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Single Idea 6723

[filed under theme 11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / c. Empirical idealism ]

Full Idea

The absolute existence of unthinking things with no relation to their being perceived is unintelligible to me; their 'esse' is 'percipi', nor is it possible they should have any existence out of the minds or thinking things which perceive them.

Gist of Idea

The 'esse' of objects is 'percipi', and they can only exist in minds

Source

George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §3)

Book Ref

Berkeley,George: 'The Principles of Human Knowledge etc.', ed/tr. Warnock,G.J. [Fontana 1962], p.66

A Reaction

"Esse est percipi" (to be is to be perceived) is the well-known slogan associated with Berkeley. I cannot see how Berkeley can assert that the separate existence of things is impossible. He is the classic confuser of epistemology and ontology.

The 15 ideas with the same theme [we are trapped inside our own experiences]:

1103 'To be is to be perceived' is a simple confusion of experience with its objects [Russell on Berkeley]
6403 For Berkelely, reality is ideas and a community of minds, including God's [Berkeley, by Grayling]
3930 There is no such thing as 'material substance' [Berkeley]
3936 Time is measured by the succession of ideas in our minds [Berkeley]
3939 I conceive a tree in my mind, but I cannot prove that its existence can be conceived outside a mind [Berkeley]
3945 There is nothing in nature which needs the concept of matter to explain it [Berkeley]
3947 Perceptions are ideas, and ideas exist in the mind, so objects only exist in the mind [Berkeley]
6723 The 'esse' of objects is 'percipi', and they can only exist in minds [Berkeley]
6724 The only substance is spirit, or that which perceives [Berkeley]
6732 When I shut my eyes, the things I saw may still exist, but in another mind [Berkeley]
2501 Berkeley seems to have mistakenly thought that chairs are the same as after-images [Fodor]
12404 Dear Sir, Your astonishment's odd.... [Sommers,W]
12403 There once was a man who said: 'God... [Sommers,W]
12402 ..But if he's a student of Berkeley... [Sommers,W]
12409 The philosopher Berkeley once said.. [Sommers,W]