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Berkeley's Notion of Suggestion Conflicts with His View That the Mind Is Transparent Is Raised by George Pitcher

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Berkeley's Notion of Suggestion Conflicts with His View That the Mind Is Transparent Is Raised by George Pitcher Order Number 9411952 Berkeley’s notion of suggestion Graham, Jody Lynne, Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1993 U MI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 BERKELEY’S NOTION OF SUGGESTION Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By Jody L. Graham * * * * * The Ohio State University 1993 Dissertation Committee: Approved by: George S. Pappas Kathleen Cook Ivan Boh Adviser Department of Philosophy For Mom, Dad, and Brian ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am indebted to a good number of people who have been instrumental in helping this work come to fruition. I am especially grateful to Dr. George Pappas for his patience, guidance, and invaluable input throughout the course of this project In addition, I wish to thank my committee members Drs. Ivan Boh and Kathleen Cook for their careful reading and helpful comments. I owe special thanks to Peter King for comments on earlier drafts, and to Alan Hausman for not only his insights and challenges on earlier drafts but for his encouragement prior to and during this project Also, to Don Hubin, who already knows that this would not be without his patience during panic calls and computer problems. Finally 1 thank those persons closest to me. I am indebted to my mother and my father for getting me this far and for their patience during this project And to Brian and Mike I can only begin to thank you for your encouragement, confidence and friendship which made the completion of this project possible. VITA November 24,1962.......................................................... Born - Rochester, N.Y. 1984................................................................................... B. A., Honors, University of Western Ontario 1989 ................................................................................. M.A., Philosophy, The Ohio State University FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Philosophy. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION........................................................................................................................ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS................................................................................................... iii VITA........................................................................................................................................ iv LIST OF FIGURES...................................................................................................... :.......vi INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER PAGE I DESCARTES AND DISTANCE PERCEPTION..............................................7 II MALEBRANCHE’S ACCOUNT OF DISTANCE PERCEPTION................49 III BERKELEY’S ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE MATHEMATICIANS.......89 IV BERKELEY’S ACCOUNT OF DISTANCE PERCEPTION...........................123 V PASSIVITY IN PERCEPTION AND TRANSPARENCY OF MIND......... 170 CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................. 197 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................................... 198 v LIST OF FIGURES FIGURES PAGE 1. Images forming at the back of the eye ................................................... 11 2. The relation of distance to size ............................................................... 12 3. Images of the objects on the interior of the brain ................................. 13 4. The blind man’s perception of distance ................................................. 20 INTRODUCTION In An Essay Towards a New Theory o f Vision^ Berkeley introduces the notion of suggestion in order to show how it is we perceive by sight the "distance magnitude and situation of objects" despite the fact that distance, for example, "of itself and immediately, cannot be seen" (NTV 2). Berkeley’s opponents, the "mathematicians", appeal to geometrical and optical principles in answer to this question. Berkeley, however, rejects this view, claiming that such entities have no real existence in nature, "being only an hypothesis framed by the mathematicians, and by them introduced into optics that they might treat of that science in a geometrical way" (NTV 14). Berkeley’s alternative is to appeal to a different set of visual cues which are sensations of which the mind can be aware, in addition to offering a developmental account of perception. We perceive distance by means of, for example, the sensation from the strain of the eye focusing, or the sensation from the turn of they eye as we direct our eyes at the object Such cues have no necesary connection to the perception of distance and in vurtue of this, the perceiver must rely on experience in order to learn what visual cues are coordinated with different distances. Through experience together with the immediate perception of these visual cues, distance is suggested to the mind, thus constituting a perception of distance. This developmental feature of his account of perception is central to the 1 The Works o f George Berkeley, Bishop o f Cloyne ed. A. A. Luce and T.E. Jessop (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1948-51, vol. 1; hereafter, NTV). 1 nativist/empirist debate concerning distance perception and is the significant contribution of the New Theory o f Vision in the history of the psychology of vision. Berkeley’s account of suggestion as it figures into his account of distance perception, should be understood as a key tool in his alternative psychological (causal) explanation to those offered by the mathematicians.2 However, Berkeley’s concerns go beyond offering such an explanation. As I hope to show in what follows, Berkeley and at least some of his opponents, had ontological concerns that were intimately connected with their concern to provide an explanation of distance perception. Berkeley, perhaps more than either Descartes and Malebranche, was explicit about his philosophical concerns. Not only did he concern himself with how we see (which he also took to be a philosophical question), but he in turn was concerned with the nature of the objects of perception, and with what constitutes an act of perceiving material objects. It is part of the goal of this project to show how Berkeley’s notion of suggestion was developed in response to the questions above. My main goal of this work, then, is to examine the techical notion of suggestion that is first introduced in his account of the perception of spatial qualities of physical objects. While the NTV takes as its opponents a group comprised several authors ("the mathematicians"), I have chosen Descartes and Malebranche as representative of this group to which Berkeley is responding. First, Berkeley specifically addresses Descartes in the Appendix of the New Theory o f Vision, treating him as endorsing a version of the view he rejects. Second, while Malebranche is mentioned very little in Berkeley’s works I hope to show that Malebranche influences Berkeley significantly. Both Malebranche and Descartes 2 Margaret Atherton argues that this psychological aspect to Berkeley's New Theory of Vision is not emphasized enough, and she attempts to show the degree to which this is the goal in the NTV in her Berkeley's Revolution in Vision (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990). 3 adopt an account of distance perception that appeals to optical and geometrical principles as a means by which the perceiver sees distance. Moreover, as I argue in the discussion that follows, both accept an account of perception that is constituted by a judgement on the part of the perceiver. The difference between Descartes and Malebranche on this issue, however, rests primarily in Malebranche’s occasionalism. While the judgement on Descartes’ account is an implicit reasoning on the part of the perceiver, according to Malebranche it is an inference that is made on the part of God. But in either case spatial qualities are exhibited to the mind in a way different from the way in which sensations (or secondary qualities) are, and for this reason their views look quite similar. I shall examine both of these accounts in the first and the second chapter, respectively, in order to get a better understanding of the positions to which Berkeley is responding, and also to better appreciate the philosophical contributions in the New Theory o f Vision. In chapter 3 I begin to examine Berkeley’s arguments against the mathematicians. 1 show that Berkeley is concerned as much with the ontological committments of his opponents’ theory as with its explanatory success (or lack of it). I then turn to Berkeley’s positive account of distance perception in chapter 4. My main focus here is to provide a reconstruction of his account of suggestion. Berkeley agrees that distance is not an immediate object of sight but it is, nonetheless, seen. His task, then, is to provide an account of how distance "enters" visual perception. This is where he introduces the notion of suggestion. Distance, according to Berkeley, is seen by means of other ideas that co-vary with differences in distance. Through experience and habitual occurence of ideas, the perceiver comes to see distance by having ideas of distance "suggested" to the mind via these other ideas. But since both Descartes and Malebranche also think it indirectly enters vision, the 4 significant issue concerning suggestion is in what way it provides an alternative view of how distance "enters" visual perception. It
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