Idealism

The word ‘idealism’ is used by different philosophers in different senses.

It says that whatever exists is mental.

The doctrine is so widely held, and so interesting in itself, that even the briefest survey of philosophy must give some account of it.

Common sense on tables and chairs, the sun and moon, and material objects are radically different from minds and the contents of minds, and as having an existence which might continue if minds ceased.

We think of matter as having existed long before there were any minds*. It is hard to think of it as a mere product of mental activity. But whether true or false, idealism is not obviously absurd.

*Superphysics note: This is the opposite of our doctrine that matter only exists if there is a mind to perceive it. This is proven nowadays by the collapse of the wave function in quantum physics.

Even if physical objects do have an independent existence, they must differ very widely from sense-data. They can only corresponde with sense-data in the same way that a catalogue corresponds with the things catalogued.

Hence common sense leaves us completely in the dark as to the true intrinsic nature of physical objects. If such objects were mental, then the truth about physical objects is strange since such an opinion is strange. It might be unattainable*.

*Superphysics Note: It is strange to Russel because he has no knowledge of Socratic Dialectics and the True Nature of Things.

But if any philosopher believes that he has attained it, the fact that what he offers as the truth is strange should not be made a ground of objection to his opinion.

The grounds on which idealism is advocated are generally grounds derived from the theory of knowledge. It is from a discussion of the conditions which things must satisfy in order that we may be able to know them.

The first serious attempt to establish idealism on such grounds was that of Bishop Berkeley.

He proved first, by largely valid arguments, that our sense-data cannot exist without us. It must be, in part at least, ‘in’ the mind. Their existence would not continue if there were no seeing or hearing or touching or smelling or tasting.

But he went on to argue:

• that sense-data were the only things of whose existence our perceptions could assure us and
• that to be known is to be ‘in’ a mind, and therefore to be mental.

Hence, he concluded that:

• nothing can ever be known except what is in some mind and
• whatever is known without being in my mind must be in some other mind*.

*Superphysics note: This is the mind of the Brahma, or the Totality of Existence

In order to understand his argument, we must understand his use of the word ‘idea’.

To him, ‘idea’ is anything which is immediately known. For example, sense-data are known and are ideas.

Thus an idea is:

• a colour which we see
• a voice which we hear.

But the term is not wholly confined to sense-data.

There are also things remembered or imagined.

All such immediate data he calls ‘ideas’*.

*Superphysics Note: In Superphysics, sense-perceptions are ’thoughts’. ‘Ideas’ are the discrete metaphysical or aethereal objects that are the origin of thoughts.

He then proceeds to consider common objects, such as a tree, for instance.

He shows that all we know immediately when we ‘perceive’ the tree consists of ideas in his sense of the word, and he argues that there is not the slightest ground for supposing that there is anything real about the tree except what is perceived. Its being, he says, consists in being perceived: in the Latin of the schoolmen its ’esse’ is ‘percipi’.

He fully admits that the tree must continue to exist even when we shut our eyes or when no human being is near it. But this continued existence, he says, is due to the fact that God continues to perceive it; the ‘real’ tree, which corresponds to what we called the physical object, consists of ideas in the mind of God, ideas more or less like those we have when we see the tree, but differing in the fact that they are permanent in God’s mind so long as the tree continues to exist.

According to him, all our perceptions consist in a partial participation in God’s perceptions. It is because of this participation that different people see more or less the same tree.

Thus, apart from minds and their ideas there is nothing in the world, nor is it possible that anything else should ever be known, since whatever is known is necessarily an idea.

His argument has many fallacies.

1. There is a confusion created by his use of the word ‘idea’.

We think of an idea as essentially something in somebody’s mind. Thus, when we are told that a tree consists entirely of ideas, it is natural to suppose that, if so, the tree must be entirely in minds.

But the notion of being ‘in’ the mind is ambiguous.

We speak of bearing a person in mind, not meaning that the person is in our minds, but that a thought of him is in our minds. When a man says that some business he had to arrange went clean out of his mind, he does not mean to imply that the business itself was ever in his mind, but only that a thought of the business was formerly in his mind, but afterwards ceased to be in his mind.

And so when Berkeley says that the tree must be in our minds if we can know it, all that he really has a right to say is that a thought of the tree must be in our minds. To argue that the tree itself must be in our minds is like arguing that a person whom we bear in mind is himself in our minds. This confusion may seem too gross to have been really committed by any competent philosopher, but various attendant circumstances rendered it possible.

In order to see how it was possible, we must go more deeply into the question as to the nature of ideas.