George Berkeley: Part 3

There may be disputes about Berkeley's best book, but there is no controversy about his strangest book: "Siris: A Chain of Philosophical Reflexions and Inquires concerning the Virtues of Tar-Water" hereafter referred to as "Siris". In this essay we shall examine this book, and make some general observations about empiricism, Hermetic philosophy, and Berkeley's philosophical career. "Siris" is indeed a strange book. It starts out with an endorsement of tar-water, and how to make tar-water. Then transitions to metaphysics. Which makes for a very strange book. There is a Hermetic reason for this progression of topics. It is to start from the lowest, and proceed to the highest, to illustrate the Great Chain of Being. So lets us "Siris" and how much of Berkeley's early philosophy survives, and what does not. We shall begin by examining Berkeley's empiricism. One of the few bright lines in philosophy is to be an empiricist, one must reject innate ideas or the doctrine of recollection. That the mind is a blank tablet. So let us go to Berkeley:"Siris" (sec. 309): "It is a maxim of the Platonic philosophy, that the soul of man was originally furnished with native inbred notions, and stands in need of sensible occasions, not absolutely for producing them, but only for awakening, and rousing, or exciting, into act what was already pre-existing, dormant, and latent in the soul; as things are said to be laid up in the memory, through not actually perceived until they happen to be called forth and brought into view by other objects. This notion seemeth somewhat different from the innate ideas, as understood by those moderns who have attempted to explode them." It seems from the above quote that Berkeley's empiricism is not only sick in bed, but is buried and forgotten. Another theory associated with Berkeley is the relativity of qualities. That there is no difference between primary, and secondary qualities; although we have observed that Berkeley was ambiguous on this issue. So to "Siris" (sec. 266) we go. "The Pythagoreans and the Platonists had a notion of the true system of world. They allowed of mechanical principles, but actuated by soul and mind: they distinguished the primary qualities in bodies from the secondary, making the former to be physical causes, and they understood physical causes in the right sense; they saw that mind infinite in power, unextended, invisible, immortal, governed, connected, and contained in all things..." The above quote also shows Berkeley never abandoned his theory that all motion is caused by spirits. One of Berkeley's early theories to survive his whole philosophical career. This acts as a bridge to our next topic: what is the carrier of the qualities? Berkeley in his early writings denied the existence of independently existing matter. Instead, of matter, qualities seem to be part of a virtual system, much like a modern video game. God acting as programmer of the game. The constant and uninterrupted activity of God survives throughout his career,but the medium that carries the qualities changes. In "Siris" Berkeley has finally decided on a carrier for sensible qualities. A most Hermetic answer, the Solar or Universal Fire of the Hermetics. It must be stated, that the Solar Fire is not the same as earthly fire, but the universal or cosmic energy. So let us go back to "Siris" (sec 52): "This Aether or pure invisible Fire, the most subtle and elastic of all bodies, seems to pervade and expand itself through-out the whole universe. If air be the immediate agent or instrument in natural things it is the pure invisible Fire that is the first natural mover or spring from whence the air derives its power. This mighty agent is everywhere at hand, ready to break forth into action, if not restrained and governed with the greatest wisdom. Being always restless and in motion, it actuates and enlivens the whole visible mass, is equally fitted to produce and to destroy, distinguishes the various stages of nature, and keeps up the perpetual round of generations and corruptions, pregnant with forms which it constantly sends forth and resorbs. So quick in its motions, so subtle and penetrating in its nature, so extensive in its effects, it seemeth no other than the Vegetative Soul or Vital Spirit of the World. The above quotes should be enough to prove that Berkeley left empiricism for Hermetic philosophy. I have used J. Wild's quote that Berkeley was "A passage from Locke to Plato" , but a better description would be Berkeley was a passage from anew way of thinking to an old way of thinking. So let us take a brief look at the two different ways of thinking. Both empiricism and Hermetic philosophy have certain standards and techniques, to interpret experience. We shall observe empiricism first, since it was first in Berkeley's philosophical career. Modern empiricism starts with John Locke. So even though there was an ancient empiricism we must start with Locke. Locke was a way more eccentric,and idiosyncratic individual than most students of philosophy realize, and so left his peculiar stamp on modern empiricism. Rene Guenon calls Locke the founder of modern psychology. For those who know Guenon this was not praise. So what was it that Locke was trying to accomplish with his book "Essay Concerning Human Understanding"? To answer this question we must understand the place of mind in modern science. Modern science tries to ignore mind in nature, and always take a third person standpoint. A sort of looking in from the outside, in other words mind adds nothing to what is there. This is the position that Locke was tying to justify. The first and main theme of his book is to deny innate ideas, or the classical doctrine of recollection. Locke's goal was to make the human mind completely passive. A blank tablet that experience writes upon. So of course, he had to get rid of innate ideas, but Locke goes farther; he want to get rid of what the Medieval philosophers called the active intellect. So let us go back to Locke's blank tablet. Imagine Locke's blank tablet is made of wax, and the entities of the external world are like a signet. The signet is pressed into the wax making an accurate impression; an ectype. This is Locke's conception of mind; mind adds nothing to experience. The mind is totally passive it only records impressions from the external world, like wax takes the impressions form the signet. The entities of the external world become the archetypes that create the ectypes in the human mind. Thus we have accurate impressions since the mind adds nothing of its own to experience. So far so good, but how, but how does the human mind put together all these impressions into concepts? Locke has no answer, instead he says it is a "happy accident". Locke has kept the Medieval conception of the passive intellect, but abandoned the active intellect, which leaves holes in Locke's psychology. This is why the "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" kept growing in length, but not solving the problems of Locke's psychology. It must be said that neither Berkeley or any other empiricist has been able to solve Locke's problems. So this is the empiricism that Berkeley found in Locke. So let us move to Hermetic philosophy. Hermetic philosophy has a long history back to the supposed writings of Hermes Trismegistus. During that time Hermetic philosophy also absorbed many ideas, the most important being alchemy. Alchemy seems to be a mix of proto-chemistry and mystical philosophy. Most modern thinkers dismiss alchemy as an anachronism. This view is refuted by Jacob Bohme and C. G. Jung who both used Hermetic ideas to striking, and original insights in modern thought. Like empiricism, Hermetic philosophy contains tools, and techniques to be used to interpret human experience, but unlike empiricism Hermetic philosophy is better at interpreting the internal states of humans than the external world. It is in the fields of religion and psychology that Hermetic philosophy excels. To go back to Jung, and Bohme we see what is missing in Berkeley's Hermetic philosophy; there is nothing new, or original in his Hermetic writings. All of Berkeley's original insights were made in empiricism. So now we turn to Berkeley. Anyone who reads Berkeley's early writings can feel the enthusiasm he had for the new empiricism he found in Locke. One of the problems Locke left was was what are the archetypes that leave the impressions or the ectypes on the human mind? As both Berkeley and Hume pointed out Locke posit of matter is reasoning from effects to cause. For Locke there is no way to ever really know what makes the impressions. Berkeley sought to solve this problem by giving the world of experience back to her common man. That the common man's experience is a true representation of the world. That the qualities we experience somehow inhere in the ectoplasm of spirit. This brings us to what is strange in Berkeley's philosophy. That he brought in entities or powers that are not empirically verifiable, and cause more problems than they solve.In simple terms, Berkeley was trying to solve the problems of empiricism by bringing in supernatural forces. When Berkeley dealt with subjects that empiricism can deal with he was spectacularly successful. The example being his work on optics and vision. The trouble starts when he tries to deal with metaphysical subjects. The best example being when he argues for God's existence. Berkeley's three arguments for God's existence must be the most unconvincing arguments ever posited. They do not even have the emotional tug of the popular irrational arguments. This is not to say that Berkeley's arguments are not extremely interesting. They show is how an empiricist has to argue for God's existence. This is why Wittgenstein famously kept silent about such matters. Empiricism is a failure when not applied to the external world. The third argument for God's existence (the visual language argument ) is the most interesting of the three, even though it is a failure for the purpose it was supposed to fill. It does bring up some interesting insights. Is the thinking involved in how we use vision the same as or related to the thinking we use for language? Is this why humans the most visual of animals also the language using animal? There is still much in Berkeley's writings to stimulate the modern student of philosophy. Berkeley does offer us an original way of looking at the world. To finish it should be obvious why Berkeley turned form empiricism to Hermetic philosophy. He realized that empiricism was a failure in exploring the topics he most cared about. END