Berkeley's Bodies

• Main Author: Hunter, Johannes
• Other Authors: Ainslie, Donald
• Language: en_ca
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: 0422
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/43591

George Berkeley (1685-1753) defends immaterialism, the view that there is no such thing as matter. In place of matter, what exists are only minds and ideas. Berkeley also styles himself a defender of common sense. From early on many of Berkeley's readers doubted that these two commitments could be reconciled. I consider Berkeley's joint commitment to immaterialism and common sense in respect of two philosophical theses. (1) Berkeley argues against a version of scepticism that bodies are single collections, constituted by many ideas placed in certain relations, and veridically sensed by finite minds. I identify these collections as Berkeley's enigmatic archetypes. (2) Berkeley argues that finite minds are able to act causally upon their own bodies by nothing more than an act of will. Both of these theses are defended in the context of immaterialism, and Berkeley persuasively presents them as elements of common sense. I reconstruct Berkeley's arguments for these theses, and suggest that he succeeds in reconciling immaterialism and common sense in these areas. My account draws on previous research, but I introduce a single mechanism to understand both theses. I call this mechanism overlap. On Berkeley's view, finite minds represent bodies by constructing representing-collections that are intended to resemble body-collections. However, these representing-collections overlap with body-collections, meaning that they share members which are numerically the same. My account of (1) depends on the fact that sensed ideas are in the overlapping area, and therefore represent the body-collection exactly as it is. My account of (2) depends on supposing that the causal powers of finite minds are exercised on ideas in the area of overlap, and thus they act on ideas that are accessible to them but are also constituent parts of bodies.