Samuel Johnson kicking the rock

Myrmidon

It's dumb, and proves nothing, but it looks dazzlingly clever to idiots.

Wicked223

Just so we're all on the same page:

After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley’s ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it — “I refute it thus.” Source(s):

ClockworkUniverse

Frankly, I think any claim to have proven the nonexistence of matter is dumb enough that kicking a rock is sufficient. Though I of course can't comment for sure without hearing the proof.

Myrmidon

It would be if Berkeley was denying the existence of rocks and the effect they can have on human feet, but he wasn't.

Nyktos

Both rocks and human feet are made out of matter.

Myrmidon

I'd say so, but Berkeley would say that they're made out of sensations.

ClockworkUniverse

So...was his "proof" to use a different word in place of the word "matter?"

Ironweaver

It's impossible to effectively prove both the existence and non-existence of matter. That said, when in such a dilemma I'm just going to go with the more obvious option - namely, that it does exist.

Tangentially related - my philosophy professor hates Berkley with a passion.

^ Well, matter and sensations are completely different things.

ClockworkUniverse

^They are, but there's not really much substantively different from saying "two chunks of matter collide" and "two chunks of sensation collide" except that one is trying a little too hard to sound clever.

Myrmidon

Basically once you strip away the sensible qualities of something(color, shape, weight,  whatever) you're left with nothing. He thought it was a paradox to try to prove the existence of something outside of sense-perception when all knowledge comes from sense-perception.

ClockworkUniverse

His failure, then, is to assume that matter is outside sense-perception. Pick something up. Feel that weight? That's how much matter you're holding.

Ironweaver

Berkley believed that all sensations are merely a product of our subjective consciousness. Basically, that we live in the Matrix of our own mind.

ClockworkUniverse

But that's just as much of an assumption as the idea that matter exists. Actually, strike that, it's a much larger one.

Ironweaver

Indeed, that's why I don't agree with Berkley.

Myrmidon

"Pick something up. Feel that weight? That's how much matter you're holding."

And that weight is nothing but another sense-perception.

"Basically, that we live in the Matrix of our own mind."

Wouldn't Matrix of God's mind be more accurate? Berkeley was a bishop remember,

Ironweaver

Wouldn't Matrix of God's mind be more accurate? Berkeley was a bishop remember,

But that would also imply that objective reality exists, since God is the universal creator. Berkley really didn't make much sense.

ClockworkUniverse

"And that weight is nothing but another sense-perception."



That's an assumption. The assumption of "we feel weight because of a model that explains all weights we feel without fail and stands up to experiment" is significantly more reasonable than "i dont want to assume anything, so I'm going to assume that we feel weight because god said so and for no other reason."

Myrmidon

Yeah, that's one way out of the dilemma in addition to  "inner sense of time presupposes something enduring outside us"(Kant), "science reveals multiple objects and events that existed before consciousness"(Meillassoux, Lenin), "if things were nothing but their relations to us, they would never be able to surprise us or demonstrate new qualities"(Heidegger*)  I'm not a Berkeleyan either and very few philosophers are. But those were all refutations and not the hard-headed "Screw your logic, my common sense tells me otherwise!" Johnson demonstrated that's always been the devil of philosophy

 

*I should note here that I'm following the unorthodox interpretation of Heidegger's "Zuhandenheit/Vorhandenheit" distinction that Graham Harman argued for in Tool-Being, but fuck it, Badiou agrees with me on this.

ClockworkUniverse

That is true that Johnson doesn't really do much to disprove it.

DonZabu

I think it was less "I stomp on this rock, therefore it exists" and more "I stomp on this rock, therefore Bishop Berkeley is a metaphysical wanker and I'm keeping it real".

Myrmidon

sigh

Bastion

But that's just as much of an assumption as the idea that matter exists. Actually, strike that, it's a much larger one.

I don't see how that's so. We have immediate access to our perceptions, but we only have access to matter through those perceptions. Assuming the independent existence of something based on the fact that we perceive it is, obviously, practical, but it's still an assumption. Speaking epistemically, it's an important one to question, important enough that I actually don't see how someone could talk about epistemology or related issues without examining it.