Single Idea 5684

[catalogued under 11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / a. Idealism]

Full Idea

The eliminativist idealist holds that there is no such thing as a material object; there is nothing but experience (idea, sensation). The reductive idealist holds that there are material objects, but they are nothing other than complexes of experience.

Gist of Idea

Eliminative idealists say there are no objects; reductive idealists say objects exist as complex experiences

Source

Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.6)

Book Reference

Dancy,Jonathan: 'Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology' [Blackwell 1985], p.156


A Reaction

Dancy says Berkeley was of the latter type. The distinction doesn't strike me as entirely clear. I can't make much sense of the words 'are' or 'exist' in the second theory. To say it is only experiences translates (to me) as 'doesn't exist'.