Berkeley’s likeness principle states that only an idea can be like an idea. In this paper, I argue that the principle should be read as a premise only in a metaphysical argument showing that matter cannot instantiate anything like the sensory properties we perceive. It goes against those interpretations that take it to serve also, if not primarily, an epistemological purpose, featuring in Berkeley’s alleged Representation Argument to the effect that we cannot reach beyond the veil of our ideas. First, (...) in section 1, I raise some concerns about the traditional narrative concerning the likeness principle’s role in Berkeley’s argumentation. In section 2, I delineate an alternative narrative, arguing that there is no ‘missing premise’ in his alleged Representation Argument we need to explain simply because he advances no argument like that in the first place. In section 3–4, I provide a close reading of the relevant passages—first from the _Principles_, then the _Dialogues_—and their contexts, supporting textually a purely metaphysical interpretation of the likeness principle arguments. In section 5, I address some possible objections, based on the phrasing of the likeness principle passages and some related texts. (shrink)

We can find in the passages that set out the Master Argument a precursor to the paradox of knowability. That paradox shows that if all truths are knowable, all truths are known. Similarly, Berkeley might be read as proposing that if all sensible objects are (distinctly) conceivable, then all sensible objects are conceived.

In this paper, we focus on Berkeley's reasons for accepting the ‘resemblance thesis’ which entails that for one thing to represent another those two things must resemble one another. The resemblance thesis is a crucial premise in Berkeley's argument from the ‘likeness principle’ in §8 of the Principles. Yet, like the ‘likeness principle’, the resemblance thesis remains unargued for and is never explicitly defended. This has led several commentators to provide explanations as to why Berkeley accepts the resemblance thesis and (...) why he also takes his opponents to do so too. We provide a contextual answer to this question, focusing on epistemological discussions concerning resemblance and representation in Early Modern Irish Philosophy. We argue that the resemblance thesis is implicit in early responses to William Molyneux's famous example of the ‘man born blind made to see’ and trace the ‘Molyneux man’ thought experiment as it is employed by Irish thinkers such as William King and Berkeley himself. Ultimately, we conclude that Berkeley's acceptance of the resemblance thesis can be explained by the Irish intellectual climate in which he was writing. (shrink)

Berkeley’s likeness principle is the claim that “an idea can be like nothing but an idea”. The likeness principle is intended to undermine representationalism: the view (that Berkeley attributes to thinkers like Descartes and Locke) that all human knowledge is mediated by ideas in the mind which represent material objects. Yet, Berkeley appears to leave the likeness principle unargued for. This has led to several attempts to explain why Berkeley accepts it. In contrast to ‘metaphysical’ and ‘epistemological’ interpretations available in (...) the literature, in this paper I defend a ‘conceptual’ interpretation. I argue that Berkeley accepts the likeness principle on the basis of (i) his commitment to the transparency of ideas, and (ii) his account of resemblance which he sets out in his works on vision. Thus, I provide an explanation for Berkeley’s reasons for accepting the likeness principle which, appropriately, focuses on his views concerning ideas and likeness. (shrink)

Berkeley writes in his ThreeDialogues Between Hylas and Philonous that he “acknowledge[s] a twofold state of things, the one ectypal or natural, the other archetypal and eternal[.] The former was created in time; the latter existed from everlasting in the mind of God”. On a straightforward reading of this passage, it looks as though Berkeley is an indirect perception theorist, who thinks that our sensory ideas are copies or resemblances of archetypal divine ideas. But this is problematic because Berkeley’s rejection (...) of scepticism seems partly to rest on a rejection of indirect perception. In this paper, I consider, and reject, three different approaches to solving this problem: that Berkeley’s remarks on archetypes are unrepresentative; that Berkeley is indeed committed to divine archetypal ideas ; and that Berkeley thinks divine archetypal ideas are identical to human ideas. I finally settle on a fourth strategy, which involves reading Berkeley’s archetypes as divine powers to produce ideas. I claim that this reading is consistent with the texts, that it has an etymological basis and philosophical precedent, and that it resolves the problems associated with the other three approaches to archetypes. (shrink)

Berkeley’s capacity to conceive of mind-independent bodies was corrupted by his theory of representation. He thought that representation of things outside the mind depended on resemblance. Since ideas can resemble nothing than ideas, and all ideas are mind dependent, he concluded that we couldn’t form ideas of mind-independent bodies. More generally, he thought that we had no inner resembling proxies for mind-independent bodies, and so we couldn’t even form a notion of such things. Because conception is a suggestible faculty, Berkeley’s (...) arguments actually made it the case that he himself couldn’t conceive of mind-independent bodies. (shrink)