Berkeley's Perception Theory - Essay Example

Berkeley's Perception Theory Berkeley’s theoretical concept on immaterialism remains under scrutiny years after he conceived it. The famous philosopher put forth the claim that he sought to preserve common sense against cynical challenges. This may seem dubious for conventional individuals reading his proposition, because he upheld the notion that material items solely exist in minds of individuals that perceive them. The contention arises from the widespread knowledge that common sense involves continued existence of objects even when one fails to perceive them.

In simple terms, even though all of an individual’s visual ideas appear, disappear then reappear each time he or she blinks, the person does not presume that each object seen comes out of the blues and disappears again. While a stringent materialist might argue that Berkeley’s assertion is impractical, the philosopher indicates that this is untrue (Berkeley and Robinson 30-41). Berkeley’s main proposal is that existence of objects as seen by an individual does not depend entirely on his or her perception.

The philosopher’s principal claim is that material items do not exist without individuals’ perception; he defends this idea by positing that he is not only perceiver. Berkeley further indicates that unless an animate being, with thinking capacity perceives objects or sensible qualities, then these items do not actually exist. For instance, when one closes his or her eyes, the tree he or she currently sees will continue being real as long as other people continue seeing it. According to Berkeley, this difference accurately marks the difference between imaginary and real objects.

Simply stated, what individuals imagine exists only in their minds and persists in existence as long as these people think of it (). However, real things exist in a lot of minds, so they continue existing whether an individual perceives them or not. Berkeley further argues that this is the reason why a person, who is uncertain of the actuality of an object seen, may ask another person, "Did you see that?" Berkeley further supports his argument by stating that, the regularity and persistence of material objects that make the natural world, is not dependent on human perception at all.

This is because even when no human perceives an object, such as a tree or a microorganism, God perceives it thus explaining the object’s existence. According to Berkeley, God’s mind acts as an enduring storeroom of all the material items that we, as humans, observe sometimes and fail to see at others. Berkeley’s idea, in defence of his philosophy, appears to suggest that there is a godly role in perception (Berkeley and Robinson 41-43). As mentioned earlier, Berkeley argues that his philosophical theories seek to defend common sense.

Additionally, the philosopher argues that his assertions give an explanation of objects’ evident independence of individual’s perception (Berkeley and Robinson 44-51). However, Berkeley rejects the unexplained philosophical perception of any material object, whose existence is viewed as an extension of another that has the capability to exist autonomously, without being perceived by people. Berkeley supports the distinctiveness of his theory by stating that, microstructures in nature are merely supplementary ideas that people possess, and that there are times during which, people question the object’s existence.

For instance, people wonder about the existence of air molecules, with many thinking that these molecules do not exist in nature. Based on the above example, the question that arises is why God would create ideologies of molecules and at the same time create atoms. According to Berkeley microscopic ideologies should be considered as a needless complication to humanity. People have always wondered why God would not have made the universe simpler (Berkeley and Robinson 53-71). Additionally, people get to look, as well as, perceive the laws of nature with our bare eyes.

In this aspect, Berkeley argues that microscopic objects exist since God deemed it best for them to exist. However, this does not provide any explanation since it is Berkeley’s assertion. Evidently, Berkeley has attempted to provide replies to diverse worries concerning perception and existence of things that people cannot see. However, this is an insufficient and inadequate reply because scientists have had the capability to discover crucial aspects regarding nature. These discoveries can explain the existence of some of nature’s constituents (Berkeley and Robinson 73-89).

For instance, the explanation of heat as a phenomenon arising from movement and collision of molecules is a principal discovery. Nevertheless, regardless of the fact that there are diverse explicable aspects of nature, science does not necessarily uncover all the wonders of the world. Another issue, which is worth substantiating, is that, irrespective of the different advanced observation technologies like microscopes, there are unobservable entities. These are constituents of nature whose existence we can only perceive and we will never be able to observe them.

However, just because such entities are invisible, this does not mean that they do not exist like Berkeley suggests (Berkeley and Robinson 90-101). In conclusion, it is evident from the discussion that Berkeley proposed diverse philosophical theories, which are worthy of respect. However, as seen some of these theoretical concepts raise reasonable doubt. The philosopher’s argument that, materialism of physical objects lies in individuals’ or divine perception, raises a lot of questions. However, Berkeley defended this theory with numerous clever arguments, and also worked out consistent implications.

This appears to suggest that the philosopher had coherent solutions for the presented problem. Work Cited Berkeley, George and Robinson, Howard. Principle of Human Knowledge and the Three Dialogues (Oxford World's Classics). London: Oxford University Press, 1996. Print.