Abstract
In this article, I intend to examine the link between the refutation of absolute space and Berkeley’s apologetical aim. Section 117 of the Principles of Human Knowledge is crucial. I show that, in this section, Berkeley does not contend with drawing a consequence from his refutation. He gives a new argument, which runs as follows: to affirm the existence of absolute space leads to atheism, because it necessarily amounts to denying God’s freedom and thus God’s Providence. This is precisely the definition of atheism. A consequence of my reading of section 117 of the Principles is that Berkeley’s apologetics aims at proving the providence of God rather than proving his existence stricto sensu.
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Notes
- 1.
Withrow does not mention anymore this theological aspect of Berkeley’s criticism in his discussion. Note that Koyré does not comment on Berkeley’s theological argument more than Withrow.
- 2.
See for example PHK § 89: “‘Thing’ or ‘Being’ is the most general name of all; it comprehends under it two kinds of entirely distinct and heterogeneous, and which have nothing in common, but the name, to wit, spirits and ideas.” In the De Motu, Berkeley is even clearer: “There are two supreme classes of things, body and soul. We know with the help of senses something that is extended, mobile, shaped and endowed with other qualities that strike the senses; however, we know by a certain internal consciousness something that is sentient, perceiving and intelligent. Besides, we see that these things are obviously different from each other, and that they are very heterogeneous” (DM § 21).
- 3.
By “first” appearance, I do not mean anything chronological – about the difficulties of giving a chronological order for writing the Notebooks, see Belfrage 1985; in a reply to another paper by B. Belfrage, R. McKim has underlined the difficulties that an attempt to put the entries in a chronological order necessarily meets (McKim 1985). Thus, I will keep Luce’s order as the conventional order. One “earlier” entry may raise the question. In entry 90, Berkeley writes: “In my doctrine all absurditys from infinite space &c cease”. In his explanation, Luce refers to the problem of the relation between God and space (among other questions) – see Berkeley, Notebooks, 151. Indeed, Berkeley uses the term “absurd”. However this is not convincing: Berkeley underlines also other absurdities that affect the Newton conception of space before entry 90 – see especially entries 18, 33, 55, 96 etc., which show some of Berkeley’s difficulties to conceive an absolute space or an extension which would not depend on the mind, without even mentioning the problem of God’s relation to space.
- 4.
At the time of the first edition of the Principles of Human Knowledge, Berkeley might have imagined what could be Newton’s position concerning that question; but Newton published (a part of) his thought only in the second edition of the Principia mathematica, three years after the publication of Berkeley’s Principles. If one takes into account the second edition of the Principles of Human Knowledge, then Newton should evidently be added to Berkeley’s target. However, it may be significant that Berkeley does not give any names. Did he want to avoid to name Newton?
- 5.
For example, More states it quite clearly: “Since I have so clearly proved space or internal place to be really distinct from matter, I conclude it, therefore, to be a certain incorporeal substance, or spirit.” (More 1679, 167); following More, J. Raphson will sustain a comparable position in his De spatio reali.
- 6.
Berkeley’s hesitation about Locke is justified: Locke does not affirm clearly that God is extended, but it remains possible. For example, he declares: “The boundless invariable oceans of duration and expansion, which comprehend in them all finite beings and in their full extent belong only to the Deity. And therefore we are not to wonder that we comprehend them not, and do so find our thoughts at a loss, when we would consider them either abstractly in themselves, or as any way attributed to the first incomprehensible Being” (Locke 1975, 2.15.8).
- 7.
Note that this last entry is marked by a “M”; entry 825 is marked by a “G”. According to Berkeley’s own indications (M stands for “Matter” and G for “God”) these two marks link the conception of an extended God with materialism.
- 8.
See especially De Motu, § 55: “We are sometimes deceived by the fact that when we imagine the removal of all other bodies, yet we suppose our own body to remain. On this supposition we imagine the movement of our limbs fully free on every side; but motion without space cannot be conceived. None the less if we consider the matter again we shall find, 1st, relative space conceived defined by the parts of our body; 2nd, a fully free power of moving our limbs obstructed by no obstacle; and besides these two things nothing. It is false to believe that some third thing really exists, viz. immense space which confers on us the free power of moving our body; for this purpose the absence of other bodies is sufficient. And we must admit that this absence or privation of bodies is nothing positive”. Even if Berkeley writes this tract about ten years after he wrote the Principles of Human Knowledge, there are no inconsistencies between them (given Berkeley’s immaterialism, it is possible to argue that the bodies do not exist at a distance at all) – he attached a footnote to section 55 of De Motu in which he sends back to the Principles of Human Knowledge.
- 9.
For example, Raphson defines space as follows: “I call space the most inner extension (whatever it is), first by nature” (Raphson 1702, 72 - my translation).
- 10.
The first entries devoted to this question are marked with a “M”, which signifies that Berkeley’s concern was the theory of matter when he wrote them.
- 11.
This definition explains why Berkeley considers that Spinoza and Hobbes are atheists even if he perfectly knows that they gave demonstration of the existence of God. It would make no sense to say that God is extended without supposing that God exists. Berkeley had obviously read Spinoza’s demonstration of the existence of God – see Notebooks 825, 87, 845. But these proofs do not demonstrate a firm belief in a Christian and Providential God.
- 12.
In the Quatrièmes Réponses, Descartes affirms that a negative understanding of the notion of causa sui must be rejected, because, he says, “if this understanding of the word by itself [that is to say not by anything else] was accepted, we could not prove the existence of God by the effects, as it has been well proved by the author of the First Objections; that is why it must not be accepted” (AT, IX, 185 – my translation).
- 13.
It is impossible to prove these attributes a posteriori: since the world is not infinite in time, the cause required to create it may be finite; it is just needed that it is more powerful or contains more reality than the world. Similarly, it has not to be eternal and so on.
- 14.
Berkeley did not fully answer this difficulty. Even with the new proof that he gives in the fourth dialogue of Alciphron, he is unable to give a clear comprehension of God’s infinity (Peterschmitt 2011). Thus, he cannot prove that the author of the language of nature is really God (that is an infinite etc. being). The problem is that Berkeley cannot give a positive account of infinity, nor use a substitute as did Clarke.
- 15.
Note the mention of Hobbes’ “corporeal God”, which clearly recalls the notion of an extended God. It confirms our interpretation: an extended God is a corporeal God, which makes no sense according to Berkeley’s ontology.
- 16.
Perhaps this kind of declaration was less ambiguous at that time: everybody could understand that if a philosopher claims to prove the existence of God, he means a Providential God. Berkeley could have written his preface loosely. However, there are still some ambiguities, since he modified his presentation in the Preface of the Dialogues three years later.
- 17.
In section 146, Berkeley refers to section 29: “But whatever power I may have over my own thoughts, I find the ideas actually perceived by sense have not a like dependence on my will. When in broad day-light I open my eyes, it is not in my power to choose whether I shall see or no, or to determine what particular objects shall present themselves to my view; and so likewise as to the hearing and other senses, the ideas imprinted on them are not creatures of my will. There is therefore some other will or spirit that produces them”. It is quite clear that the proof is not complete: “some other” spirit does not necessarily mean God. And it is certainly possible to show that this spirit must certainly be more powerful that any finite spirit; but it does not follow that it is infinite.
- 18.
I thank S. Daniel who has read and corrected earlier drafts of this paper. All defects that remain are mine.
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Peterschmitt, L. (2020). Berkeley’s Theological Challenge of Absolute Space in the Principles of Human Knowledge. In: Berchielli, L. (eds) Empiricist Theories of Space. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 54. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57620-2_5
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