170 BOOK REVIEWS

Berkeley’s Argument for Idealism. By Samuel Rickless. (Oxford: OUP, 2013. Pp. 224.Price £35.)

Rickless’ goal is ‘a complete logical reconstruction of Berkeley’s argument for idealism’(p. 3). In his assessment, the result is a deductively valid argument that was dialec-tically successful in its day, but that is ultimately unsound. Rickless has produced athoughtful interpretation of considerable ingenuity. Of particular interest is his origi-nal and compelling reading of Berkeley’s distinction between immediate and mediateperception. Instead of two distinct and incompatible ways in which ideas are mediatelyperceived—suggestion and inference—suggestion is a genus of which inference is aspecies. This reading allows Rickless to offer a coherent account of passages (ThreeDialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (DHP) 174–5, 205, 221; Essay Towards a NewTheory of Vision (NTV) 16; Theory of Vision Vindicated (TVV) 42), wherein Berkeleyspeaks of mediate perception in apparently inconsistent ways. This book will be valu-able to Berkeley scholars and graduate students looking for incisive analyses of localtexts and the recent interpretive controversies surrounding them.

A welcome aspect of Rickless’ interpretation is his genuine determination to showthat Berkeley had a series of cogent, intricately linked arguments (cf., p. 133, especiallynote 52). But this determination is challenged by two standard objections to Berkeley’sargument for idealism. Those are that Berkeley begs the question against the materialistby assuming that sensible objects are ideas, and that Berkeley equivocates by taking‘sensible objects’ to mean mental representations in one premise but uses the same phraseto mean the external causes of mental representations in another premise. Part of Rickless’project is to explicitly rebut the objection that Berkeley begs the question. But if he isto produce a valid reconstruction of Berkeley’s argument for idealism, he must avoidthe equivocation objection as well.

Rickless’ Berkeley produces two arguments for idealism in Principles of Human Knowl-edge (PHK), one explicit and one implicit. The explicit argument, found in PHK 4 andcalled the First Simple Argument (p. 121), runs as follows.(a) Sensible objects are perceived by means of the senses.(b) Anything perceived by means of the senses is an idea.(c) So, sensible objects are ideas.

The implicit argument, found in PHK 1 and called the Second Simple Argument(p. 122), runs as follows.

(d) Sensible objects are collections of sensible qualities.(e) Sensible qualities are ideas.(f) So, sensible objects are ideas.

Rickless reads these arguments as resting on claims (b, d, and e) that beg the questionagainst the materialist. He argues that Berkeley, recognizing this error, wrote DHP 1 inorder to independently defend these claims.

The argument in DHP, which independently establishes the truth of (b), (d), and (e),is the identification argument: secondary qualities are mind-dependent because theyare identical to sensations of pleasure and pain (p. 149). Intense secondary qualitiesare nothing but pains, and moderate secondary qualities are nothing but pleasures.While the perceptual relativity argument is often read as Berkeley’s argument for the

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mind-dependence of primary qualities, Rickless rejects this interpretation. Accordingto him, that argument is merely an ad hominem attack on materialism (p. 170). Rather,Rickless’ Berkeley argues from the claim that primary qualities cannot be mentallyseparated from secondary qualities to the claim that the former cannot exist apartfrom the latter; and since the secondary qualities are mind-dependent, the primaryqualities must also be mind-dependent (p. 181). From all of this, he concludes thatsensible qualities are nothing but ideas, which conclusion allows the first and secondsimple arguments of PHK to go through without begging the question.

Having rejected the claim that Berkeley begs the question against the materialist,the remaining test of whether Rickless has succeeded in presenting a valid reconstruc-tion of Berkeley’s argument is whether Berkeley equivocates on this interpretation.Unfortunately, Rickless’ Berkeley pretty clearly does equivocate. Early moderns usedthe term ‘perceive’ in multiple ways (cf. Locke’s Essay IV.i.2; Descartes’ Principles ofPhilosophy IX; Malebranche’s Search After Truth Bk I, ch. IV). There is an epistemic con-notation (whereby what is known is ‘perceived by the understanding’ or ‘perceived byreason’) and a psychological connotation (perceived by the senses). That Berkeley usedboth connotations is clear. In PHK 4, he suggests that sensible objects are ‘perceived bythe understanding,’ yet elsewhere he says that sensible objects are perceived by sense.It is open to materialists to object that the first simple argument runs as follows (where‘perceived’ is given two different meanings).

(g) Sensible objects are known by means of the senses.(h) Anything sensed by means of the senses is an idea.(i) So, sensible objects are ideas.

This is obviously invalid. A materialist might think that the first premise is compati-ble with the claim that sensible objects are indirectly known by means of the senses. Thesecond premise (if true and does not beg the question) simply says that ideas are theexclusive objects of the faculty of sensation. It does not follow that objects indirectlyknown through the senses are ideas. This ambiguity is independent of the distinctionbetween immediate and mediate perception.

Another equivocation afflicts the second simple argument. In PHK 1 (specifically,Rickless’ PHK 1C, p. 122), Berkeley says that sensible objects are those things that wesignify by names and that those things are collections of sensible qualities. He alsoclaims in DHP that the causes of sensible objects are not themselves sensible (Rickless’B3, p. 140), thereby distinguishing between a sensible object and its cause. It is opento the materialist to object that the second simple argument runs as follows (where‘sensible object’ is given two different meanings).

(j) The things to which we attach names are collections of sensible qualities.(k) Sensible qualities are ideas.(l) So, the causes of sensible qualities are ideas.

Again, this is invalid. The argument equivocates between the meaning of a name andits referent. A materialist might agree that names signify collections of ideas (Locke saysexactly that in Essay III.ii.2). But when Locke speaks of external objects, he is speakingof the causes of those ideas (see Essay IV.xi.5). Berkeley should as well. Otherwise, hisargument is open to the objection that its conclusion (so, sensible objects are ideas) isonly about the collections of ideas that we use to give names their meaning, but is not

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about their referents (i.e. the external causes of those collections of ideas) and so doesnot imply that the external world is composed of ideas. In order for the second simpleargument to support idealism, ‘sensible object’ in the conclusion must indicate whatmaterialists take to be the external causes of subjective ideas—those things to whichthe meanings of names refer. But that is not how Berkeley uses ‘sensible object’ in thefirst premise, given that in PHK 1 he is clear that we attach names to subjective ideasrather than their causes. It is unclear how Berkeley’s account of mediate perception interms of suggestion or inference might mitigate either of these equivocations.

There are also problems with Rickless’ interpretation of the identification argument.Recall that according to that argument secondary qualities are ideas because theyare identical to pleasures (moderate secondary qualities) or pains (intense secondaryqualities). Consider the following. Darkness is a privation of light, just as cold is aprivation of heat (See Locke’s Essay II.viii.1–2). Berkeley claims that an intense cold(i.e. an intense privation of heat) is a pain (DHP 178). Parity suggests that darkness—acomplete, and so intense, privation of light—is identical to an intense visual pain. One’seyes should literally hurt in the dark, which is clearly not the case. A similar argumentshould hold for silence, if considered a privation of noise. One’s eardrums shouldliterally hurt when confronted with silence, which is also not the case. Correspondingarguments hold for the primary qualities. Like silence and darkness, extremely fastmotion and rest (i.e. a privation of motion) should be pains. Such pains would notbe limited to one’s own bodily movements. Merely viewing or touching other objectsat rest or moving swiftly should be painful. And so on. Such conclusions follow fromthe claim that primary qualities cannot exist without secondary qualities. It wouldbe helpful were Rickless to address these issues, if only to show that Berkeley is notcommitted to such conclusions based on his interpretation.

Despite his intention and high-quality scholarship, Rickless’ interpretation unfor-tunately does not allow Berkeley to avoid the equivocation objection and so does notpresent a deductively valid argument for Berkeley’s idealism.

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, USA

Advance Access Publication 8th November 2013Keota Fields

doi: 10.1093/pq/pqt036

Gandhi and the Stoics: Modern Experiments on Ancient Values. By Richard Sorabji. (Oxford:OUP, 2012. Pp. xiv + 224. Price £20.00.)

Readers of this journal who may be sceptical about the philosophical bona fides ofMahatma Gandhi should have their doubts laid to rest by this book. In this engagingand lucid account of the central themes in Gandhi’s voluminous writings, RichardSorabji is able to discern a number of characteristics both in methodology and incontent that will lead the open-minded reader to conclude that Gandhi is indeeda philosopher. Sorabji does not want to insist, however, that Gandhi is primarily aphilosopher; rather, he is first and foremost a spiritual and moral leader. Accordingly,his philosophy is viewed by Sorabji as subordinated to and shaped by his centralpassions, that of personal or spiritual liberation and of the liberation of India fromBritish rule. Of course, as much can be said for any philosopher whose primaryorientation is ethical or political, such as Ayn Rand. We in the West do not, I think,normally take as a criterion of a philosophical view’s cogency or truth whether or not

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