Berkeley on Certainty: A Dilemma

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Berkeley on Certainty: A Dilemma

Journal Title: Ruch Filozoficzny - Year 2015, Vol 71, Issue 4

Abstract

In this paper it is argued that it is a condition sine qua non of the success of Berkeley’s anisceptic project that the concept of certainty (i.e. of infallibility, required in philosophy of his time and, according to Berkeley, plainly gained only by his immaterialist solution) have to be fully analysable in terms of his own philosophy, otherwise the very concept should be dismissed by him owing to its meaninglessness. I maintain that his philosophy makes two general ways of the analysis in question possible. I think, however, that both of them seem to have unexpected implications, especially in that it makes our empirical knowledge flowing from immediate perception become not absolutely certain. The alternative: meaninglessness of the term “certain” or uncertainty of that knowledge is what I call “a dilemma” here. Then I try to show that three additional ways of avoiding (or explaining) that dilemma, available assuming Berkeley’s philosophy, i.e. the ways which probably remain in accordance with his position, unfortunately fail as well.

Authors and Affiliations

Przemysław Spryszak

Keywords

George Berkeley certainty scepticism perception ideas sensations immaterialism

Niall Ferguson, Kolos. Cena amerykańskiego imperium, tłum. M. Hartman i B. Wilga-Wielgucka. Wydawnictwo Literackie, Kraków 2014, ss. 496.

Giorgio Agamben, Piłat i Jezus [Pilate and Jesus], Cracow: Wydawnictwo Znak, 2017, p. 128

EP ID EP320487
DOI 10.12775/RF.2015.010
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