1 00:00:11,840 --> 00:00:15,550 OK, but let's proceed. Thinking about the powers of matter. 2 00:00:15,550 --> 00:00:22,450 I've already said enough about why that was a particularly important issue at the time. 3 00:00:22,450 --> 00:00:28,510 And let's move on to. A French thinker, a follower of Descartes. 4 00:00:28,510 --> 00:00:39,580 Hence a cut Cartesian. But someone who went very much out on his own, particularly influential in France. 5 00:00:39,580 --> 00:00:44,200 He's not that well known these days. But I think you'll find that understanding. 6 00:00:44,200 --> 00:00:54,680 What he has to say makes it much easier to understand where Berkeley was coming from. 7 00:00:54,680 --> 00:01:00,860 OK, let's follow a little train of thought. What is it? 8 00:01:00,860 --> 00:01:12,500 For one thing to cause another. What is it for A to cause B or Malebranche said for eight Causby? 9 00:01:12,500 --> 00:01:18,260 It must be that when A happens, B necessarily follows. 10 00:01:18,260 --> 00:01:25,610 That's what we mean by saying A causes B. There is a necessary connexion between A happening and be happening. 11 00:01:25,610 --> 00:01:34,570 This is a theme that we'll see coming back with you. But now think about this necessity. 12 00:01:34,570 --> 00:01:39,100 Suppose a happens. You might be the motion of one billiard ball towards another. 13 00:01:39,100 --> 00:01:46,930 OK, so we see one billiard ball move towards another and impact with the second one. 14 00:01:46,930 --> 00:01:52,140 B is the motion of the second billiard ball as a result. 15 00:01:52,140 --> 00:01:58,200 Now, can you imagine the first billiard ball moving towards the second billiard ball and impacting with it? 16 00:01:58,200 --> 00:02:04,050 And the second one not moving at all? You can't. Can't you? No problem. 17 00:02:04,050 --> 00:02:10,270 It's conceivable. It's logically possible. Yes. The first billiard ball could move without the second one moving. 18 00:02:10,270 --> 00:02:13,020 Right. There's no necessary connexion between them then. 19 00:02:13,020 --> 00:02:22,160 So you cannot actually be the cause of be the motion of the first billiard ball cannot be the real cause of the motion of the second one. 20 00:02:22,160 --> 00:02:29,350 Because there is no such necessary connexion between them. Oh, well, that's a problem. 21 00:02:29,350 --> 00:02:36,870 So what can be a real cause? The will of an omnipotent being. 22 00:02:36,870 --> 00:02:44,100 If God wills something to happen, then, since God is omnipotent, it logically follows that it will happen. 23 00:02:44,100 --> 00:02:50,270 There we can see a necessary connexion. And that's the only kind of necessary connexion there is. 24 00:02:50,270 --> 00:02:58,260 So the only real cause of anything in the universe is God. 25 00:02:58,260 --> 00:03:03,600 He had another argument for that which he drew from Descartes, the idea that God, 26 00:03:03,600 --> 00:03:11,490 that sustaining the world is as much of a task for God as creating it in the first place. 27 00:03:11,490 --> 00:03:18,630 So God is, in effect, recreating the world every instant. So what God is doing is in effect. 28 00:03:18,630 --> 00:03:23,640 It's like a cartoon film when you see one billiard ball move towards another. 29 00:03:23,640 --> 00:03:29,860 What's actually happening is that God is continuously recreating that billiard ball at different points. 30 00:03:29,860 --> 00:03:34,600 And so, again, when the second billiard ball moves off after the contact, 31 00:03:34,600 --> 00:03:41,380 that's actually God creating recreating the second billiard ball in an appropriate sequence of positions. 32 00:03:41,380 --> 00:03:50,780 So Malebranche used both of these arguments to claim that God is the only real cause in the universe. 33 00:03:50,780 --> 00:03:59,410 It's a theory called occasional ism, because when one billiard ball touches another one, billy ball hits another. 34 00:03:59,410 --> 00:04:03,940 The first billiard ball isn't causing the second one to move, rather, 35 00:04:03,940 --> 00:04:10,090 the contact of the two billiard balls is the occasion for God to make the second one move. 36 00:04:10,090 --> 00:04:16,240 So gods, the only real cause, and that's occasional isn't. 37 00:04:16,240 --> 00:04:21,760 Now, suppose I'm looking at a pair of billiard balls. 38 00:04:21,760 --> 00:04:27,420 What is it that brings it about that I see the billiard balls. I see the motion. 39 00:04:27,420 --> 00:04:33,600 Well, again, it's entirely conceivable that the bulls should move without me seeing them, yes. 40 00:04:33,600 --> 00:04:39,980 So the motion of the bulls clearly cannot be what causes me to see them. 41 00:04:39,980 --> 00:04:46,880 We've said that a real cause has to necessitate its effect and there's no necessary connexion between the bulls being there and my seeing them. 42 00:04:46,880 --> 00:04:53,760 So the reason I see the billiard balls must be that God is creating in me those perceptions. 43 00:04:53,760 --> 00:04:59,280 So God, not only is the cause of the billiard balls moving in the way they do. 44 00:04:59,280 --> 00:05:03,920 He's also the cause of our perceiving what we do. 45 00:05:03,920 --> 00:05:08,960 Well, in that context, you might think. 46 00:05:08,960 --> 00:05:18,480 What's the role of the billiard balls at all? If God is, as it were, creating this cartoon film of billiard balls moving along. 47 00:05:18,480 --> 00:05:24,390 And God is directly causing within us the perceptions that correspond to that movement. 48 00:05:24,390 --> 00:05:28,920 It looks like the actual physical billiard balls are playing no role at all. 49 00:05:28,920 --> 00:05:36,790 Why doesn't God just create directly the ideas in us as though the billiard balls were there and moving? 50 00:05:36,790 --> 00:05:46,280 And that, I think, is the best way to understand the theory of George Barkley, because George Barkley's theory is essentially like that. 51 00:05:46,280 --> 00:05:54,360 So we get the theory of a materialism that there really is no material substance at all. 52 00:05:54,360 --> 00:06:01,280 God is responsible for all the perceptions that we see. 53 00:06:01,280 --> 00:06:09,280 But these arguments are different from Malebranche is. But when you come to read Berkely, as you will, in connexion with perception, 54 00:06:09,280 --> 00:06:18,850 remember this and think of Barclays' theory as a kind of adaptation of occasional ism. 55 00:06:18,850 --> 00:06:26,380 So let me finish with a brief outline of Barkley's view of perception, 56 00:06:26,380 --> 00:06:35,530 which is the main argument that he used against Locke, no arguments related to this. 57 00:06:35,530 --> 00:06:45,430 Here is Locke's theory of perception, it's a very commonsensical one. You have a material object over there on the right. 58 00:06:45,430 --> 00:06:50,920 We're perceiving the object and we do so by means of an idea in our mind. 59 00:06:50,920 --> 00:07:02,590 So we're directly aware of an idea in our mind and it's the direct awareness of that which leads us to infer the presence of the material object, 60 00:07:02,590 --> 00:07:14,110 the tree. What Barkley does is essentially identify the object with the perception. 61 00:07:14,110 --> 00:07:20,070 There is nothing beyond the perception, there is just the perception created by God, 62 00:07:20,070 --> 00:07:24,580 and you can see that that helps in a way, with the sceptical problem. 63 00:07:24,580 --> 00:07:29,410 There is a sceptical problem for Locke. I have this idea in my mind of a tree. 64 00:07:29,410 --> 00:07:34,630 How do I know that there's anything behind it? How do I know that there's any real physical object? 65 00:07:34,630 --> 00:07:39,970 Well, Berkeley wants to get rid of that problem by saying all objects are. 66 00:07:39,970 --> 00:07:47,580 Is perceptions in the mind caused directly by God? 67 00:07:47,580 --> 00:07:51,420 He challenges Locke's theory of primary and secondary qualities. 68 00:07:51,420 --> 00:07:58,620 I'm not going to go into that in detail that will make more sense to you when you come to discuss primary and secondary qualities. 69 00:07:58,620 --> 00:08:09,060 Think back to this and be aware that Berkeley is presenting his arguments in the context of trying to establish an immaterial materialist theory. 70 00:08:09,060 --> 00:08:14,990 Very importantly for understanding causation and Hume, which we'll come to next time. 71 00:08:14,990 --> 00:08:20,510 Barkley took a leaf out of Newton's book by going instrumentalist. 72 00:08:20,510 --> 00:08:28,010 You might think that if Barkley denies the existence of any physical objects, he's going to deny the value of physical science. 73 00:08:28,010 --> 00:08:32,960 He doesn't. He says physical science is extremely valuable, 74 00:08:32,960 --> 00:08:40,880 just like Newton had postulated the force of gravity with these very simple equations to explain what we perceive, 75 00:08:40,880 --> 00:08:49,640 the postulation of forces was extremely valuable. Even if there are no such things as forces, they provide instruments for prediction. 76 00:08:49,640 --> 00:08:57,740 That, according to Barkley, is why God has created for us a world in which billiard balls and other things act in such regular ways. 77 00:08:57,740 --> 00:09:08,300 They enable us to predict what will happen to enable us to live our moral lives as God intended. 78 00:09:08,300 --> 00:09:30,048 Next time, we will finish this historical survey with David Hume and we will discuss David Hume's theory of induction,