Abstract
In a revealing jotting of his youth (apparently an addendum to the Note Books) Berkeley writes:
“He that would win another over to his opinion must seem to harmonize with him at first and humour him in his own way of talking. From my childhood I had an unaccountable turn of thought that way.” (Works ix, p. 153).
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References
Fraser’s edition of Berkeley, 1901, i, p. 92.
John Wisdom, Philosophy, Metaphysics and Psycho-Analysis in the Volume Philosophy and Psycho-Analysis (Oxford 1957), p. 248.
tribe: empirical routine devoid of insight e.g. Gorgias 463 b.
We referred in II, 12 to Berkeley’s misgivings about the akribeia mathematica, that “darling of the Age.” He believes that the pursuit of akribeia is justified for certain operative purposes, but is stultifying if allowed to stray beyond this narrow sector. Its incautious pursuit has falsified our understanding of Nature, and will falsify our understanding of any topic. Berkeley does not pursue this matter very far in an explicit way. But, in fact, Plato and Aristotle between them had explored the terrain with considerable acumen. When we link these various forays together we discern the close association of a number of phenomena, all symptoms of spiritual malaise: tribe, banausia, akribeia, amousia, ascholia, psuchagogia, and kolakeia. The man who allows himself to sink into a mean round of routine (tribe), into the merely mechanical (banausia), whether it be in manual or intellectual pursuits, unfits himself for the attainment of virtue. He is graceless (amousos). He cuts himself off from the leisured mind (schole) and thereby impoverishes his understanding. For it is in the leisured mind alone that we glimpse the unattainable but fecund deeps. The unleisured man has no intellectual humility, he arrests the world at his level; he dissipates his energies in the pursuit of a fictitious exactness or perfection of knowledge (akribeia). In this state he falls easy prey to irrational persuasion (psuchagogia) by the purveyors of flattery (kolakeia). In Pol. VIII, ii Aristotle makes some pertinent remarks on several of these links.
The two images relate to the same situation, but in different ways. Between Berkeley’s home-leaving and home-return is a period of stress which we might describe as a philosophic dark night of the soul. Plato’s ascent and descent relate to the terminal point of this dark night.
cf. Plato’s revealing words in the second Epistle: “No treatise by Plato exists or will exist, but those which now bear his name belong to a Socrates become fair and young.” (314c)
This principle is implicit in the natural theology of St. Thomas. See also the illuminating articles of D. J. B. Hawkins: “On the demonstration of God’s existence” (Downside Review 1946), and “What do the proofs of the existence of God purport to do” (Clergy Review 1952). Also E. A. Sillem, George Berkeley and the proofs for the existence of God (London 1957), especially Ch. 7: “George Berkeley and contemporary theistic Problems.”
Sometimes Plato, in his half serious half amused manner, incorporates anamnesis into an elaborate mythos of the ante-natal adventures of the soul. The mythos is a picturesque vehicle for the exposition of Plato’s thoughts on the subject of human knowledge. But it is only a vehicle; the significance of these thoughts is more pervading than is suggested by any literal interpretation of the mythos: As Plato himself well knew, hence his maintenance of the principle, notably in the Laws, without recourse to the mythos. The proper emphasis is not on the past, but on simultaneity, on the solidarity of all things in the universe, (cf. the notable passage in Gorgias 507e-508a). Plato’s anamnesis is, of course, only figuratively like ordinary memory. It has little affinity with quickness of learning and facility of recall (Cf. Ep. vii, 344). Plato mistrusts the written word because it encourages mere ordinary memory to the detriment of anamnesis.
In the opening scene of the Republic (329) the aged and tranquil Cephalus tells Socrates how his friends long for their youth; but, laments Cephalus, they long for the wrong things of youth, for the things of ill-governed natures. The remainder of the Republic might be seen as a commentary on this theme: Socrates discoursing on what the nostalgia for youth should mean; on a youth independent of years and thus an earnest of immortality.
Berkeley has of course much more than this to say on the subject of natural theology in the Alciphron. See E. A. Sillem, George Berkeley and the Proofs for the Existence of God. Sillem recognises Berkeley’s naïveté; but, he points out, Berkeley is the precursor of present-day theistic philosophy; he delved into problems which were little appreciated in his own day, but which have since come into much prominence.
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© 1968 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Ardley, G. (1968). Berkeley’s Dialectic. In: Berkeley’s Renovation of Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-8872-2_10
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