Abstract
Berkeley’s theses on vision have been better accepted than those about the non-existence of matter. However, in spite of the success of his explanation of vision, his thesis on the non-existence of a visual space and the heterogeneity between ideas of sight and ideas of touch is far from having been unanimously accepted. On this specific point, many inconsistencies have been noted. Nevertheless, it is possible to reconcile these tensions by showing that, in his An Essay toward a New Theory of Vision, Berkeley describes two kinds of space that are different from one another in their relation to co-existence, succession and movement. An examination of these relations gives a clue to understanding the way in which Berkeley can at once admit and deny some sort of space for the ideas of sight.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
In this paper I will focus on Berkeley’s description of the content of ideas (whether visible or tangible). The fact that Berkeley treats the objects of touch as “external” (NTV 64, 99, 117) and as existing “outside the mind” (NTV 111) in NTV has no consequences on these descriptions and on my proposal.
- 3.
Distance, size, figure and situation are what I call spatial “determinations”.
- 4.
On this difference, see NTV 121 quoted below, Section 8.2. In NTV, Berkeley does not deal with the topic of general ideas that will become the main topic of the Introduction of the Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (Berkeley 1979c) published in 1710, only one year after the publication of NTV. However, inter alia, the estimated date of composition of the so-called Manuscript Introduction being summer 1708 (see Belfrage 1987), as well as what Berkeley writes in NTV 124–125 (on the possibility of universal propositions without abstract ideas) plausibly indicate that Berkeley, at the time he was writing NTV, already had a grasp on at least the outline of his theory of generalization and had the means to deal with the distinction between particular and general or specific ideas. On this point, especially in relation with the question of the universality of geometry, see Storrie 2012, 260–263.
- 5.
Berkeley 1979d, Alciphron IV. 12: “That there are signs is certain, as also that language and all other signs agree in the general nature of sign, or so far forth as signs. But it is as certain that all signs are not language [...] It is the articulation, combination, variety, copiousness, extensive and general use and easy application of signs (all which are commonly found in vision) that constitute the true nature of language. Other senses may indeed furnish signs; and yet those signs have no more right than inarticulate sounds to be thought a language.”
- 6.
Berkeley makes explicit the necessary and sufficient conditions for a system of signs to be a language in the fourth dialogue of the Alciphron (Berkeley 1979d) and in Theory of Vision Vindicated and Explained (Berkeley 1979e). For a thorough discussion of these conditions see Pearce 2017, 173–188. For a discussion of issues related specifically to the role of the heterogeneity thesis for the affirmation of vision as a language see Atherton 2008 and 1990, 175, and Wilson 1999.
- 7.
See for instance, NTV 41: “[...] The objects intromitted by sight would seem to him (as in truth they are) no other than a new set of thoughts or sensations, each whereof is as near to him as the perception of pain and pleasure [...],” my italics; NTV 45: “I say, neither distance, nor things placed at a distance are themselves, or their Ideas, truly perceived by sight. This I am persuaded of, as to what concerns my self: and I believe whoever will look narrowly into his own thoughts [...] will agree with me [...]”; NTV 130: “[...] shall calmly attend to his own clear and distinct ideas [...]”; NTV 157: “... this plainness of the picture, is not perceived immediately by vision: For it appeareth to the eye various and multiform.” See also NTV 51. For an account sympathetic to mine of the meaning and status of Berkeley’s NTV 2, see Schwartz 2006a, 13–18. Atherton considers Berkeley’s claim that distance is not immediately perceivable by sight as a claim that is not derived from the contents of experience, but rather from the prior identification of the information that can be represented by the working of the visual system, see Atherton 1990, 69.
- 8.
NTV 21: “[...] And this being found constantly to be so, there ariseth in the mind an habitual connexion between the several degrees of confusion and distance; the greater confusion still implying the lesser distance, and the lesser confusion, the greater distance of the object.” See also NTV 38. In Part 1, Berkeley indicates also two other ideas that suggest distance to the mind. These ideas are respectively the turn of the eye (NTV 16) and the straining of the eye (NTV 27). However, since these ideas are perceived by touch, in what follow, Berkeley does not refer to them to explain the visual mediate perception of distance.
- 9.
M. Wilson thinks that Berkeley, in his discussion of magnitude, does not restrict himself to considerations concerning particular ideas and that he “generally assume[s] the difference or non-resemblance as well as the numerical distinctness of ideas of sight and touch. (Cf. ## 79; 94–95).”, Wilson 1999, 266. See also ibid. 265. I believe, on the contrary, that although the heterogeneity thesis may be seen as a consequence of what has been proven in the first three parts, the heterogeneity thesis is neither assumed nor proven before Part 4.
- 10.
See also NTV 94.
- 11.
This echoes another important phenomenon of mixing visible and tangible ideas that Berkeley describes in NTV 145 (in Part 4): “145. Add to this, that whenever we make a nice survey of any object, successively directing the optic axis to each point thereof, there are certain lines and figures described by the motion of the head or eye, which being in truth perceived by feeling, do nevertheless so mix themselves, as it were, with the ideas of sight, that we can scarce think but they appertain to that sense. [...]” On this process of association and transfer of situation and other spatial features from tangible ideas to visible one, see Atherton 2008. In Sect. 8.4, I will make a few comments on this article.
- 12.
Atherton claims that the relationship between discussions of heterogeneity of Parts 1–3 and that of Part 4 are “at least initially, a little unclear” (Atherton 1990, 173). She also claims that the arguments for the heterogeneity thesis of Part 4 are extremely terse (ibid., 173) and that “the reason of their terseness, however, is that Berkeley [...], regards his point as having already been established in earlier sections [i.e. Parts 1–3]” (ibid., 183). See also ibid. 172–174, 183–184, 202, and Wilson 1999, 266, quoted note 9 supra.
- 13.
In Part 4, figure is considered as a specie of ideas rather than (as was the case in Part 2) as the limits of a particular magnitude. For a discussion of figure as a specie of idea, see below part c. of this section.
- 14.
As this part concern visible and tangible ideas in general and not the actual connections between particular visible ideas and particular tangible ones, the arguments focus on the structure or the component parts of the ideas and generally set aside all questions relative to the connection between particular occurrences of visible ideas and the tangible ideas of which they are signs.
- 15.
NTV 137 (employing a conclusion of the part about situation, NTV 95).
- 16.
NTV 153. For a rich discussion of the case of the unbodied spirit and its meaning in relation to Berkeley’s conception of geometry and geometrical figures, see S. Storrie 2012.
- 17.
NTV 157–158: “157. [...] But, with a little attention we shall find the plains here mentioned, as the immediate objects of sight are not visible but tangible plains. For when we say that pictures are plains, we mean thereby that they appear to the touch smooth and uniform. But then this smoothness and uniformity, or, in other words, this plainness of the picture, is not perceived immediately by vision: For it appeareth to the eye various and multiform. 158. From all which we may conclude that plains are no more the immediate object of sight than solids. [...] But though they [the immediate objects of sight] are called by the same names with the things marked by them [tangible plains and solids], they are nevertheless of a nature intirely different, as hath been demonstrated.”
- 18.
NTV 156: “All that is properly perceived by the visive faculty, amounts to no more than colours with their variations, and different proportions of light and shade: But, the perpetual mutability, and fleetingness of those immediate objects of sight render them incapable of being managed after the manner of geometrical figures; nor is it in any degree useful that they should. It is true there are divers of them perceived at once; and more of some and less of others: But accurately to compute their magnitude and assign precise determinate proportions between things so variable and inconstant, if we suppose it possible to be done, must yet be a very trifling and insignificant labour.” We can find a synthesis of the contents of vision in section 44 of The Theory of Vision Vindicated and Explained (Berkeley 1979e): “The proper, immediate object of vision is light, in all its modes and variations, various colours in kind, in degree, in quantity; some lively, others faint; more of some and less of others; various in their order and situation. [...]”
- 19.
NTV 145, quoted above note 11. The same description of visual perception as given in a single instant may be found in several sections, see also NTV 83, 105, 110, 124, 156.
- 20.
A similar description of tangible extension is in Falkenstein 1994, 78.
- 21.
But note, however, that this conclusion is compatible with the claim we will discuss below, i.e. the claim that sight perceives in its own way some distinct alternative ideas of extension and figure.
- 22.
Atherton 2008, 284–285. Atherton 2008, 284: “What happens according to his account is that we stabilize the color we see by coming to correlate our tangible experiences of reaching up with the color that come into view when we raise our eyes up. The upshot of this process is that we come to construct a kind of Alberti-window, that is, we learn to speak of our color experiences as if they were laid out spatially on a grid. [...] If I am right, the first, Berkeley is not maintaining that the problem of situation perception is one of correlating visible situation with tangible situation. The only kind of situation that exists is tangible situation, but we learn to speak analogically of visual situation by assigning to our color ideas a tangible meaning.”.
- 23.
In her article, Atherton do not discuss the “fitter” case of NTV 142.
- 24.
- 25.
Ibid., 76–77; ibid., 83: “In the end, there does not seem to be any really satisfactory account of visual perception that Berkeley could give which would be consistent with all of his principles.” (see also ibid., 84). Furthermore, Falkenstein, at the end of his article (Ibid., 84), reverses his initial thesis assessing the intuitive, immediate character of visible bi-dimensional spatial contents and maintains that, if Berkeley would have chosen to be clearer about the content of visible spatial ideas, he would also have to make “more momentous advances in the constructivist program.” This program supposes that visible spatial contents result from a (cognitive) construction of visible extension and figures, starting from the elements of tangible perceptions (that is quite the opposite of the immediate intuition of visible spatial ideas defended at the beginning).
- 26.
Paukommen 2014, 262 and 268. Paukommen lumps together Berkeley’s claims on figure as the “termination of magnitude” at the end of the part on magnitude, and what he writes about the notions of geometrical figures in the part on heterogeneity. It seems to me that this association leads to some confusions in his final discussion of the case of the idea of visible square being fitter than visible circle to mark tangible square (ibid., 270).
- 27.
Ibid., 269. See. also ibid., 272: “and it is by application of this concept [of distance] on the visual data by which our visual field transforms and we begin to perceive (some of its elements as objects at distance).”
- 28.
See note 7 supra.
- 29.
NTV 159. As we have seen before, the example used by Berkeley to illustrate this point (NTV 50–51) is clear: upon hearing a word in a known language we cannot hinder the idea corresponding to its meaning to present itself to the understanding. However, in Berkeley’s example the idea-sign, the sound of the word, becomes just associated to the idea-meaning, this association producing a quick passage from the sign to its meaning, both remaining distinct and perceivable notwithstanding their association.
- 30.
NTV 145, quoted above, and NTV 156.
- 31.
The sensation of solidity must not therefore be understood as a simple “filling” quality. In other words, I believe that the difference between figures perceived by touch and the ideas of sight does not lie in the fact that the tangible figures are filled with solidity whereas the ideas of sight can only come filled with colour. This indeed would not be a proper basis for the heterogeneity thesis. The problem is rather that tangible qualities do not behave in the same way as visible subject qualities and that only tangible ideas can bring about ideas of figure in the proper sense of the term. I thus disagree with a critic formulated by Wilson (Wilson 1999, 271) and according to which “Berkeley’s case for heterogeneity seems to come down to the view that tactual and visual shapes cannot resemble each other because they are respectively bound up with different special sensibles”.
- 32.
I disagree here with Atherton who, if I understand her well, thinks that the ideas of sight lack any natural organization and that all structures are imposed on them by the ideas of touch (Atherton 2008, 161). I believe on the contrary that the visual ideas have natural units, i.e. definite characteristics that are independent from touch. Without these characteristics it would be impossible to maintain that visual squares have four equal sides and angles. There would not be any sense to say that visible squares are better suited to represent tangible squares than visible circles. In fact, if the ideas of sight could be numbered in any way, a circle could then have four parts and be just as “suited” as a square to represent a tangible square.
- 33.
Respectively in NTV 93–94 and NTV 63, 99, 111.
- 34.
This is evident for instance in NTV 93–94 and 99 where the claims respectively negating and affirming the situational organization of visible ideas are not given in directly subsequent sections and between the two (sections 97–98) is described the process of coordination of visible and tangible ideas.
- 35.
Atherton 2008, 284.
- 36.
- 37.
The first three postulates of Euclid’s Elements are the following: “Postulate 1. To draw a straight line from any point to any point; Postulate 2. To produce a finite straight line continuously in a straight line; Postulate 3. To describe a circle with any center and radius.” (Euclid 1908, 1:154)
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Berchielli, L. (2020). Berkeley’s Two Notions of Extension. In: Berchielli, L. (eds) Empiricist Theories of Space. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 54. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57620-2_8
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