Philosophy Bites

John Campbell on Berkeley's Puzzle

Oct 11, 2009
Ask episode
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
ANECDOTE

The God Watches The Quad Quip

  • A witty epigraph joked that God always watches the quad so the tree continues to exist.
  • This quip encapsulates Berkeley's theistic answer to object permanence without observers.
INSIGHT

Science Reveals An Alien World

  • The scientific revolution showed the world as alien: mostly empty space and tiny particles, unlike our everyday appearances.
  • This gap forces a puzzle about how our perceptions connect to that scientific description.
INSIGHT

Berkeley's Radical Skeptical Conclusion

  • Berkeley argued that if all we have are sensations, we cannot form the idea of objects existing independently.
  • He concluded that the external world is an illusion and we only have ideas.
Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode
Get the app