Hurory o/European Ideas, Vol.i, No. 6, pp. 609-615, 1986 PrInted in Great Britain.

0191-659906 $3.CWO.C4 Pergamon Journals Ltd

ON TRANSLATINGBERKELEY'S PRINCIPLES*

MARILYNN PHILLIPS?

I should like to raise two questions here, which I think are related, one being an introduction to the other. (1) Is there a distinction to be made between ‘actual’

and ‘real’? Certainly not in English, at leastprimafucie. The question arises when translating ‘actual’, be it ‘actual existence’ or ‘actual perception’, involves

deciding, in French, whether actual perception or actual existence does or does not amount, in Berkeleian terms, to a really present, hit et nunc, existence or perception. In other words, can, and should, one translate literally: ‘actual’ as a French ‘actuer? (2) In light of the first question, is there any sufficient reason to distinguish, chez Berkeley, between ‘actual (hit et nunc) existence’ and ‘real being’? When Berkeley speaks, for example, of ‘God’s being’, is he not clearly meaning (in translation) ‘I’existence de (ou d’un) Dieu’?

I

In Principles 87, Berkeley raises the following objection:

our ideas vary, and which of them, or even whether any of them at all represent the true quality really existing in the thing, it is out of our reach to determine.

To which he replies, in the following section:

So long as we attribute a real existence to unthinking things, distinct from their being perceived, it is not only impossible for us to know with evidence the nature of any real unthinking being, but even that it exists. . . . (But) I can as well doubt of my own being, as of the being of those things which I actualIy perceive by sense. (my italics in both quotations)

The question, in French translation, is how to translate ‘actually’, particularly when associated with ‘really’. My French rendering of the passages just quoted

reads as follows:

nos id&es varient; et il est hors de notre pouvoir, que de dtterminer laquelle de ces

idies reprCsente la qualit existant rkellement dans la chose, voire mgme s’il en

existe une. (587)

*Pr&cisons d’emblCe que l’inspiration, voire la raison d’&tre de la prksente communication trouve son origine dans le projet d’une nouvelle traduction des Oeuvres de Berkeley (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France), entreprise dirigCe par Genevitve Brykman, avec la collaboration, pour ce qui concerne le premier tome, de: Dominique Berlioz-Letellier, Jean-Marie Beyssade, Michkle Beyssade, Michel Blay, Laurent Dechery, ainsi que nous- mcmes.

t 11, rue de Saint-Simon, 75007 Paris, France.

609

610 Marilynn Phillips

Aussi longtemps que nous attribuons aux chases non pensantes une existence reelle, distincte du fait d’2tre percues, il nous est impossible de connattre avec evidence la nature d’aucune chose rtelle et non pensante, ni mCme de savoir si elle existe. Or, je pourrais aussi bein douter de mon propre &tre, que de I’Ctre de ces chases que je percois effectivement par les sens. ($88)

Literally, ‘actue/Iemenr’ means, in modern French at least, ‘literally present’ or ‘immediately, hit et nunc, observable’; ‘I’acrualitP’ or ‘les actualiteS’ (‘les information?) being a synonym for ‘the news’, the latest news broadcast, ‘what is happening’. There is obviously a time problem here, which Berkeley seems to neglect so conscientiously that I shall not even attempt to enter into it. What merits noting is the fact that ‘the news’ (‘/‘actua/itC’) is never, or hardly ever, present in a hit et nunc sense. (Let us assume for present purposes that news broadcasts are, or are at least supposed to be, veracious.) But this hit et nunc sense is precisely the sense Berkeley wants. Things are not real (really and truly) unless they are ‘actually’ or ‘immediately’ present to the mind. ‘Actual’ must mean, not only ‘real’, but really present and ‘immediate’, a hit et nunc presentation-or representation.

(A parenthetical remark: singularly, the word ‘represent’ is rarely employed by Berkeley in the Principles and elsewhere. When it is, it is in a very particular sense, precisely the sense in which something previously ‘present’ (in the hit et nunc sense) is as it were ‘reproduced’ through a looking-glass. In other words, no imagination, or re-presentation, without initial presentation; and initial presentation implies at some point actual, ‘immediate’ perception (or existence). It should also be noted that ‘re-presentation’ in Berkeleian terms always seems to implicate a resemblance relation. Whatever represents something must in some way be like that thing, and it is only insofar as there is resemblance that there is true representation. If I am right, one should be particularly circumspect in translating the Philosophical Commentaries in which the word ‘represent’ is never used. What becomes a problem in French is translating ‘stand for’; but that is another matter.)

To return to Principles 87 and to reinforce my initial question, there is a discrepancy to be remarked between what Berkeley published in the first sentence, and what he wrote in the manuscript. Both the first and second editions

read:

Colour, figure, motion, extension and the like, considered only as so many sensations in the mind . . . , are perfectly known, there being nothing in them which is not perceived. (Jessop, p. 78)

Berkeley’s manuscript, according to Jessop (ibid., p. 78), reads, instead of ‘so

many sensations’, ‘ actual sensations’ (my italics). In the context of the sentence, it would seem an accurate or a more faithful translation to write in French:

La couleur, la figure, le mouvement, l’ttendue, etc , consider& uniquement comme des sensations actuelles (rather than rtelles?) dans l’esprit, sont parfaitement connus; il n’y a rien en eux qui n’est (or: qui ne soit?) pas percu.

On Translating Berkeley’s Principles 611

(Choosing between an indicative and a subjunctive may, by the way, be of some importance in deciding the question of ‘actuelles’ versus ‘rPelles’; the latter would more decidedly take the subjunctive.) In rectifying his manuscript, Berkeley may have been worried about a problem involved in using the word ‘actual’. From what little I have been able to gather from the literature, both an etymological and an epistemological (if not metaphysical) question arise. Firstly, does ‘actual’ actually turn out, in common seventeenth- to eighteenth-century English, to mean ‘actuel’ in the modern French, hit et nunc sense of the word? Secondly (waiving the in actu-inpotentia distinction, which presents yet another problem- atic issue in translating, as well as interpreting Berkeley) what effect does the first question have on deciding the issue of ‘real existence’ (in actu, en acte) versus ‘actual being’ which, albeit ‘actual’, is not always clearly hit et nunc? The first question may, I think, be dealt with in discussion. I should like to pursue the second one here.

II

The problem as to whether ‘actual existence’ amounts to ‘real being’ for Berkeley may become obvious when the passage quoted from Principles 87 is compared with the ‘esse est percipi’ formula (leaving off the ‘vel percipere’ addendum which, for present purposes, would only complicate matters unduly). The latter, in French-‘&tre, c’est Ztreperqu’ -might also be translated as ‘l’&tre consiste b Ztreperqu’, the essence of being something, anything at all, being what is constituted by being perceived. In English, of course, ‘esse est percipi’ is normally translated as ‘to be is to be perceived’. An alternative translation, however, could be something like ‘being is (or consists in) being perceived’; and this formulation, rendered in French, becomes ‘I’Ctre consiste dans le fait d’Ctre per@. Translating literally back into English, one now has to add on ‘thefact of being perceived. The transition from present participle to gerundif, not always if ever grammatically clear in French, has to be made so here; and the only way I have discovered to do so is by putting in the ‘in fact’. Now, once an ‘in fact’ (‘en fait’, ‘en rPalitP’, in French) is introduced, it is more than tempting to speak of ‘really-or actually-being perceived’, which would imply, at least on one score, real, actual existence, viz. being in actu (‘actuellement re’ald’). (On other scores, ‘being actually perceived’ might imply, not just hit et nunc perception but also a hit et nunc existent subject and object.)

Not only Principles 87 suggests this line of thought. There are numerous other passages in the Principles which make one wonder whether ‘existence’ and ‘essence’ might not be interchangeable terms, as in Descartes’ ‘sum sive existo’. An acute translation problem with Berkeley occurs when it is a matter of ‘God’s being’. Perhaps it is just a matter of the word ‘existence’ sounding strange to eighteenth-century English ears. (And perhaps some of you, who are more literarily qualified to speak on the subject, may be able to reply.) Nonetheless, when Berkeley speaks of ‘those who have maintained the being of a God’ (Principles 92), the most natural translation for ‘being’ is ‘existence’, and not ‘Ctre’ (or ‘essence’). For, unless one admits a series of presuppositions regarding the validity of the ontological argument (a series which would entail the truth of

612 Marilynn Phillips

the conclusion ‘God exists’, as well as the fact that Berkeley simply collapsed into one questions about God’s nature and arguments in favour of God’s existence, the two are, in principle, distinct. It is far from clear to me that Berkeley intended to confuse the two sorts of questions, though, in fact, he may have done so (for lack of counter-arguers). What is clear, and I think our French colleagues will agree, is that the most natural way of translating ‘the being of a God’ or ‘God is’ is ‘I’existence d’un Dieu (ou de Dieu)‘, ‘Dieu existe’ (‘Dieu est’ being an obvious

mistranslation in the context). A spontaneous philosophical conclusion to be drawn is that, like it or not,

Berkeley seems to be committed to an equivalence, if not an identity-relation between ‘actual existence’ and ‘real being’ (‘existence actuelle’ et ‘6trerbel’). Real being is, or directly implies, real hit et nunc existence (‘existence actuelle’)-in some mind or other which actually, hit et nunc, exists. The latter part of this conclusion may be dubious; the former, if accepted as an acceptable interpretation of Berkeley, entails important consequences, two of which are worth mentioning here. (1) No possibility of distinguishing between dreams (even daydreams, imagination and its fictions) and ‘real-life’ experience; (2) no possibility, as well, of discerning between ‘possible’ and ‘actual’, i.e. real possibles and actual reals, essences and existences. As a corollary, such things as dispositional properties (indirectly referred to earlier) are not only inexistent for Berkeley, but literally undefinable; they cannot be ‘real’ in any sense of the word, the most pertinent sense being ‘possibly real’ but not actually so. Much more argument is required on this score, and that I shall leave to future discussion.

III

To finish on what was supposed to have been an anecdotal note all along, I should like to mention one or two other translation problems which afflicted nearly all of us. Translating ‘mind’ versus ‘spirit’ is an issue which I personally find rather banal. Descartes is, for once, clear in making no distinction between the two, and I think both Locke and Berkeley follow him here. Unfortunately or otherwise, there are not two words in French for ‘mind’ (or mens) and ‘spirit’ (animus). The only solution, in my opinion, is to translate both as ‘esprit’, leaving the Latin or English in parentheses where important. (‘In our minds’, by the way, should be rendered ‘dans notre esprit’-at least wherever possible, that is, in most cases. The singular is grammatically important in French here; compare ‘animal spirits’ (‘esprits anirnaux’) and Coste’s judicious handling of the contrast in his translation of Locke’s Essay.)

A final remark on ‘castles in the air’ (Ms. Introd. 27. Principles 13 1). I have had vociferous objections on the French side to translating as ‘chciteaux en Espagne’. Even the Oxford (French) Dictionary has not convinced them. The expression seems to be perfectly appropriate, however-a Don Quixotte sort of a pipe- dream, completely illusory-for both Locke and Berkeley; though a figment of the imagination may not be the same thing for both. A castle, be it on a plain in Spain or in the air is, after all (even for Descartes), something-the same thing, I think, for Berkeley. Plains in Spain, just as castles in the air, are as real as you

On Translating Berkeley’s Principles 613

think or perceive or imagine them to be. Imagining them may be ‘absurd’ or ‘meaningless’; but not ‘impossible’.

Paris Marilynn Phillips

Discussion Francois Tricaud: Dans le langage de la scolastique, ‘actus’ s’oppose a

‘potentia’, et dtsigne done la &alit& effective, par oppos- ition a la simple possibilite. ‘Actualis’ est l’adjectif corres- pondant: il s’applique a ce qui est ‘en acte’, par opposition a ce qui est seulement ‘en puissance’. A l’origine, le francais ‘actuel’ et l’anglais ‘actual htritent de cet emploi. Mais les deux langues connaissent aussi une acception d&iv&e, par laquelle ‘actuel’ et ‘actuar signifient ‘present’, et s’oppo- sent a ‘passe’ ou a ‘futur’. Ntanmoins, on doit noter que cette signification temporelle est assez rare en anglais, le sens le plus courant Ctant ‘existant reellement, effective- ment’. Inversement, en francais, ‘actuel’ signifie habituelle- ment ‘present, contemporain de l’enonciation’; le sens originaire n’est utilist que dans certains contextes philo- sophiques oti l’opposition a ‘potentiel’ est suffisamment Claire. C’est pourquoi, en dehors de tels contextes, je ne conseillerai pas de traduire ‘actuar par ‘actuel’-sauf, bien entendu, lorsque l’adjectif anglais est pris dans son sens temporel.

A4. Phillips: Je suis tout a fait d’accord avec vous en ce qui concerne, et l’opposition ttymologique traditionnelle, et les divergences actuelles entre le francais et I’anglais, s’agissant d’actual et d’actually. Mais je me demande precisement si l’on ne devrait pas prendre, en bon nombre de cas (mais pas tous) chez Berkeley, I’anglais ‘actuaP dans le sens temporel du francais ‘actuel’. Bien stir, cela pose une question d’inter- prttation qui nous am&era tres loin. Que faudrait-il faire, par exemple, dans une telle perspective, de votre distinction scolastique: in actu-in potentia? (I deliberately wanted to waive this issue in my paper.) Comment interpreter, voire dtfinir, la notion de puissance, ‘pouvoir’ ou potentialiti: chez Berkeley? Mme Engel, si je comprends bien, a essay6 de ‘plaquer’ ici une definition contemporaine, en fonction de concepts tels: les ‘attitudes dispositionnels’ que l’on exprime par des counterfactual conditionals (des propos- itions qui prennent la forme grammaticale d’un condi- tionnel au passe, done qui expriment quelque chose de non- real&, sinon d’irrtalisable), qui ont ett logiquement &labor&s bien apres Berkeley. Mais, justement, je vois assez ma1 oti l’on pourrait ‘retrouver’ cette notion contemp-

614 Marilynn Phillips

J. 0. Urmson:

M. Phillips:

oraine et ce vocabulaire chez Berkeley: la plupart des textes a ma connaissance sont, pour le moins, ambigus. I agree with Prof. Tricaud on translating ‘actual’ as something like ‘effectif’ or ‘Gel’ (the abverb ‘actually’ translating as ‘en effet’ or ‘effectivement’). Even seven- teenth-century versions of the O.E.D. seem to confirm this. (See the current standard O.E.D.-the big one.) Normally, in English, ‘actual’ would be contrasted with ‘potential’(or ‘possible’); likewise, ‘real’ should be opposed to ‘apparent’. Yes, here again, I quite agree, and am willing to go along with the O.E.D. definitions, and I quite accept the distinctions. What I wonder is whether Berkeley did. Can any coherent distinction be made out, in the context of Berkeley’s thought, between ‘real’ and ‘apparent’ sen- sations? (Does it make any sense, even in ordinary, modern-day language, to speak of ‘apparent sensa- tions’-in contrast to ‘real’ ones?)

Charles McCracken: The passages in the Notebooks that I take to be attempts to deal, by means of counterfactuals, with the existence of things not now perceived by us are 98, 185a and 293a. These are all verso entries (including 98, which does not have an ‘a’ only because it does not seem to correspond to any particular recta entry); so they may well have all been written much later than the recta entries. I think they reflect a more mature view of Berkeley’s than his earlier attempts to deal with the existence of things when we are not perceiving them; e.g. at 472, where he still requires that they at least be ‘imagined and thought on’ by us, if they are to exist. (How unsatisfactory that view was is shown by Berkeley’s own admission, at 473, that he is using the word ‘existence’ ‘in a larger sense than ordinary’, viz. for things that are merely imagined or thought of.) I think he sub- sequently got the notion of saying, counterfactually, that things not now perceived exist if, under specifiable con- ditions, we would perceive them (-the sorts of conditions he specifies at Principles 58, viz. ‘if we were placed in such and such circumstances, and at such or such a position and distance from something or other’). See, as well, Principles 3.

M. Phillips: What is surprising, I find, is that the textual references are so few and far between (-including the passage in the Alciphron on the perceptions we might have had at the time of the Creation); also, that they are far from unambiguous- ly, grammatically ‘standard’ counterfactuals. The only perfectly straightforward example would seem to be Principles 58. The three entries in the Commentaries (entry 185a, for example, is a weird grammatical construction which makes for embarrassment in translating), as well as

On Transla ring Berkeley’s Principles 615

Principles 3, read most naturally as normal conditionals (i.e., non-counterfactual); though the latter is, admittedly, a difficult interpretive passage. The evidence seems to point, at the very least, to not exaggerating Berkeley’s ‘anticipation’ of contemporary concepts of ‘disposition’ or ‘potential’. It is another question, of course, whether ‘ordinary’ conditionals are sufficient (or even necessary) in talk about potentiality; if they are not, then Berkeley would seem to be faced with a real problem of defining ‘possible’ as opposed to ‘actual’.