From that

claim it is inferred that primary qualities cannot exist apart from secondary

qualities in reality, and from the latter it is inferred that ‘primary qualities

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must be where secondary qualities are’ (p. 186). Combining this inferred

proposition with the conclusion of the second stage yields the conclusion

that primary qualities are ideas in minds (conclusion of the third stage).

The final stage starts with an inference from the propositions that second-

ary qualities are ideas in minds and that primary qualities are ideas in minds,

to the proposition that all sensible qualities are ideas in minds. This result is

combined with the conclusion of the first stage to yield the final conclusion

that sensible objects are nothing but collections of ideas.

The most distinctive features of Rickless’s book are his vigorous defence of

the second and third stages of the argument, both as reflecting Berkeley ’s true

intentions and as philosophically powerful, and his moderately critical treat-

ment of the first stage. His analysis of the second and third stages, which (as he

notes) is strongly influenced by Robert G. Muehlmann’s Berkeley ’s Ontology

(Indianapolis: Hackett, 1992), clearly makes them hinge on what Muehlmann

dubbed the ‘Identification Argument’ — that since secondary qualities possess

a hedonic sensational component that can only exist in a mind, those qualities

themselves can only exist in a mind (pp. 7–8, p. 181). Concomitantly, Rickless

rejects the standard view that Berkeley ’s other main argument in the First

Dialogue, the Argument from Perceptual Relativity, is designed to establish

that sensible qualities are ideas. Instead he holds, again following Muehlmann,

that the Argument from Perceptual Relativity ‘is [solely] an ad hominem

attack on a very particular kind of materialism’ (p. 163).

Before turning to Rickless’s reservations about the first stage of the argu-

ment, let me make two brief critical points. First, I cannot agree that the

Identification Argument ‘is strong’ (p. 8). A realist holds, with Locke, that

‘Ideas [are] in the Mind, Qualities in Bodies’ (E II.viii.7, 8). The purpose of the

Identification Argument is to persuade the realist that certain qualities are

only ideas. The nerve of the argument is that the hedonic sensation had when

the quality is perceived is phenomenally indistinguishable from the quality.

But at best this shows only that the hedonic sensation is identical with the

experience or the awareness or the consciousness of the quality, not with the

quality itself. For the idealist to reply that the experience or awareness or

consciousness of the quality is identical with the quality would obviously beg

the question against the realist; thus the argument cannot serve its purpose.

This brief criticism cannot directly refute the eighteen-page defence of the

argument that Rickless offers; here I can only state my basic objection to the

argument and say that in my opinion it would carry over to Rickless’s

detailed formulations.

Second, although I agree that one function of the Argument from

Perceptual Relativity is to serve as an ad hominem argument against the

view that the very qualities we (seem to) perceive by sense in material

things are always qualities of those things, I cannot believe that Berkeley ’s

only purpose, in the many pages that he devotes to the argument, is to refute

this crudest version of naı̈ve realism. Minimally, he means to show that no


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sensible qualities are in material things, which is millimeters away from show-

ing that instead they are only ideas in the mind. Defenders of the purely

‘negative’ view of the Argument from Perceptual Relativity are fond of

saying, as does Rickless, that in the context of that argument, the affirmations

that qualities are only ideas always come out of Hylas’s mouth (p. 169 n. 33,

pp. 177–8). But those affirmations, like scores of other assertions made by

Hylas that no one believes do not express Philonous’s views, are responses

to rhetorical questions raised by Philonous. Hylas’s repeated concessions that

qualities are only ideas should be read as Berkeley ’s trying to convey that even

one who initially strongly rejects his view that qualities are only ideas is

compelled by the force of the argument to yield to that view. That is rhet-

orically more effective than would be Philonous’s just tiresomely repeating

and insisting on Berkeley ’s view. The best evidence I can see for the negative

interpretation of the Argument from Perceptual Relativity is Berkeley ’s con-

cession in 1710 in Principles, that: ‘this method of arguing doth not so much

prove that there is no extension or colour in an outward object, as that we do

not know by sense which is the true extension or color of the object’ (§15). But

I think that Berkeley ’s massive use of the argument in the Dialogues shows

that, by the time he published them in 1713, he had come to realize that he

needed the argument to establish his idealism and had convinced himself

(however mistakenly) that it could legitimately be used for that purpose.

I now turn to Rickless’s reservations about the first stage of Berkeley ’s

argument, presented in the conclusion of his book. There he states the first

two steps this way (p. 188):

(OP) Sensible things are perceived by sense

(PIP) Everything that is perceived by sense is immediately perceived

He then writes:

The problem lies in the fact that the premises are ambiguous, because the phrase

‘perceived by sense’ can be understood in two different ways. On one interpret-

ation, to perceive something by sense is to perceive it wholly by sense. (Call this the

‘Whole’ interpretation.) On another interpretation, to perceive something by sense

is to perceive it partly (but not wholly) by sense. (Call this the ‘Part’ interpretation.)

According to the ‘Whole’ interpretation, to perceive something wholly by sense is

to perceive it by sense and not by means of any other mental faculty (whether this be

reason, memory, or imagination). According to the ‘Part’ interpretation … it is

possible to perceive something by sense even if it is perceived at least in part by

means of another mental faculty. The … ambiguity threatens the soundness of

Berkeley ’s argument because it makes it vulnerable … to the fallacy of equivoca-

tion. The important thing, for Berkeley ’s purposes, is to secure an interpretation of

(OP) and (PIP) that makes them both true and preserves the argument’s validity.

(p. 189; see also pp. 8–9)

The difficulty Rickless sees is that (PIP)’s truth requires the ‘Whole’ inter-

pretation, but on that interpretation Berkeley ’s realist opponents would balk


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at accepting (OP). The reason why (PIP) requires the ‘Whole’ interpretation

stems from the meaning of the term ‘immediately perceived’. In the book’s

first chapter, Rickless argues that on Berkeley ’s only meaning for that term,

‘for X to be immediately perceived by S is simply for X to be perceived by S

without intermediary (and so without suggestion of any kind)’ (p. 56). But if

X were perceived partly but not wholly by sense, then by Berkeley ’s lights it

would have to be perceived by virtue of being suggested to the imagination by

an intermediary, ergo not immediately. Rickless shows that in 1709 in his New

Theory of Vision, Berkeley held that this was indeed a way that things could be

perceived by sense, since he there held that distance is perceived mediately yet

by sight, by virtue of suggestion, and that even another person’s emotions are

perceived by sight when they are suggested by (say) the sight of a blushing

face. But in the New Theory, Berkeley was not yet defending idealism, so he

did not need to insist on the truth of (PIP). Rickless points out that even in

1713 in the First Dialogue, in the famous ‘coach’ passage, Berkeley seems to

grant that sometimes a thing can be perceived mediately by sense, and he

gives a complicated explanation of why Berkeley then thought he could allow

such a counterexample to (PIP) without giving up his argument (pp. 190–2,

see also p. 9). I was not able to see the force of that explanation, because it

seems to involve a kind of ‘bootstrapping’ whereby counterexamples to (PIP)

are dismissed by appeal to the idealism that the argument as a whole is

supposed to establish. But be that as it may, Rickless thinks that by the

time Berkeley wrote Theory of Vision Vindicated, in 1733, he had come to

realize that he could not give up (PIP), and so he reverted to the ‘Whole’

interpretation of the phrase ‘perceived by sense’. In support of this claim, he

quotes two passages from that work where Berkeley says that suggested items

are only objects of the imagination rather than of sense (p. 194) (though he

overlooks one contrary passage: ‘Things are suggested and perceived by sense’

(§42, my italics)).

In the end, however, Rickless sees a fly in the ointment. This is that on the

‘Whole’ interpretation required for (PIP) to be true, (OP) becomes contro-

versial. He writes:

Now, according to the ‘Whole’ interpretation, (OP) says that sensible things are

perceived wholly by sense … [This] is not an assumption that Berkeley ’s opponents

will be happy to accept … Locke, for one, claims that ‘the Ideas we receive by

sensation, are often in grown People alter’d by the judgment’ … as when the

sensation ‘of a flat Circle, variously shadow’d’ is turned into ‘the perception of a

convex Figure, and an uniform Colour’ (E II.ix.8: 145) … More generally, while

realists and idealists alike suppose that sensible objects such as chairs and cherries

are sensible things, realists may insist that reason plays an important role in the

perception of chairs and cherries. As Locke might say, although chairs and cherries

are sensible things … they cannot be perceived without being inferred to exist on

the basis of the immediately perceived sensations they produce in our

minds … [Footnote:] Here it might be thought that Locke’s account of sensitive

knowledge is non-inferential. But … this is a mistake. (p. 195)


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Accordingly, Rickless concludes that

There is therefore a sense in which Berkeley ’s argument for idealism results in a

kind of philosophical stalemate … However, it is also possible to read Berkeley ’s

argument as posing a significant challenge to his realist opponents. Understood in

this way, the argument is, I believe, successful. For the only dialectically acceptable

way to reject Berkeley ’s argument is to reject premise (OP), as read in accordance

with the ‘Whole’ interpretation. That is, the only reasonable way to avoid the

conclusion that sensible objects are collections of ideas is to claim that sensible

objects are perceived at least in part by the operation of some faculty other than the

senses … [But] it appears both contrary to common sense and to one’s experience

to suppose that the exercise of reason is required for the production of perceptual

beliefs. I am not aware of inferring on the basis of my sensations of vision and

touch that I am typing this sentence on a laptop computer, and … this lack of

awareness provides strong evidence for Berkeley ’s claim that my perceptual beliefs

are not produced with the assistance of reason or judgment … Even as it stands,

[Berkeley ’s argument] provides a forceful challenge to realists and materialists of all

stripes. (pp. 196–7, see also p. 9)

This is a novel and subtle analysis, but I think that Rickless overstates the

severity of the problem for Berkeley. Much depends on what level of achieve-

ment ‘perceived by sense’ is supposed to signify. When Locke discusses ‘sen-

sitive knowledge’ in Essay IV.xi, he is talking about a higher achievement than

just perceiving objects; he is talking about the epistemic justification (not just

the ‘production’) of the belief that we perceive objects. It is true that for Locke

this justification is inferential, but it does not follow that sense perception, as

referred to in (OP), is inferential, even for Locke, who would, I think, agree

completely with what Rickless says about his typing example.

Locke’s example of perceiving a convex shape of uniform colour, on the

other hand, suggests a less unpromising way in which the realist could

respond to the challenge that Rickless sees Berkeley as posing. The achieve-

ment implicated in the example is that of seeing three-dimensional shape; it

also involves the phenomenon of color constancy. Now it is not obvious that

either of these requires perceiving a flat multicolored shape as an intermedi-

ary, which is what must be shown to make the example count against (OP),

interpreted in the ‘Whole’ sense. But the realist could at least make the ad

hominem point that Berkeley ’s own analysis of distance perception implies

that the third spatial dimension is perceived by sight but always by dint of

suggestion, ergo never immediately.

GEORGES DICKERDepartment of Philosophy

The College at Brockport, State University of New York

350 New Campus Drive

Brockport, NY 14420

USA

[email protected]

doi:10.1093/mind/fzu020 Advance Access publication 11 March 2014


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