Abstract
Few interpreters of Berkeley’s texts have taken an interest in the status of the animal in his work, which is easily explained by the fact that Berkeley himself hardly seemed concerned by it. Yet Berkeley’s conception of the animal is not without its difficulties, which even some of his eighteenth century readers were already to notice. Andrew Baxter, for instance, in his Enquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul of 1733, wonders whether Berkeley’s immaterialism must not necessarily lead to a denial of the capacity of any animal to perceive exterior objects, since perception supposes a reflective activity of the mind and Berkeley seems to deny any such activity to animals.
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Notes
- 1.
Andrew Baxter, An Enquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul (London: James Bettenham, 1733), 313. At this rate we must say, that brutes have no objects of their sensations, since sensations cannot be objects to themselves; for they make no reflex acts of the mind, and there are no material objects from without, according to this scheme.
- 2.
Letter of 5 Feb. 1730 from Johnson to Berkeley, in Luce-Jessop, The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne (London: Nelson, 1948–1954), II, 289–290.
- 3.
The controversy would involve not only Descartes, but many of the greatest names in philosophy of the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, including Arnauld and Nicole, Cordemoy, Pascal, Rohault, Malebranche, Leibniz, Le Grand, Dilly, Lamy, Bayle, Régis, Fénelon, Locke, Sergeant, and others.
- 4.
Letter of 3 Oct. 1637 from Descartes to Plempius for Fromondus, in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Vol. III (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 61–62.
- 5.
Bernard Baertschi, Conscience et réalité. Études sur la philosophie française au XVIII e siècle (Geneva: Droz, 2005), 21. See also from the same author: Les rapports de l’âme et du corps. Descartes, Diderot, Maine de Biran (Freiburg: Éditions Universitaires, 1992), 66.
- 6.
Letter of 23 Nov. 1646 from Descartes to the Marquess of Newcastle, in Philosophical Writings, Vol. III, 302–304.
- 7.
Letter of 5 Feb. 1730 from Johnson to Berkeley, in Works, II, 289–290.
- 8.
Berkeley, Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, in Works, II, 188.
- 9.
Berkeley, Essay Concerning Vision, § 59, in Works, I, 193.
- 10.
Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, § 2, in Works, II, 41–42.
- 11.
Ibid., § 41, 58.
- 12.
Berkeley, Philosophical Commentaries, in Works, I, a594, 74.
- 13.
Ibid., a640, 78.
- 14.
Berkeley, Siris, § 266, in Works, V, 125.
- 15.
See Berkeley, Philosophical Commentaries, a746, in Works, I, 91. “Will any man say that Brutes have ye ideas, unity and existence? I believe not. Yet if they are suggested by all the ways of sensations, tis strange they should want them.”
- 16.
Ibid., a753, 92.
- 17.
Berkeley, The Theory of Vision Vindicated and Explained, in Works, I, 265.
- 18.
Berkeley, Siris, § 275, in Works, V, 129.
- 19.
Berkeley, Principles, § 27, in Works, II, 52. “A spirit is one simple, undivided, active being: as it perceives ideas, it is called the understanding, and as it produces or otherwise operates about them, it is called the will.”
- 20.
Ibid., § 138, 104. “The soul is without composition of parts, one pure simple undivided being. Whatever distinction of faculties or parts we may conceive in it arises only from its various acts or operations about ideas.” It is important to note that this passage figures only in the original manuscript of the Principles, and not in the final printed version; such an idea is also to be found later in Alciphron.
- 21.
Ibid., §§ 89, 79. “ Thing or being is the most general name of all, it comprehends under it two kinds entirely distinct and heterogeneous, and which have nothing common but the name, to wit, spirits and ideas.”
- 22.
Ibid., §§ 98, 83. “Time therefore being nothing, abstracted from the succession of ideas in our minds, it follows that the duration of any finite spirit must be estimated by the number of ideas or actions succeeding each other in that same spirit or mind. Hence it is a plain consequence that the soul always thinks.”
- 23.
Berkeley, Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, in Works, II, 188. “PHILONOUS. – Have all other animals as good grounds to think the same of the figure and extension which they see and fell? HYLAS. – Without doubt, if they have any thought at all.”
- 24.
John Sergeant, too, would find fault with the Lockean conception of the animal as given by Locke in the same passage referred to by Berkeley. See John Sergeant, Solid Philosophy (London: Clavil, Roper, and Metcalf, 1697), 1–18. It is possible that Berkeley, having attentively read the book while he was writing his Philosophical Commentaries, was inspired by Sergeant.
- 25.
Berkeley, Alciphron, IV, in Works, III, 157. This passage does not figure in the two first editions of 1732, but only in the third one of 1752.
- 26.
Berkeley, Alciphron, II, in Works, III, 86–87.
- 27.
Berkeley, Principles, § 139, in Works, II, 105. “A soul or spirit is an active being whose existence consists not in being perceived, but in perceiving ideas and thinking.”
- 28.
On this point, see Berkeley’s interesting essay “Happiness” published in the Guardian, in Works, VII, 214–217.
- 29.
See Berkeley’s two essays “The Future State” and “Immortality” published in the Guardian, in Works, VII, 181–184 and 222–224.
- 30.
See Berkeley’s essay “Public Schools and Universities” published in the Guardian, in Works, VII, 203.
- 31.
On this point, see Berkeley, “Immortality”.
- 32.
Berkeley, “Happiness”, in Works, VII, 216.
- 33.
Berkeley, Siris, § 257, in Works, V, 129. See also Siris, §§ 277, 130.
- 34.
Berkeley, Philosophical Commentaries, b14, in Works, I, 9.
- 35.
Berkeley, Siris, § 346, in Works, V, 156.
- 36.
Berkeley, Principles, § 152, in Works, II, 111.
- 37.
Samuel Johnson, Ethica, I, 1, §§ 3–4, in Elementa philosophica (Philadelphia: B. Franklin and D. Hall, 1752) 14–15.
- 38.
I want to thank Frank Cameron, Carol Collier, Jeff Hilderley and Syliane Malinowski-Charles for their help in translating this paper.
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Charles, S. (2010). The Animal According to Berkeley. In: Parigi, S. (eds) George Berkeley: Religion and Science in the Age of Enlightenment. International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 201. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9243-4_13
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