Debate: Locke vs. Berkeley

We will divide the class in half today to revisit a classic debate in the sciences. This debate on the reality of matter and the place of perception comes from the early 18th century. It develops Plato's ideas on the unreliability of the senses. This ancient view was recently challenged by Robert Boyle and René Descartes who characterized a physical world made of matter. This matter is fully characterized by special properties including size, shape, position, and local motion. These properties are divisible into insensibly small parts that are characterized by those same properties. Note the connection to Aristotle's ideas that each of the four elements is infinitely divisible--the main departure being that many more elements were being recognized.

Wikipedia will tell you this about Locke and Berkeley:

John Locke

John Locke (29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Locke's theory of mind is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of identity and the self. Locke was the first to define the self through a continuity of consciousness. He postulated that, at birth, the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa. Locke maintained that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from sense perception.

George Berkeley

George Berkeley (12 March 1685 – 14 January 1753) was an Anglo-Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immaterialism" (later referred to as "subjective idealism" by others). This theory denies the existence of material substance and instead contends that familiar objects like tables and chairs are only ideas in the minds of perceivers, and as a result cannot exist without being perceived. Berkeley is also known for his critique of abstraction, an important premise in his argument for immaterialism.

Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous

This is Berkeley's dramatization of the debate. It does not mention Locke by name, only in substance (and possibly style).

Ideas held by both sides

  1. All we can know are ideas and that ideas come from perception or reflection.
  2. We perceive "primary" and "secondary" qualities in things.
  3. primary and secondary qualities differ and are autonomous
  4. primary qualities include size, shape, position, and local motion
  5. secondary qualities include color, sound, odor, flavor, hot and cold
  6. these lists originate with Aristotle's "common and proper sensibles."
  7. God counts as a mind.

Major disagreements

  1. Locke believes that secondary qualities are powers or dispositions of bodies to produce distinctive sensations in human perceivers
  2. both primary and secondary qualities are produced in the mind of the perceiver
  3. Objects and matter exist (Locke) VS There are no objects, only thought (Berkeley)

INSTRUCTIONS

Record your team’s position on each of the three major disagreements above. Team Locke will pick one of the major disagreements and present their view. A goes first as this became the dominant philosophy, presenting their position (about 5 minutes). Team Berkeley will discuss for three minutes then present a five-minute rebuttal. Then Team Locke will respond to the rebuttal (five minutes). The whole exercise should take about 30 minutes.