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A Discussion on Berkeley’s Account of

A thesis presented to

the faculty of the College of Arts and of Ohio University

In partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree

Master of Arts

Nicholas L. Shooner

August 2020

© 2020 Nicholas L. Shooner. All Rights Reserved. 2

This thesis titled

A Discussion on Berkeley’s Account of Time

by

NICHOLAS L. SHOONER

has been approved for

the Department of

and the College of Arts and Sciences by

James M. Petrik

Associate Professor of Philosophy

Florenz Plassmann

Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 3

Abstract

SHOONER, NICHOLAS L., M.A., August 2020, Philosophy

A Discussion on Berkeley’s Account of Time

Director of Thesis: James M. Petrik

We examine what says about the of time and weigh two competing interpretations of his theory to determine which is closer to his intended . Berkeley presents a theory of time that is idealist (time consists in and their ), subjectivist (time is contained within subjects), and relationalist (time is not an absolute entity, but is a description of the between events). While these features of Berkeley’s theory are not in dispute, there is a debate concerning whether he accepts an inter-subjective, ordering of events which grounds the temporal of all human subjects. H. Scott Hestevold argues that, for Berkeley, such an order is to be found in the all-encompassing , , whereas Darren Hynes argues that no such ordering is needed in Berkeley’s system. We evaluate these interpretations in light of Berkeley’s other metaphysical commitments and conclude that Hestevold’s interpretation is superior since it is better able to accommodate Berkeley’s commitment to the meaningfulness of temporal language in ordinary discourse and his commitment to the possibility and success of the natural sciences. 4

Dedication

I want to dedicate this modest thesis to all of my fellow students and classmates through the years, my teachers, my family, as well as all of my friends in Athens, Ohio, with whom

I was so lucky to enjoy conversation and life. The learning that made this project possible was not something that happened strictly confined to a book, but in the day to day that I

was so lucky to share with you all.

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Acknowledgments

I wish to thank, firstly, my fellow students in philosophy through the years, particularly those I have gone through the M.A. program with. In particular I would like to thank Dylan Rostoker, Kyle Burback, Christopher Meyer, Jamie Perzanowski, Luke and Ben Elmore, Zachariah Renfro, Brad Osuna, Nicholas Bocheneck, Matt Meyers,

Samantha Stewart, and Jacob Koval, among others. Additionally, I want to thank everyone I’ve ever had the pleasure of living and staying with through the years, in particular the sailors: Andrew, Fish, Kyle, Spencer, John, Briana, Maggie, Mackenzie,

Austin, Ben, and Robbie. Also, Dylan Vanover and Ryan Powers. All these people I am honored to consider my friends, and they know so well how much we exchanged and grew through each other, as well as the nature of the frustrations and resistance we all had to face (and likely still do) from time to time in the pursuit of our own projects, or our own ideas, or even in search of our own of what the best life is like and in any effort we may make to actualize it for ourselves.

I also want to thank all of my teachers here through the years, and though I am nervous of the length involved in a full enumeration, I must at least attempt some account. How far back does one go, in looking at who is responsible for what they are at some later point? How do we thank all of those whose generosity, from our youth, even, was responsible for our growth; deeds sometimes let to fall away from our , but without which we would not be who we are. I want to acknowledge my teachers and friends in grade-school at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and St. Andrew’s, and in my high school at . I am here hesitant to name particulars because it would be 6 something of an absurdity, and I feel as though if I listed one I would have to name them all.

I want to thank my teachers in subjects other than philosophy, here at Ohio

University who have helped me develop my perspective; particularly those in linguistics

– Gabriella Castaneda, and Sofia Fernandez – and in Classics and World Religions –

Brian Collins and Steve Hays.

I also want to thank the philosophers (or, those who I was lucky enough to know and learn from, at least); Scott Carson, Alfred Lent, Alyssa Bernstein, Jeremy Morris,

Phil Ehrlich, Yoichi Ishida, James Petrik, Christoph Hanisch, and the late John Bender.

As is common to all human relations, we certainly had moments of abrasion and contention, but nevertheless it all appears to have turned out, if not for the best, at least not for the worst.

Also, all my friends in Athens, Ohio, who were so often willing to engage in friendly conversation and share a beer or two.

I am so grateful for all of you, and, though it would be a fantasy to think that every deed or every exchange has been perfect, or even good, you have made my life full in many ways.

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Table of Contents

Page

Abstract ...... 3 Dedication ...... 4 Acknowledgments...... 5 1. Introduction ...... 8 2. Excerpts from Berkeley on the General Notion of Time ...... 10 2.1 Background Aspects of Berkeley’s Metaphysical System ...... 12 3. Interpreting Berkeley’s View ...... 14 3.1 Interpretation 1 (The Traditional Interpretation) ...... 14 3.1.1 A Preliminary Consideration Against the Traditional Interpretation ...... 16 3.1.2 Potential Solutions to This Consideration...... 18 3.2 Interpretation 2 (Hestevold’s Alternative) ...... 18 4. Is One Interpretation Preferable Over the Other? ...... 21 4.1 How Proximate are the Two Interpretations? ...... 21 4.2 A Defense of the Traditional Interpretation ...... 23 4.3 Argument for Implicit Subscription to the Second Interpretation from a Commitment to Historical Consistency and Generalizability of Scientific Laws ...... 27 4.3.1 Why Berkeley Should Be Regarded as Subscribing to the Hestevold’s Interpretation ...... 27 4.3.2 Why Hynes Should be Regarded as Subscribing to the Second Interpretation ...... 30 4.3.3 Unspecified Features of Events in the Overall Order of Events ...... 33 5. Conclusion ...... 35 Bibliography ...... 36

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1. Introduction

In this paper we discuss a number of aspects of Berkeley’s theory of time as forwarded primarily in the of Human .1 At the time Berkeley was writing, the predominant vein of physical theory was guided by Newtonian ideas, including his notions of absolute and absolute time.2 Berkeley rejected the that space and time should be regarded as absolute, objectively subsisting metaphysical entities, and articulated an opinion by which space and time should be regarded as relative rather than absolute, and as dependent on events existing only within minds.

Time (our particular focus here), rather than an absolute entity that subsists independently of events, is by his account nothing more than a succession of ideas in minds.3 Here we will discuss two interpretations of Berkeley’s theory of time in order to determine if one interpretation is superior. Additionally, we will discuss whether these two interpretations are as distinct as they seem, and, if so, where exactly they diverge.

The interpretations presented here are systematic and formalized re-statements of the ideas that Berkeley presented in a handful of remarks scattered throughout his writings.

These can thus be regarded as attempts to specify through logical exposition ideas that were at first presented under a form which makes more of an appeal to intuitive understandings of the significances of terms.4 In particular, we will focus our evaluations

1 George Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, in Readings in , ed. Roger Ariew and Eric Watkins, vol.2, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Associated Texts (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2000). 2 G. J. Whitrow, “Berkeley’s Philosophy of ,” British Journal for the Philosophy of 4, no.13 (1953): 37. 3 Berkeley, Principles, ¶98. 4 This brief comment hearkens to an interesting distinction (which is nevertheless not novel) between intuitive and formal manners of expounding a given theory; it can be said that a given theory may be 9 of the preferability of the respective interpretations on a narrow criterion: how well each suffices as a theoretic grounding for our ability to make mundane temporal comparisons.

expounded in two manners which may be considered semantically commensurate, though one form of presentation is more intuitive while the other is more formal. These two expressions of the theory can be regarded as distinct in nature, though that which they point to and attempt to describe is nevertheless a numerical particular. One might say that the more formal manner of expounding a given theory would be characterized by its use of either logico-symbolic form or the linguistic counterpart to such; however, even theories that are expounded in what may be called an intuitive form will have logical relations either explicitly or implicitly built in between its constitutive terms, and thus we may suspect that the distinction is more deeply rooted. It might be hypothesized, then, that the basis of this distinction would be in the amount of pre-existing understanding that is supposed to exist in either case; e.g. in the intuitive exposition of a theory we would use a set of terms and have some expectation that what we intend to be expressed by those terms is approximately grasped immediately by the audience, while in the more formal mode of exposition we would always attempt to our more complex semantic notions by means of relations between some more primitive or basic elements; and thus we would trade off the immediate sensibility of our expressions (viz. their intuitiveness) for what may ultimately be less ambiguity in their meaning. However, what one may wonder from this comment is whether there is able to in be a bedrock of basic semantic elements out of which a given theory may be said to be composed, or if instead, when comparing two theories, one may be said to be more or less formally presented than the other. This is likely too vaguely presented here, but this is not the proper place for this discussion to be pursued further. This distinction between ‘formal’ and ‘intuitive’ presentations of theories is mentioned in Philip Ehrlich, “The Absolute Arithmetic Continuum and Its Peircean Counterpart,” in New Essays on Peirce’s Mathematical Philosophy, ed. Matthew E. Moore (Chicago: Open Court Press. 2010), 236. 10

2. Excerpts from Berkeley on the General Notion of Time

Discussion on the nature of time as such only occupies a small portion of the entirety of Berkley’s Principles, which may perhaps be expected given the scope of the project as a whole. As the reader might be aware, in this treatise Berkeley attempts to develop the foundations of a fundamentally idealist . However, Berkeley’s thoughts on the nature of time are peculiar enough to deserve particular attention. The general characterization is presented clearly in the following few sentences in his

Principles (though more is said elsewhere, in the clarification of particular details and entailments of his ideas):

Whenever I attempt to frame a simple idea of time, abstracted from the succession of Ideas in my , which flows uniformly and is participated in by all , I am lost and embroiled in inextricable Difficulties. I have no Notion of it at all, only I hear others say that it is infinitely divisible, and speak of it in such a manner as leads me to entertain odd Thoughts of my : Since that Doctrine lays one under an absolute necessity of thinking either that he passes away innumerable Ages without a , or else that he is annihilated at every moment of his Life: Both of which seem equally absurd. Time therefore being nothing, abstracted from the Succession of Ideas in our Minds, it follows that Duration of any finite spirit must be estimated by the number of Ideas or Actions succeeding each other in that Spirit or Mind.5

In addition to these statements, H. Scott Hestevold, in his paper “Berkeley’s

Theory of Time,”6 notes a number of additional remarks on the general nature of time made by Berkeley in his Commentaries.7

Time: train of ideas succeeding each other; (Commentaries, 4)

5 Berkeley, Principles, ¶98. 6 H. Scott Hestevold, “Berkeley’s Theory of Time,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 7, no. 2 (April 1990): 179-192. 7 George Berkeley, Commentaries in The works of George Berkeley, Bishop of , ed. A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop, 1 (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1948). 11

Time: a sensation, therefore onely [sic] in ye mind; (Commentaries, 13)

Certainly the mind always and constantly thinks and we know this too In Sleep and trances the mind exists not; there is no time, no succession of ideas. (Commentaries, 651).8

These passages suggest that, according to Berkeley, time is nothing but a phenomenon in the mind, which receives its according to the rate of the succession of ideas in a mind.

In the excerpt above from Principles ¶98, we see the reasoning according to which Berkeley determines time to be contained within minds (rather than minds contained within time). WhileBerkeley that objects, which are nothing other than ideas in the mind of a perceiver, are perpetually created and destroyed,9 he takes issue with the idea that spirits themselves are subject to such destruction, due to his commitment to the immortal quality of the . About he observes, “Such a Being therefore is indissoluble by the force of Nature . . . .”10 The purportedly absurd implications of time’s subsisting independently of subjects therefore compel one to an alternative conception whereby the spirit itself, as the medium of ideas, is additionally the medium of time as such.11 As we can see from the start, then, the most general aspects of

Berkeley’s theory of time are derivative of his other metaphysical commitments. This

8 Hestevold, “Berkeley’s Theory of Time,” 180. 9 Berkeley, Principles, ¶45. 10 Berkeley, Principles, ¶141. 11 It is worth noting that for Berkeley, the terms ‘spirit’, ‘mind’, ‘soul’, and ‘self’ are all regarded as synonymous, indicating the perceptive and thinking substance. Substances of this type, taken in conjunction with the set of entities termed ‘ideas’, constitute the entire collection of entities in Berkeley’s metaphysics. (Berkeley, ¶2-6). Additionally, it is only the former which are substantial (Berkeley, Principles, ¶7). 12 being the case, we will follow the example of H. Scott Hestevold by providing a brief overview of key features of Berkeley’s background metaphysics before presenting and adjudicating between the two interpretations of his theory of time.

2.1 Background Aspects of Berkeley’s Metaphysical System

Due to the under-articulated nature of Berkeley’s theory of time, there is not a general agreement regarding how it is to be interpreted so as to be made consistent with other aspects of his general metaphysical theory. Hestevold notes that if we were to interpret Berkeley’s account of time in the context of his larger system, we must keep in mind that we are committed, additionally, to the following foundational metaphysical hypotheses:

First, assume that Berkeley believes that the external world is constituted by archetypes:

D1 x is an archetype =Df x is an idea imagined by God. . . .

Second, Berkeley accepts that God is both timeless and immutable, claiming that “all things, past and to come, are actually present to the mind of God, and that there is in Him no change, variation, or succession” (Correspondence, p. 293):

D2 Someone s exists timelessly =Df (i) s exists, (ii) there is no time t at which s exists, and (iii) every idea perceived by s is tenselesly perceived by s.

D3 Someone s exists immutably =Df (i) s exists, and (ii) it is false that there is a time t such that s has a certain at t which he lacks at a time other than t.

Third, Berekely insists that his preserves the Biblical account of creation. . . .

Fourth, Berkeley denies what E.J. Furlong calls ‘private ’, times at which a soul exists unconsciously. Berkeley writes that ‘the soul always thinks’ and that one cannot ‘abstract the existence of a spirit from its cogitation…’ 13

(Principles, ¶98), thereby retaining Descartes’ view that at any time a soul exists, it perceives some idea or the other.

Finally, Berkeley believes that souls are ‘naturally immortal’ (Principles, ¶141).12

As we noted in footnote 11, the entire set of entities in Berkeley’s system can be divided into the set of spirits and the set of ideas, exhaustively. Furthermore, as we have seen, spirits are “naturally immortal,” and incapable of natural destruction. On the other hand, ideas that are held in finite spirits are allowed to pass away, as things are continually entering and leaving the ideal sphere of such spirits. However, as we shall see moving forward, one of the central points of contention in the debate over the preferable interpretation of Berkeley’s theory of time concerns implications that follow from the status of ideas in the mind of the infinite spirit (God) as immutable and unchanging. As

God would be immutable and unchanging, any ideas which are contained in such an entity would possess such a status. The following debate (or, more accurately, the aspect of the debate over interpretation preferability that we are focusing on in this paper) is largely concerned with the implications that the immutability of archetypes has for the nature of time within such a system.

12 Hestevold, “Berkeley’s Theory of Time,” 179-180.

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3. Interpreting Berkeley’s View

Hestevold presents what he claims is the traditional interpretation of Berkeley’s theory of time, before raising objections to attributing it to Berkeley it and suggesting what he argues is a preferable interpretation. One initial made by Hestevold prior to constructing a full interpretation is that “Berkeley cannot identify time with the passage of God’s ideas; God perceives his ideas tenselessly.”13 That is, while it is right to refer to the passage of ideas within the human mind, such a use of language would be inappropriately applied to the manner in which ideas inhere in the mind of a timeless and immutable being. All these considerations brought to mind, Hestevold is prepared to offer his characterization of what he takes to be the traditional interpretation of Berkeley’s theory.

3.1 Interpretation 1 (The Traditional Interpretation)

As stated in the introduction, Hestevold presents the rival interpretations of

Berkeley’s theory in a formal, definitional manner. He formulates the traditional interpretation as follows:

D4 t is a time =Df t is the perceiving of an idea by someone other than God. . . .

D5 Time t involves someone s =Df Necessarily, if time t occurs, then s exists.

D6 r is the personal temporal series relative to someone s =Df r is the set of all and only those times which involve s. . . .

D7 p and q are consecutive times of s’s personal temporal series r =Df (i) r is s’s personal temporal series, (ii) p and q are members of r, (iii) q occurs after

13 Hestevold, “Berkeley’s Theory of Time,” 180. 15

p, and (iv) there is no member of r such that it occurs after p and q occurs after it.

D8 Soul s persists gaplessly through time =Df There exists a personal temporal series relative to s such that at least two members of s’s personal temporal series are consecutive members. . . .

D9 Soul s is immortal =Df For any time t which involves s, there is a time [consecutively]14 after t which involves s.15

It should be noted that, as an implication of this account, a given individual’s procession of ideas will be one of many such processions. Additionally, as such a procession is equivalent to a temporal sequence, there will be a plurality of temporal sequences each of which corresponds to a given cognizant individual. This is the subjectivist feature of Berkeley’s conception of time. It should also be noted that by this first interpretation there is no ordering to events except as they inhere in particular cognizant finite spirits. Additionally, Hestevold notes that though the idea of the immortality of the soul asserts that there will always be an immediately successive time in the temporal ordering of a given spirit, this does not imply that a given soul exists at every time, as there may yet be instances where, e.g., one individual is subject to a dreamless sleep, (and therefore their spirit is not present) while another individual is awake and thus participating in ideas. However, the time at which the first individual is not present will not be nested in them but rather in another subject.16 Given the immortality of the soul, the succeeding moment in the temporal ordering of an individual

14 This inserted parenthetical clarifies what I take to be Hestevold’s intended sense. 15 Hestevold, “Berkeley’s Theory of Time,” 181. 16 Hestevold, “Berkeley’s Theory of Time,” 182. This observation by Hestevold reconciles the idea that a soul is never non-existent (viz. that there is always some time that it exists) with the idea that a soul nevertheless is not present at all times. 16 who is subject to a “thoughtless” state17 will be simultaneous with the resumption of ideas that follows the expiration of such a state (i.e. the next moment in an individual’s temporal series is concurrent with the next idea).

Berkeley himself appears to dismiss the absolute view of time partly because such an abstract construct is an unnecessary complication to our everyday temporal practices.

He says, for example,

Time, place, and motion, taken in particular or concrete, are what everybody knows; but having passed through the hands of a metaphysician [i.e. Newton], they become too abstract and fine to be apprehended by men of ordinary sense. Bid your servant to meet you at such a time, in such a place, and he shall never stay to deliberate on the meaning of those words… But if time is taken, exclusive of all those particular actions and ideas that diversify the day, merely for the continuation of existence or duration in abstract, then it will perhaps perplex even a philosopher to understand it.18

This polemical dismissal of the notion of absolute time views it as a complicated and obscure metaphysical mystery that is in opposition to our customary references to time in day-to-day affairs. Seemingly in tension with Berkeley’s assertion here, however, it may be the case that the wholly subjectivist account fails to make such customary uses comprehensible since reference to a common temporal metric is necessary for many of our everyday interactions.

3.1.1 A Preliminary Consideration Against the Traditional Interpretation

Whether Hestevold can be said to have correctly characterized what may be called the traditional interpretation of Berkeley’s view with the above set of , he

17 This is a tricky notion, as technically an individual as subject is never subject to a thoughtless state, but such would only be inferred by a passage of external events which is irregularly prompt or by the comment of an external individual. 18 Berkeley, Principles, ¶97. 17 raises concerns regarding attributing such a view to Berkeley in light of the fact that it may not be able to support the kind of common-sense temporal references that Berkeley claims his theory is capable of supporting. Hestevold is worried that we may be unable to coherently make statements such as “we will meet at a certain time (t),” without introducing some additional theoretical tools because such statements seem, prima facie, to make reference to an intersubjective19 temporal ordering, the existence of which is denied by the first interpretation. As there is taken to be no intersubjective passage of time, there would instead be only a vast plurality of temporal sequences (each corresponding to a given subject), none of which is to be understood as more or less true to the natural order than any other. Because of this, references to a designated time the index of which is mutually understood in its ostension by a plurality of parties is puzzling. Seemingly, if Berkeley’s theory were interpreted according to this traditional account, such statements would be incoherent. This is one why Hestevold contends that it may be mistaken to attribute the traditional interpretation to Berkeley, as he believes Berkeley cannot consistently be dismissive of all species of conceptions of an intersubjective time in light of his claim of the coherence of common-sensical utterances.

We will discuss more thoroughly, in Section 4, whether the first interpretation is as incompatible with such common-sense temporal references as Hestevold claims. In the next section, however, we turn to Hestevold’s revised interpretation of Berkeley’s theory,

19 In this text the term ‘intersubjective’ when used in reference to a temporal ordering should be regarded as equivalent to the term ‘maximally inter-subjective’; as we are using it to refer to an ordering which exists for each subject but independently of any given subject. Thus it is practically objective, but our epistemic limitations would recommend that we use the more modest, latter term. 18 an alternative he believes succeeds in supporting our common-sense ideas of time in light of the supposed failure of the first.

3.1.2 Potential Solutions to This Consideration

It seems that in order to ground our common-sense ideas of time, what is needed is some mechanism whereby, even if it is the case that ideas (and thus temporal orderings) are nested in separate souls, such ideas may either (I) be regarded as corresponding to an intersubjective ordering of ideas, from which we may derive common temporal indices, or (II) possess the property of having temporal indices that are translatable between distinct subjects, such that it is known that, though there be no objective time t(n), the temporal index ts1(n) that corresponds to an idea in soul 1 is able to be translated in some manner to the index ts2(n) that corresponds to an idea in soul 2.

Because of the potential shortcomings of the first interpretation, Hestevold proposes an alternative interpretation of Berkeley’s subjectivist account of time by means of inserting a feature that corresponds with approach (I); namely, he wishes to insert the idea that, though God perceives archetypal structures tenselessly, such an entity nevertheless conceives of some events as preceding others. That is, while God would have the entirety of existence unchangingly (again, per such an entity’s status as immutable) in mind, it (viz. existence as a whole) would nevertheless be able to take the form of a conception that arranges certain events as preceding others.

3.2 Interpretation 2 (Hestevold’s Alternative)

Hestevold takes the approach indexed (I) and formulates his alternative interpretation as follows: 19

D10 e occurs after f =Df (i) e and f are events and (ii) God [tenselessly] conceives e’s occurrence as succeeding f’s occurrence.

D11 e occurs before f =Df f occurs after e.

D12 e occurs simultaneously with f =Df (i) e and f both occur, (ii) e does not occur before f, and (iii) f does not occur before e.

D13 e occurs at time t =Df There exists an event e and time t such that e occurs simultaneously with t. . . .

D14 Time =Df The set of all and only those events which are times.

D15 t is a moment of Time =Df There is a time t’ such that t is the set of all and only those members of Time which occur simultaneously with t’.20

Here, we can note the manner in which a moment now corresponds to an index in the intersubjective21 ordering of ideas (as derived from their order in the mind of God), which then corresponds to a set of subjective temporal indices that are construed as being simultaneous with such a moment. That is, by this attempted remedy, the subjectivist account of time is meant to be preserved and built on top of a grounding, universal ordering of events.

20 Hestevold, “Berkeley’s Theory of Time,” 185. 21 Berkeley states: “And it is the searching after, and endeavouring to understand those Signs instituted by the Author of Nature, that ought to be the Employment of the Natural Philosopher, and not the pretending to explain things by Corporeal Causes; which Doctrine seems to have too much estranged the Minds of Men from that active , that supreme and wise Spirit, in whom we live, move, and have our being” (Berkeley, Principles, ¶138). The last clause implies that all entities (including us as subjects) are, indeed, contained within the mind of the ‘supreme and wise Spirit’, thus even if we do not think that the ideas contained within such an entity are truly ‘objective’, they would nevertheless encompass all archetypes which are available for distinct subjects to perceive, and would, additionally, contain all other spirits and their ideas within itself as well. There is something puzzling in the idea of encapsulation of one spirit within another, as Berkeley rules out the possibility of forming an idea of a spirit; so, either spirits can be nested within each other to the degree that one contains the ideas which are contained in the other (but the question must be raised of which would be contained in which, and why one would be given deference on this ), or else God would be capable of feats which humans are not, namely, in this case, the formation of the idea of a spirit. 20

While this is meant to be a correction of the first interpretation of Berkeley’s theory, it is indeed quite plausible that the original sense intended by Berkeley was more proximate to this second interpretation; as is perhaps evidenced by a comment made by

Berkeley relating to the manner in which “real things” are to be differentiated from

“images of things”:

The ideas imprinted on the senses by the author of creation are called real things, and those excited in the imagination, being less regular, vivid, and constant, are more properly called ideas, or images of things which they copy and represent… The ideas of sense are allowed to have more in them, that is, to be more strong, orderly, and coherent than the creatures of the mind, but this is no argument that they exist without the mind. They are also less dependent on the spirit, or thinking substance which perceives them in that they are excited by the will of another and more powerful spirit, yet they are still ideas. . . .22

This is taken to imply that those things which we regard as external, being present primarily due to the will of a deity, are in a sense independent of our own of them, though in the manner in which they are made manifest to us they are decidedly dependent in their existence on our own perception of them. That is, those things which are external are regarded as having their existence grounded primarily in their inherence within the mind of God, and only secondarily in their inherence in our mind as perceivers of nature. It is clear that Berkeley understood archetypes of external events to inhere in the mind of God; however, whether such an inherence was understood by him as sufficient to provide an ordering to events of the type detailed in the second interpretation is not entirely transparent. However, when such a notion is included in his account of time it solves some perplexities which arise from the solely subjectivist account.

22 Berkeley, Principles, ¶33. 21

4. Is One Interpretation Preferable Over the Other?

4.1 How Proximate are the Two Interpretations?

In deciding between the two theories, we should first note the similarities and differences between them. It appears that the traditional interpretation does not include any constructive features which are not included in Hestevold’s alternative. Additionally, what Hestevold’s interpretation provides which the first lacks seems to be the explicit recognition in the formalized presentation of Berkeley’s theory of a theoretical device which provides for an intersubjective temporal ordering (namely, the ordering of events in God’s mind). However, in the traditional interpretation, ‘a given time’ as such is explicitly “the perceiving of an idea by someone other than God”, while in the second, a given time is a set (t) of subjective moments which correspond to an event (t’) in the total ordering in God’s mind. So, the principal inconsistency between the first and the second interpretation is that the first expressly specifies that a given time must be an event not in

God’s mind, while in the second, a given time is a set, grounded on an index in the overall, atemporal ordering in God’s mind, the membership of which is determined by events in the minds of subjects which are cognizing concurrently with that particular index. So, if the condition in the first interpretation by which a given time is explicitly cognized not by God were dismissed, then the second interpretation is actually entirely consistent with the first, and can be seen as a formalized addition to it.23 This is because

23 As an aside, we can specify how the idea of involvement from the definition of time as mind-dependent, in the first interpretation is additionally consistent with the inclusion of the intersubjective ordering of the second interpretation. This would work as follows: a given time involves a subject if and only if that subject necessarily exists if the time exists. Thus, as it pertains to particular human persons, human persons would only be involved in times which are nested in them, as they are the only human persons who would 22 in the second the personal subjective temporal extensions of finite are all maintained, but find themselves factored into the ordering of events in the mind of God.

The difference between the manner in which these event orderings are manifested, however, is that for finite intelligences – such as humans – events are experienced as tensed, while for God the ordering of events is experienced tenselessly. Thus, so long as the second interpretation is consistent with the remainder of Berkley’s metaphysical view, and so long as we have positive reason to suspect that it is what he intended in the presentation of his theory, we can endorse Hestevold’s interpretation without having to, on that account, dismiss any constructive element of the traditional interpretation.

First, we will examine more closely whether the first interpretation fails to suffice, as Hestevold contends, as a theoretic grounding for our common-sense usages of temporal reference.

necessarily exist in order for such times to exist. God, however, God, as a subject would be involved in all times, because God necessarily exists if any given time exists, as all things which are granted in Berkeley’s system are contained within God and are derivative of such an entity’s creative power: “the whole Creation is the Workmanship of a wise and good Agent” (Berkeley, Principles, ¶107). Here involvement is being assumed to be a reciprocal relation, where, if (t) involves (s), then (s) is involved in (t). So, it would be the case that for all times (t), there is some subject (s), namely God, which is involved in (t); however, it is not the case that for all human subjects (h), if there is another subject (s) which is involved in a time in which they are involved, then the first participates in all times (t) which the second participates in. This is because two subjects may be involved in a given time, as the existence of a given subjective time (t) would have as a necessary condition the existence of both the human subject (h) and God; yet, the human subject is not involved in all of the times which God is involved in, as God would be involved in all of the times grounded in all human subjects. This whole argument, however, is contingent on God’s being considered a subject per the conditions of the definition of involvement. So, under these specifications, the idea of involvement in the first interpretation would be consistent and maintainable under the propositions of the second interpretation. 23

4.2 A Defense of the Traditional Interpretation

Darren Hynes, in his paper “Berkeley’s Corpuscularian Theory of Time,”24 argues that the traditional interpretation as presented by Hestevold corresponds more closely with Berkeley’s own intended view on time. Hynes claims that the wholly subjectivist interpretation, referred to above as the traditional sense of Berkeley’s theory, is not as untenable in light of Berkeley’s other views as Hestevold is concerned it may be.25

Moreover, he believes that the second view, as Hestevold presents it, ventures too near to endorsing an image of time as an objectively subsisting entity, which, we have seen,

Berkeley explicitly disavows.

While both Hestevold and Hynes entertain a number of interesting arguments against and in favor of each view, we will focus here on the argument concerning the resources of each interpretation to support mundane temporal comparisons.

While we introduced, briefly, in Section 3.1.1 the general notion of “mundane temporal comparisons,” it should be noted that Hestevold mentions a number of examples that can be classed into two general forms of comparison. While Hestevold does not explicitly make the typological distinction we will introduce here, we will see these general forms have different properties. The first example given by Hestevold is

Berkeley’s own familiar “bid your servant meet you at such a time. . . .” The two other examples are claims of the sort, “one soul was created prior to another” and “one person

24 Darren Hynes, “Berkeley’s Corpuscular Theory of Time,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 22, no. 4 (Oct. 2005): 339-356. 25 Hynes, “Berkeley’s Corpuscular Theory of Time,” 342. 24 sleeps during the time another is awake.”26 The first example can be generalized into a kind of utterance that properly has three sub-kinds (we will not fully explore the reason for this sub-division here, but a reader may note that they will have different epistemic properties), and the second two examples can be generalized into a single kind, as follows:

(1) Two subjects, (s1) and (s2), who are concurrently cognizing, make reference to a time (t), which will follow from the current time a. with neither subject experiencing a gap in cognition between the time at which the reference was made and (t) itself; b. with one subject(s) experiencing a gap in cognition between the time at which the reference was made and (t) itself; or c. with both subjects experiencing a gap in cognition between the time at which the reference was made and (t) itself. (2) A time (t1) at which (s1) is cognizing in the absence of the cognizing of (s2) is used as an index which is ascribed a relative temporal position with (t2) during which (s2) is cognizing either in the absence of (s1) or not.

If we are careful to observe, cases of sort (1) have a feature the relevance of which will be clear shortly: namely, the concurrent cognizance of subjects who are making reference to a given time (t).27

While Hestevold wished to solve the problem of temporal comparison between subjective timelines according to an approach following the form indexed (I) in Section

3.1.2, Hynes wishes to solve the problem according to an approach following the form

26 Hestevold, “Berkeley’s Theory of Time,” 182. The example of an individual sleeping at the time another is awake is additionally used by Hestevold and Hynes in arguments concerning the gapless persistence of the soul; however, we are not dealing with that issuehere, and we will find it plays a unique role as an example of a temporal utterance. 27 We must acknowledge here the difficulty of the idea of ‘co-cognizance’, seeing as, according to Interpretation 1, neither subject would be participating in a time in which the other subject is participating in, and neither is there (by the first interpretation) an intersubjective time in which they are both situated; but while a solution to this worry is able to be formulated, it seems like an unnecessary diversion at this juncture. 25 indexed (II) in the same section. That is, he wants to claim that we can provide a correspondence between particular temporal indices in subjective time-lines without introducing an idea of an overall order of events in the mind of an overarching entity which gives grounding to the indices of subjective moments in the experiences of human intelligences. We shall question later, however, how far the solution he provides is removed from Hestevold’s proposed second interpretation, and thus approach (I).

Hynes believes that it is possible that there exist such a thing as ‘public time’ which grounds our mundane use of temporal notions without there, on that account, necessarily being such a thing as ‘objective time’.

He believes that for such usages to be clear and sensible, “All that is needed is a common metric, which can be mutually agreed upon.”28 Elaborating on this point, he makes the following case:

Why suppose that there must be a larger time in which they are all running in tandem? . . . an absolute standard is not necessary for temporal comparisons. I can compare my ideas (as my watch) against your ideas (your watch) without comparing both to a third series of ideas (or watch): each can be a standard for the other. All I need to say is that my ideas are slow compared to yours. . . .29

The suggestion here is that all that is needed to construct a reliable correspondence between temporal indices in one individual’s time-line and temporal indices in another’s time-line is knowledge of the ratio of the rate of progression of events between the two perspectives. Before we further explicate this view, however, we first should note that this approach would only work for cases of form (1).

28 Hynes, “Berkeley’s Corpuscular Theory of Time,” 342. 29 Ibid. 26

However, the mere co-cognizance of two individuals is not necessarily enough for

Hynes, as he introduces the idea of an external standard, “[the] servant will thus follow some arbitrary, but useful, external standard, such as a clock, synchronized with the earth’s rotation. The servant knows implicitly that this is what you are referring to when you ask him to meet you, not ‘time’ itself.”30 Here, Hynes is claiming that Hestevold’s error is that in such mundane temporal references, all of our behaviors are able to be justified wholly on a relational picture, where we look at the phenomena which exist and their synchronized, relative motions. It is a mistake, he holds, to believe that underneath such phenomena is a time which should be regarded as substantial.

However, Hynes may be misunderstanding the way in which the inter-subjective metric of time is derived by Hestevold’s account. It could be argued that the ordering of events in the mind of God as described in (I) is metaphysically identical to the idea of an

“external standard” in Hynes’ solution; as in Hynes’ account all the objects external to a given individual are nevertheless sharing in a relationship of synchronization. While

Hynes takes himself to be arguing against Hestevold, he is perhaps advocating for an identical position. Hestevold is maintaining the idea that time is yet nothing more than a relation between events, but adds onto the purely subjectivist reconstruction a device that provides an intersubjective universal ordering of events as the foundation upon which our subjective time-lines are built. As can be noted above, moments in the second interpretation are still defined in terms of events). While Hestevold calls the collection of

30 Hynes, “Berkeley’s Corpuscular Theory of Time,” 344. 27 events “time”, he does not posit time as a substance itself and retains Berkeley’s rejection of a substantivalist image of time by regarding time merely as an ordering of events.

In addition to this consideration, there may be additional positive arguments showing that both Hynes and Berkeley in fact are implicitly subscribing to Hestevold’s interpretation.

4.3 Argument for Implicit Subscription to the Second Interpretation from a

Commitment to Historical Consistency and Generalizability of Scientific Laws

Here, we will make an argument for the implicit subscription to second interpretation on the part of both Berkeley and Hynes. With respect to Berkeley, this claim is based on his own account of how God is responsible for the maintenance of history and science, and comments made by him about the role God plays in maintaining the order of events in the absence of a given human subject. For Hynes, this is based on his commitment to an external standard. For both of these authors, we will see that if an ordering of events which were independent of any given perceiving subject were not said to be existent, then common-sense statements which may be grouped into categories (1c) and (2) above would not be possible for epistemic .

4.3.1 Why Berkeley Should Be Regarded as Subscribing to the Hestevold’s

Interpretation

The regularity of external events and their independence from the perspective of any given human seems to be foundational to Berkley’s view, as he claims:

“It is clear from what we have elsewhere observed, that the operating [of Nature] according to general and stated Laws, is so necessary for our Guidance in the Affairs of 28

Life, and letting us into the Secret of Nature, that without it, all Reach and Compass of

Thought, all humane Sagacity and Design could serve to no manner of purpose: It were even impossible there should be any such Faculties or Powers in the Mind.”31

Because of Berkeley’s commitment to the reliability of science, generally construed, as necessary for the very operation of reasonable human thought, we can argue that he must, additionally, be committed to an intersubjective ordering of the sort described by Hestevold. We will attempt to prove this by remarking on the fact that such an ordering would be necessary for ‘common-sense’ claims of the sort (1c) and (2), above, and by introducing the premise that our scientific temporal claims would be more precise or detailed counterparts of common-sense claims (including those of the above- mentioned sort) and that if we had the ability to make scientific temporal claims we must also have the ability to make common-sense temporal claims of the sort (1c) and (2).

The basic argument, presented as a deduction, would be:

1) Prem: If history and science are reliable, then common-sense claims (1c) and (2) are reliable. 2) Prem: If common sense claims (1c) and (2) are reliable, then there is the intersubjective ordering of events as described by Hestevold. 3) Prem [Berkeley]: history and science are reliable. 4) (1,3 MP): common-sense claims (1c) and (2) are reliable. 5) (4,2 MP): there is the intersubjective ordering of events as described by Hestevold.

While this argument is of a clear deductive form, we nevertheless need to provide reason for adopting the premises (1) and (2). In the first we claim that history and science

31 Berkeley, Principles, ¶151. 29 entail common-sense claims of a certain sort, and in the second we claim that such common-sense claims entail a uniform, maximally intersubjective order.

In the type of common sense claims designated (1c), a pair of individuals make reference to a time which they are to recognize in the future, though both undergo a gap of prior to the arrival of the time. If this type of claim were reliable, then if two individuals were to fall asleep, for example, it would not lead to a regarding whether or not a time-keeping device which were independent of both of them operated reliably over the period of time over which they were not conscious. That is, the ordering of events continued reliably in the absence of any given observer. If we did not have this condition of reliability, then the two individuals, when they wake up, would not know whether or not, though their clock(s) appeared to have progressed only five hours, the system of external events as a whole in fact progressed a thousand years.

In the common sense claim (2), we compare the relative location in an ordering of events in the life of one subject and those in the life of another subject. That is, if we cannot make these types of claims, I cannot say that “John postulated that the shrinking of objects according to the presence of a certain type of field-like substance may imply that such a substance is equivalent to a substantivalist spatial medium before I did.” Nor can we say, “after the eagle flew off with the mouse’s flamethrower and jewels and fell asleep for a leisurely rest, the mouse foolishly decided to chew on empty space.” This is because, without an intersubjective ordering of events which operates reliably, so long as two subjects are not co-cognizant, events involving one subject might have occurred before events involving another subject, or might have occurred after with equal effect. 30

That is, the lack of an intersubjective ordering makes it impossible to make comparisons between the relative location of two non-overlapping events in an order of events, because there is no such order. We are claiming, moreover, that without this ability the pursuit of history falls apart. And, we can liken science to a historiography of physical events supplemented by a set of general rules which describe the behaviors of such events in an abstract way according to the properties of objects which participate in such events.

4.3.2 Why Hynes Should be Regarded as Subscribing to the Second Interpretation

We do not only think that Berkeley should be regarded as subscribing to the view presented by Hestevold in his alternative interpretation, but we additionally believe that

Hynes should be regarded as implicitly subscribing to this view as well.

By Berkeley’s account, we can note that time is materially equivalent to a progression of ideas, and it can be noted that a progression of perceived external mechanisms would be a progression of ideas. One may now ask whether internal states are to be considered mechanisms. If it were to be the case that internal states were all to be considered mechanisms, then, if it were the case that the external world was wholly constituted of mechanisms, and if it were the case that, together, the internal and external world constitute the entirety of the sources of the elements of the domain of for a given individual, then all components of all domains of experience would be mechanisms.32 Thus, we could then say that all progressions of ideas would be mechanisms. Additionally, if it were the case that these mechanisms possessed a certain kind of ordering, and if their ordering (as perceived) were correlate with our progression

32 See Berkeley’s division between sense, memory, and imagination (Berkeley, Principles, ¶1, 3, 30, 33). 31 of ideas, then it would be the case that time would be materially equivalent to our

(perceived) ordering of mechanisms. However, what we still do not possess is the idea that there is an ordering to mechanisms independent of our perceiving them as ordered.

But Hynes does not believe that we need an inter-subjective ordering of mechanisms in order to compare relative rates of time (and thus construct a notion of public time), but only the ability for one individual’s rate of time to be directly compared to another so that we can say, in discussing the rate of time of two persons, that “person 1 experiences ideas relative to person 2 at a rate of x:y.” It can be noted that ideas will either be grounded in common archetypes or else be imaginary. If they are grounded in common archetypes there will be a correlate to the common archetype consisting as an idea within each individual’s mind, but if they are not grounded in common archetypes, then they will be imaginary (viz. having their origin entirely internal to a particular human mind or minds). If individuals do not have the ability to directly perceive the contents of other minds immediately, then imaginary ideas as such cannot serve as the basis of comparison of rates of ideal progression, but only either expressions of imaginary ideas, mediately perceived, or else ideas derived from common archetypal structures may do so.

Now suppose that archetypes of ideas were not arranged in an established order by an entity independent of human observers of these archetypes. Ideas then would have no ordering besides those which they possess in the mind of each individual; however, if these were not guaranteed to be of uniform character, then individuals could compare the rate of the passage of ideas in each other’s minds through some means, but these ideas 32 would not be ideal-correlates to the same archetypes. For example, two individuals could compare the relative rate of ideas of their respective ideas of a clock; however, the clocks which they would be perceiving over the course of the comparison would not necessarily be ideal-correlates of a common archetype. Thus, while we could perhaps accurately relay between two persons some account of the quantity of ideas each individual experiences, if these ideas were not derived from common archetypes, then there would be no guarantee that these clocks would be synchronized, or even that they would follow the same rules. For example, one clock could go backwards and the other could go forwards, at what may be called the same geometric locality. While this position, which avoids all appeal to an intersubjective ordering of events, seems suitable for the purpose of constructing a ratio of the rate of passage of ideas between two minds, it seems wholly insufficient to ground any account of science for the following reason: as a theoretic account, it does not guarantee that a plurality of human persons will be exposed to the same set of archetypes according to which they will formulate descriptions of the world.

This argument may be supplemented with the argument at the end of Section 4.2 that Hynes’ appeal to an external standard is also an appeal to the intersubjective reliability of such a factor. With these combined considerations, it seems that Hynes is implicitly subscribing to the feature which is the characteristic of Hestevold’s second interpretation, namely, an intersubjectively-universal ordering of events.

What this argument is meant to have demonstrated is that the construction of a ratio of rates of ideal passage is not sufficient for our common-sense temporal references, and given that it is insufficient for such common-sense ideas, it would also be insufficient 33 for the more sophisticated temporal references of history and science. What we need, additionally, is the idea that the bases of our externally-derived ideas are in common.

Once they are made an of experience, however, they will perhaps take on certain subjectively-derived features. While Hynes takes himself to be arguing against

Hestevold’s position, he is primarily doing so because he takes Hestevold to be arguing for a form of substantivalist time, which Berkeley is expressly opposed to. However, when Hestevold’s view is understood as relational in the sense that time is merely an ordering of events, this concern dissipates.

4.3.3 Unspecified Features of Events in the Overall Order of Events

While we have argued that Hynes may implicitly be committed to attributing some idea of an intersubjectively universal ordering to Berkeley (and more, that Berkeley himself appears committed to such a view), there are properties of events as they would exist in such an intersubjective ordering which are not specified under either account.

First, it is not specified exactly the manner in which events which are unobserved by particular human subjects are said to be existent. While it is argued that some synchronized intersubjective ordering of events is subscribed by all the authors surveyed here, so far as these events are not observed by human persons, they may not be strictly

‘temporal’. If we recall, Hestevold is clear that the ordering events as it exists in God’s mind is tenselessly existent. We can perhaps introduce the distinction, here, then, between time in potential and actual time, and, correspondingly events in potential and actual events. The former term in each pair would be descriptive of the idea that events which are not observed by human subjects have an ordering according to which they 34 would appear to such subjects, but the distinctively temporal properties of these events would nevertheless not be manifest until they were observed by such an entity.

The second unspecified property is whether the fact that there is an immutable ordering of events implies that events are deterministic as they are manifested in individuals’ perspectives. That is, though the intersubjective ordering of events may include a device whereby potential events are displaced from each other according to a uniform rate of progression, it is not specified that there is only one possible event which follows from a given observed event.

The of recognizing what is left unspecified by Hestevold’s more robust account of Berkeley’s theory is that it allows us to come to an understanding of

Berkeley’s minimal theoretic commitments (at least according to what was surveyed here).

35

5. Conclusion

In this essay we entertained two formalized interpretations of Berkeley’s idealist conception of time and attempted to determine which was more likely to be representative of Berkeley’s own intended sense. In Section 2 we brought to our consideration constant, underlying background aspects of Berkeley’s metaphysical system which we needed to hold in mind while evaluating the possible interpretations of his theory of time. In Section 3, we presented formal reconstructions of these two competing interpretations. Later, in Section 4, we argued that the second interpretation, which is advocated for by Hestevold, would be superior based on the reliability of history and science, which Berkeley himself affirms. Further, we suggested that Hynes himself may be unknowingly committed to such a theoretical stance.

36

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