Berkeley holds that objects in the world are constituted of ideas. Some commentators argue that for Berkeley, ideas are identical to acts of perception; this is taken to proceed from his view that ideas are like pains. In this paper, I evaluate the identity claim. I argue that although it does not follow from the pain analogy, nonetheless the texts suggest that Berkeley does think ideas and acts are identical. I show how Berkeley can account for objects persisting over time (...) and being perceivable by multiple observers, even if the ideas that constitute them are intermittent and dependent on particular actors. (shrink)

Résumé Les discussions autour de George Berkeley rejettent souvent les remarques de ses Notebooks selon lesquelles (1) les corps sont des pouvoirs qui amènent les percepteurs à avoir des pensées et (2) les corps existent même lorsqu'ils ne sont pas perçus. J'ai déjà noté ces affirmations, mais je n'ai pas expliqué comment les corps sont infiniment liés en tant que pensées (à distinguer des idées), et Melissa Frankel traite les corps comme des archétypes perçus individuellement par Dieu, mais n'explique pas (...) comment ils sont individués. Je soutiens que, parce que les corps identifient les objets uniquement pour des esprits finis, ils sont des pouvoirs dérivés par lesquels les objets individués sont liés les uns aux autres de manière infinie. (shrink)

In ‘Berkeley and God’, Jonathan Bennett diagnoses Berkeley's intermittent advocacy of the proposition that physical things ‘do sometimes exist when not perceived by any human spirit’ by pinning on him the invalid argument, vitiated by the ambiguity of ‘depend’, from all ideas depend on some spirit or other, via some sensible ideas do not depend on these spirits themselves, to some ideas depend on non-finite spirits.

The aim of this paper is to offer a general survey of the latest development of metaphysical idealism in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. It consists of five main parts. The first part is a short introduction, it states the position of idealism and its current status in the Anglophone world. The second part focuses on the negative programme of idealism, which challenges physicalism on the problem of matter (2.1) and the problem of consciousness (2.2). The third part illustrates the positive programme (...) of idealism, whose varieties can be grouped into two principal types: constitutive and elementary. Constitutive idealism (3.1) is subdivided into the theocentric (3.1.1), the anthropocentric (3.1.2), and the acentric (3.1.3). Elementary idealism (3.2), on the other hand, can be unity-based (3.2.1), language-based (3.2.2), or knowledge-based (3.2.3). The six categories form a general framework of metaphysical idealism, and various accounts in the existing literature are discussed under each category. The fourth part addresses the relation between idealism and panpsychism. The paper is concluded with some caveats and future prospects. (shrink)

Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 7, July 2022.