Abstract
From this preliminary review of Berkeley’s intentions we may better understand his words in praise of common sense.
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References
On the first hilarious reception of the Principles in England see the letter from Sir John Percival to Berkeley, 26th August 1710 (Rand, Berkeley and Percival, p. 80.); on the spread of the charge of extravagance see the recent work of H. M. Bracken, The Early Reception of Berkeley’s Immaterialism 1710–1733 (The Hague 1965).
Boswell’s Johnson 6th August 1763.
Enquiry XII, i; Selby-Bigge p. 155 n.
Intellectual Powers VI, ii; Hamilton’s Reid i, 423 a.
Hamilton’s Reid i, 283-4.
Berkeley’s Works, 1901 edition, i, p. 364. Cf. Berkeley’s own statements P.C. 553, 593.
An Examination of Dr. Reid’s Inquiry into the Human Mind on the principles of common sense etc., London 1774, pp. 4 f. passim.
Amongst 20th Century British philosophers there has been, in some quarters, a revival of respect for common sense, a revival inaugurated by G. E. Moore (See VIII, 1). But this revival has been accompanied by a professed rejection of metaphysics: a symptom, no doubt, of the belief that metaphysics is opposed to common sense. Berkeley denies the opposition: genuine metaphysics, as he understands it, grows out of common sense; opposition is a sign of pseudo-metaphysics.
If we may take Descartes as the exemplar of the rabid metaphysician, then we must take David Hume as the most urbane and devastating member of the school of reaction. The coupling of metaphysical philosophy with vain deceit is to be found in some form in every age: One of the bitterest attacks on “intellectuals” in modern times is to be read in Aldous Huxley’s Point Counter Point; in more moderate and teasing form it is represented by Rutherford’s remark to the metaphysician Alexander: “When you come to think of it, Alexander, all that you have said and all that you have written during the last thirty years — what does it all amount to? Hot air! Hot air!” To which Alexander could only reply that Rutherford was a savage, a noble savage, but a savage. (A. S. Eve Rutherford, Cambridge 1939, p. 240).
T. Jouffroy, Histoire de la Philosophie: De la Philosophie et du sens commun (1824) in his Mélanges Philosophiques.
A Discourse addressed to magistrates and men in authority (2nd edition) (Works vi p. 217).
The reading of Plato which is adopted here is far removed from the image of Plato as an abstract metaphysician; an image created by the Nineteenth Century German idealist philosophers. Their image receives some countenance from Aristotle’s caricature of Plato, but is otherwise gratuitous. Here we shall follow the liberal interpretation opened by modern Platonic scholarship, of which the Guillaume Bude edition of Plato is the focus. In putting aside the image of Plato as a metaphysician in the bad sense of the term, we simultaneously put aside the image of Plato as a proud philosopher with a lofty contempt for common men. Plato’s scorn is directed to the pseudo-intellectuals. He has only pity for the weakness of the simple man who becomes the victim of the wolf, and strives to protect him.
Victor Goldschmidt has collected some typical passages on pp. 86-7 of his Le Paradigme dans la dialectique platonicienne (Paris 1947). The term “paradigm” is used by Plato to designate the timeless “ideas” which are the standards of mimesis; it is also used by him to designate the particular occasions which incite the upward leap of the mind to those standards: a double usage which underlines the notion of the cosmos in which all things are bound together.
Berkeley’s Library (or what remained of it), together with the books of his son and grandson, was auctioned in London in 1796. The Catalogue of the sale is now in the British Museum (See R. I. Aaron, “A Catalogue of Berkeley’s Library,” Mind 1932). It is the library of a man of great learning and wide interests. Four editions of Plato are listed (although the Aldus edition, Venice 1513, mentioned in Siris 332, is not included.) There is now in the Library of Trinity College Dublin the 1556 Basle edition of Platonis omnia opera inscribed on the fly-leaf “This book was given as a present by the Rt. R. The Lord Bishop of Cloyne to me the 21st day of November 1751, George Berkeley Ballinacurry etc.” This George Berkeley was the Bishop’s nephew (See Luce Life p. 28). At this date Berkeley was preparing to leave his diocese for residence at Oxford. Just over a year later he was dead.
Fraser’s Preface to Siris in 1901 edition of Works, iii pp. 118 and 126.
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© 1968 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Ardley, G. (1968). The Two Kinds of Metaphysics. In: Berkeley’s Renovation of Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-8872-2_6
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