Taking Berkeley seriously

[摘要] In this dissertation, I develop a line of thought that Berkeley had only started to developin his published works and in his personal Notebooks. This line of thought concerns the roleplayed by Spirit, or active volitional awareness, in the cognition of everyday objects, and also inthe meaning of any given Sign, whether Natural or Artificial. Berkeley began to develop thisline of thought in his earliest publication, As Essay Toward a New Theory of Vision (1709), whenhe wrote of a “prejudice” that must “insinuate itself” into one’s understanding. This “prejudice”transforms raw sense-data into ‘qualities’ or ‘properties’ of underlying ‘objects.’ According toBerkeley’s New Theory of Vision, it is the active volition of the perceiver that makes thistransformation possible; it is also what gives meaning to any Natural Sign. Extending this toArtificial Signs, we may conclude that artificial signs acquire meaning by serving as signs for theregulation of volition according to various sensory-motor expectations, just as with NaturalSigns. Therefore, words may me meaningful without calling forth any associated ideas, providedwords serve to regulate volition/behavior, which is a view that Berkeley held, but again, failed tofully develop. Several criticisms of Berkeley’s overall approach can be addressed with thisdeveloped doctrine of spirit. First, Berkeley’s treatment of ideas as ‘mental images’ is requiredto distinguish ideas from active know-how, which is often mistaken for an ‘idea’ (according toBerkeley). Second, any claim that Berkeley’s “Master Argument” commits him to solipsism canbe addressed by pointing out that our knowledge of other minds is an active volitional awarenessand, thus, not relevant to the “Master Argument.” Finally, the cost of this extension is thatBerkeley’s argument for God-as-Perceiver must be jettisoned, for reasons already put forward byJohn Stuart Mill.

[效力级别] Language

[关键词] Berkeley;Language;Mind;Vision