berkeley’s active mind

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Berkeley's Active Mindb y R o b e r t M c K i m (Urbana)

In section 139 of the Principles Berkeley tells us that a soul or spiritis an active being, whose existence consists not in being perceived, butin perceiving ideas and th inking/ ' Berkeley app ears to say here that itis qua perceiving and think ing being that the soul or mind is active. It

seems that the mind is active in perception. This is suggested also byremarks of Philonous in the Dialogues [the mind is] a thinkingactive principle that perceives, knows, wills and operates about ideas(D233) and by many other passages (e. g. PC437a, 673, 808, 821,829, 848, 854, 870-1; P2, 27, 28, 89, 148; D231).1 T he existence of theBerkeleian mind is said to consist in percipere, in perceiving. Heconstantly says that spirits are active. It seems that perception must beactive.

Berkeley also tells us that sensations are passively received by our

minds and tha t in sense-perception the m ind is passive. [You] are,Philonous tells us in the Dialogues, in the very perception of light andcolours altogether passive ... (D197.) At P33 he writes of [the] ideasimprinted on the senses by the Author of Nature. The view that insense-perception ideas are stamped or inprinted on the mind is onewhich Berkeley expresses at m any p oints in his writings (e. g. PC301,378.10-11, 645; P74, 90; D235, 250).

In this paper PC stands for the Philosophical Commentaries PC is followed

by the number of the en t ry in the Commentaries to which I am referring. I followGeorge Berkeley, Philosophical Commentaries, ed. George H. Thomas ( M o u n tUnion College: A lliance, Ohio, 1976) in p resenting the entries. The reader shouldknow that entries in PC which have a af ter a number (e. g. 37a) were addedby Berkeley some t ime after he wrote th e surrounding entr ies. So PC38 wasprobably wri t ten at the same time as 37, or shortly afterwards, but we have noway to tell how much later 37a was written. This is one of many factors thatmakes it hard to trace Berkeley's development. P stands fo r The Principles ofHuman Knowledge. P is followed by the nu m be r of the section in th at w orkto which I am referring. D stands for Three Dialogues Between Hylas andPhilonous. D is followe d by the nu m be r of the page in The Works of George

erkeley ed. A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop, V ol. 2 (Lond on, 1949) to which 1 amreferring.

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Berke l e y emphasizes the activity of the mind when he is concernedwi th the d ifferences be tween minds and ideas (e. g. PC706; P27, 89,139, 142; D231) . H is emphasis on the passivity of the m ind in sense--perception is centra l to his case fo r God's be ing the source of oursensat ions of the wor ld . But it is one th ing to recognize B erke ley sreasons fo r m a k i n g the claims he does a b o u t the activity and passivityof the m ind , and qui te ano the r to explain w h a t exactly those claimsa m o u n t to. And that is w h a t I wish to discuss.

take it as uncontroversial that Berkeley thought that mental activity ccomp niessense-perception. He may have thought this to be so in two distinct respects. First,w e can v o l u n t a r i l y arrange the circumstances in which our sensations are received.For example, one can pluck a tulip, hold it to one's nose, inhale, and so on. Butall of this is prior to, and distinct f rom, the smelling of the tulip (D196f, alsoPC672a). Second, Berkeley may also say that mental activity accompanies perceptionin t h a t , in order for us to perceive at all, we must choose to exist as perceiversr a t h e r than to cease to exist (I have in mind PC833 or 791). In sum, we have somecontrol over the circumstances in which we perceive and over our being in a positionto perceive anything. So there is a respect, perhaps two respects, in which mentalac t iv i ty accompanies sense-perception.

Are there respects in which, for Berkeley, sense-perception itselfinvolves mental activity? Is the Berkele ian mind doing anyth ing inhaving sensations, and if so, w h a t is it doing? In B erke ley s terms, thisis a question about w h a t is immediately perceived (D174/5, 183). B ysight w e immediately perceive light, colour and, perhaps, figures; byhear ing sounds; and so on. My question concerns those cases ofimmediate perception w hich are cases of sense-perception.

In our ordinary experience of the world around us, on Berkeley's view, what isimmedia te ly perceived by sense is supplemented with ideas which we ourselvescontribute, and in whose production we are active. So when we immediately perceive,say, the sounds of a coach, we ourselves contribute other ideas, including presumablyvisual ideas, other auditory ideas, and tactile ideas. He also tells us that when wesee, say, a picture of Julius Caesar, what we immediately perceive are colours andf igures and we supplement these ideas with the information that what is before usis a picture of Ju l ius Caesar. So medi te perception seems to involve our activity inat least two respects.

Here is an u n c o n v i n c in g response to the question of whether or not the Berkeleianm i n d is active in sense-perception which has been suggested to me. One might readBerkeley's remarks about the mind's being active in having sensations as ampuntingto the view that in sense-perception the mind is in act, where this is contrasted w i thbeing in potency. When the mind is having sensations, on this view, what is capable

of having sensations is having sensations, and therefore is in act. This usage of actm ay have had some v e r y limited in f luen ce on Berkeley, but I do not t h i n k we should

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interpret his remark about the activity of the mind in this way. H is view is that themind is active in tha t it engages in activities. By being active in one or another waythe mind is f u l f i l l i n g certain of its potentialities, but its being active does not seemto consist in the mere fact that it is fulfilling its p otentialities.

The following serious difficulty arises for all attempts to make theBerkeleian mind to any xt nt passive. Berkeley makes it clear thatthere cannot be an idea of a mind, because ideas are passive and mindsare active (e.g. PC230, 706; P27, 139. 141, 142; D231). But it seemsthat to the extent that the mind is passive, to that extent also therecould be an idea of a mind. Someone might object that there might beother reasons why there cannot be ideas of mind, so that even if mindsare partly passive, it does not follow that there would be ideas of minds

or ideas of parts

of minds. For example, the requirement that an ideamust resemble what it is an idea of might be said to exclude ideas ofminds or ideas of parts of minds. But Berkeley's explanation of why itis that ideas do not resemble minds seems to be that ideas are passiveand minds are active (e.g. PC230, 706; P27, 139, 142; D231). So ifminds were not active, or had parts which were not active, perhapsideas would resemble minds. And here is a further problem. An ideacan, on Berkeley's account, be an idea of something only if the idearesembles what it is an idea of, and an idea can resemble only anotheridea. Therefore an idea can be an idea of nothing but another idea.So if there were ideas of minds in so far as minds are passive, it wouldseem to follow that the mind qua passive thing is just a set of ideas.

An awareness of where this line of reasoning leads may have contributh e development of the Humean view of the understanding in the PhilosophicalCommentaries (e.g. PC577, 579 81, 587, 614, 637, 643), although there probablywere other factors that led to the tem porary adoption of tha t view. It may also hav econtributed to the view that the mind and the will are identical, a view which alsoappears in the Philosophical Commentaries (e. g. 194a, 362a. 478a). It seems thatthere may have been an early phase in which Berkeley thought sense-perception tobe en tire ly passive, and in which he embraced some of the im plications o f t h a t idea.In considering this possibility it is interesting to note that, although there are someexceptions (e . g. PC37a), it is in Notebook B, the first of the notebooks which mak eup the Philosophical Commentaries and relatively early in Notebook A. that wefind most occurrences of the view that sense-perception is purely passive (e gPC301, 378.10 11, 645). And it is at the end of Notebook A that we find the viewtha t the mind is an active entity, which is active in perceiving as well as in willingThus, for instance, entry 821, Un ders tanding is in some sort an Action , or cn t i \829, Substance of a Spirit is that it acts, causes, wills, operates, or if you please[to avoid the quibble yt may be made on ye word it] to act. cause, will, operate .. .or again entry 848, (by spirit) ... I mean all tha t is active . Il was in \ \ 23 Arch, (icsch Philosophic- B < 71

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Notebook t h a i Berkeley seems to have been t h ink ing carefully a b o u t th e m ind .Moreover w e ought genera l ly to fol low the pr inciple th e earl ier th e en t ry in theC'ommentur ies , th e less we igh t should i t receive w h e n w e a re interpreting th epubl i shed wri t ings .(W e m i g h t cal l it th e heiler late than early principle.) So we

shou ld not pay a g reat deal of a t t en t ion to the ear ly entr ies in wh i ch sense-perceptionis said to be com ple te ly passive. In any case, th e analysis of m ind a s consisting o fan ac t ive p a r t and a collection of ideas, to wh ich th e view t h a t th e mind is entirelypassive in sense-perception seems to lead, is a t odds wi th th e mature view of themind in the ma jo r writ ings.

So w h a t is the al ternative? I believe we should think of perceivingas an act of the Berkeleian mind. Ian Tipton reads Berkeley in thisway :

[Berkeley t h i n k s of] the mind a s passive in sense-perception in thatin a given situation w e cannot choose w h a t w e shall perceive, bu trather have it presented to us but he at the same time regards it asactive in t ha t th e activity of the perceiving mind is essential toawareness .2

Tipton suggests that perception, including sense-perception, the activity of the mind . He does not mean merely that there a rerespects in which volition accompanies sensation or that there a rerespects in w hich m ediate perception involves volition. He takes Berke-

ley's view to be that awareness, including awareness of sensations, initself involves a ctivity.It seems clear that some of the t ime, at any rate, when we are aware of, or

conscious of, som ething, this aw areness can reasonably be characterized a s being aresult of an act of will: it occurs subsequent to a conscious act of directing awareness. For example, as you read this paper there probably are many fa in tsounds of wh ich you are aware only if you direct your awareness to them. On theother hand, it also seems clear that w e perceive much by our senses without suchacts of directing our awareness. For example, we are aware of much of w h a t w ehea r or see w itho ut direct ing our awareness to it. So there seem to be cases wherewe have willed in an important respect that we should be aware of what wand o th er cases wh ere this is not so. W hen w e suggest tha t aw areness of consciousnessis an activity of the Berkeleian mind, we do not wan t to commit Berkeley to theimplausible position th a t all aw areness or consciousness involves the m ind directing its awareness to what is to be perceived. For that we would neetextual evidence that that is what he had in mind.

2 Ian Tipton, Berkeley The Philosophy of Immaterialism (London: Methuen, 1974),

268. In Berkeley An Introduction (Basil Bla ckw ell: Oxford, 1987), Jona thDancy indicates that he is sympathetic to this interpretation.




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The preferable alternative is to think of awareness as involv ingundirected activity O n th is view, perceiving is something we do andsomething we do cons tant ly, bu t general ly wi tho ut direct ing ourselvesas we do it. One might think of it as a process which goes on in us,and over which we have some control, rather than as an ac t iv i ty. Yetit is reasonable to say t ha t it is something we do: we are active in it insomething l ike the way in which we are active in breathing. It issomething we will normally cont inu e to do during our lives and we doit fairly spontaneously. We can stop doing it temporarily, we canarrange the circumstances in which we do it, we can exercise somecontrol over how we do it, and we do not need to focus any a t t en t ionon doing it in order to do it perfectly well.

What is the place of the will in such activity? There are two waysto go here. W e mig ht consider th is spontaneous and undirected activityto be something distinct from v olit ion . This is unappe aling since Berke-ley seems to make it clear that talk of the will is just talk of the mind 'sbeing active. The more appealing approach is to make room forundirected will ing. So I take talk of undirected m ental acti v ity to bejust talk of undirected willing.

But does Berkeley not explicitly rule out the possibility of undirected willing?For he says at PC812 tha t in t r ut h a bl ind A gent is a Contradict ion. A nd theactivi ty involved in much sense-perception would seem to be, in Berkeley's terms.blind ac t iv i ty in an impor tant respect. W e perceive one thing, and then another, butoften wi thout d i rec t ing o ur awareness from the one to the o ther. Much of the t imewe just find ourselves perceiving whatever is there to be perceived. 1 do not t h inkthat this object ion is a serious one. One m ig ht suggest, I suppose, that PCS 12 referssolely to God s agency. But Berkeley seems to mean it to apply to all agents . Thesuggestion that PC812 rules out blind agents but not all blind act ivi ty is morepromising. Although there cannot be a blind agent, perhaps an agent can blindlydo some things; perhaps an agent can engage in some activities without his willbeing directed by his unders tanding. The following consideration seems yet moreimportant .

Berkeley needs to posit undirected or blind mental activity if he isto account plausibly for certain important parts of our mental lives.M em ory and im agi nat ion , and other operations of the m ind , areconducted by the will. For exam ple, the operations of the mind involvedin supplementing our sensations wi th other ideas are conducted by thewill. Muc h of the t ime when we remember or imag ine we do not direct

.ourselves to do so. Sometimes we imagine or remember against ourwishes. Berkeley must allow that we can produce and recall ideas

wi thou t d i rec t ing ourse lves to d o so. There mus t be men ta l ac t iv i ty




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w h i c h is r a t h e r i n d e p e n d e n t of our control. Berkeley must accept thatt h e r e is undirected activity if he is to account for important parts ofour m e n t a l lives. (Perhaps he recognizes th i s to be so at PC599). So ourposi t ing it in th e case of sense-perception is more plausible, although th e

precise n a t u r e of the undirected w ill ing differs between t he two cases.B ut what about those passages in the major writings in whichBerkeley asserts that th e mind is passive in sense-perception? In apassage in the Dialogues which I mentioned at the outset Philonoustells us that w e are in the very perception of light and coloursal together passive. (D197.) Yet it is striking that th e only attemptw h i c h Philonous makes to spell out what this passivity amounts toseems to come to this: we do not decide, at least when we perceive then a t u r a l world, which sensations we are to receive. Consider these

crucial remarks made by Philonous after h e ha s remarked that he isactive in plucking a flower, in holding it to his nose, and in breathingin .

B ut I do not find my will concerned any farther. Whatever morethere is, as that I perceive such a particular smell or any smell atall this is independent of my w ill and therein I am altogether passive... [It is] in your power to open your eyes, or keep them shut ...[but it doth not] in like manner depend on your will, that in lookingon this flower, you perceive white rather than any other colour ...[And in] directing your open eyes toward yonder part of the heaven... (you can not] avoid seeing the sun [Light] or darkness [is not]the effect of your volition ... You are then in these respects altogetherpassive. (D196.)Philonous seems to say that he does not find the will involved in

sense-perception except in that we are able to arrange the circumstancesin which sensations will occur. He does not find the will involved anyfur ther. And this might be taken to imply that the will is not involved

in th e mere occurrence of sensations. B ut when Philonous says that h edoes not find the will involved except in that we are able to arrangethe circumstances in which sensations occur, we may reasonably under-stand him to mean only that we do not decide which sensations weare to receive. Philonous goes into some detail here in explaining whatit means to say we are passive in sense-perception. Everything he saysseems to indicate that our passivity amounts to this: the content ofour sense-experience of the world is not under our control.

Moreover, it is important to look at these remarks in their context in the

Dialogues Philonous is concerned to reject a particular type of activity which Hylas

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believes to be involved in the occurrence of sense-perception. Hylas has m ade theseremarks:

The sensation I lake to be an act of the m ind perceiving; beside wh ich , the re is

something perceived; and this I call the object. For example, there is red andyellow on tha t tu l ip . B ut then the act of perceiving those colours is in me only,and not in the tul ip. (D195.)

So Hylas says there is a clear distinction between the act of sensation and the objectwhich is sensed. Philonous's primary concern in the ensuing discussion is to showtha t the particular sort of act of sensing which Hylas thin ks there to be involved insense-perception is non-existent.

I suggest we read all of the remarks in which Berkeley seems to saythat the mind is passive in sense-perception as statements of the viewthat God determines what we perceive when we perceive the wor ld .For example, when he writes in a letter to Johnson, [that] the soul ofman is passive as well as active, I m a k e no doubt, Works, II, 293)he should be taken to mean that the mind is passive in sense-perception,and perhaps in some other types of perception, in that it does notdetermine what ideas it is to have. And what about those texts in whichsensations are said to be imprinted on our minds? At D250 Berkeleyseems to say that all that he means when he says that sensations areimprinted on our minds is tha t the mind ... is affected from w i thou t ,or by some being distinct from itself.But in that case it can be thecase both that sensations are imprinted on our minds and t h a t themind is active in sense-perception. 3

There are two further difficulties for the view tha t the Berkeleianmind is active in sense-perception. The first arises from Berkeley'sclaim that there is no possibility of error in sense-perception.

I cannot err in matter of simple perception ... (PC 693.)[It is] a manifest contradiction to suppose ... [we] should err inrespect of ... what [we perceive] imm ediate ly ... (D 238.)

3 Jona than Dancy (op.cit., 134f.) mentions passages which provide addit ionalsupport for the view tha t sense-perception involve s m ental act ivi ty. B ut whateverpower I may have over my own thoughts, I find the ideas actually perceived bysense have not a like dependen ce on my will. (P29.) The ideas of sense areless dependent on the spirit that perceives them, in that they are excited by thewill of another and more powerful spirit ... (P33.) Dancy notes tha t P 2V maybe read as a llow ing th a t ideas perceived by sense arc somewhat dependent onour wills, and t h a t P33 may be read as suggesting tha t the sort of dependencewhich such ideas have on God's spir i t . A nd this fi ts well wi th the suggestionthat the h u m a n will has a role in the occurrence of sensations.




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l i r r o u r is not in th e u n d e r s t a n d i n g b u t i n y e Wi l l , w t I unde r s t andor perceive, t h a t I u n d e r s t a n d t h e r e can be n o e r rou r in this . (PC816;also PC740, 794.)

If w e c a n n o t err in sen se-percept ion, then the will m u s t not be involvedin i t : the mind mu st not b e ac t ive in sense-perception. B u t th is d i ff icul tyis not as se r ious as it may seem.

We m i g h t try to a rg u e as fol lows: PC816 i nd ica tes tha t the m i n d qua wil l isrespons ib le f o r e r ror, an d t h a t th e m i n d qua u n d e r s t a n d i n g is not responsible f o re r r o r. A n d th i s is comp at ib le w i t h h o l d i n g t h a t i f i t shou ld tu rn o u t tha t much, o reven < / / / percept ion involves the wi l l , t h e n w e can err in perception to the ex ten tt h a t t h a t is so. The t r o u b l e w i t h t h i s m a n e u v e r is t h a t i t is at odds wi th Berkeley 'sc o n f i d e n t d eclara t ion th at there i s no room for er ror in s imple perception or in immedia te percept ion , both of w hich inclu de sense-perception, w hatev er else theyinc lude .

A be t ter tack in deal ing wi th th is d i ff icul ty is as fo l lows. Al thoughe n t r y 816 says that the wil l and not the understanding is responsiblefor e r ro r, en t ry 821 says tha t Unders tanding is in some sort anAction. This ent ry , hard on the heels of 816, should at least give pauseto an y o ne w ho argues f or the complete passivi ty of sense-perceptionon the basis of an entry such as 816. One way to combine entr ies 816and 821 is to pos i t a sort of mental act ivi ty which is immune f romerror, e i ther because it does no t involve the will , and error resides inthe wil l , o r, more plausibly, because it involves th e will, but not in aw ay tha t pe rmits er ror. For w hi le B erkeley says that the will is respon-sible for e r ro r, he does not seem to commit himself to the view thatall opera t ions of the wil l are susceptible to error. And even if he wereso to commit himself , he ought to make an exception in the case ofthe opera t ion of the wil l in the occurrence of sense-perception. Thatundirec ted wi l l ing shou ld be immun e f rom error is not surprising: i t isfau l ty d i rec t ion , fau l ty judgm ent , tha t in t roduces er ror.

The second d i ff icul ty is this . B erkeley says th at the esse of u n t h i n k i n gt h ings is p r dpi (P3.) He is f r equen t ly taken to mean tha t an idea isident ical w i th i ts be ing perceived. B ut if ideas a re passive and perceptionis act ive, an idea can no t be identical w ith the perception of that idea.A n idea and the perceiving of an idea w ould seem to b elong in twoentirely d i f f e ren t categories. This d i ff icul ty could lead us into deepwaters and fa r f rom my present concern. Here I will merely point outthat B erkeley need not be unders tood to mean that an idea and its

being perceived are identical. Esse es t p r dpi may plaus ibly be takento mean that it is impossible for something (o ther than a spir i t ) to




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exis t un less it is perce ived . To talk of an idea is to ta lk of a perceivedidea. O n th i s reading esse s f percipi is consis tent with the view t h a tperception is active while ideas are passive.

To conc lude , I have defended the view that the Berkeleian mind isac t ive in sense-perception. This interpretat ion is not wi thout problems,but it seems the most reasonable way to cons t rue Berkeley s rem arks .There are but two al ternat ives . Ei ther the m ind is ent i re ly passive insense-perception or it is to some extent active. Neither reading isentirely sa t isfactory and both hav e some textual support . I f the m ind isent i re ly passive in sense-perception, then Berkeley s c ruc ial d is t inc t ionbetween minds and ideas r isks erosion and his close association if notou trig ht identific ation, of the existence of a spiri t w ith i ts perc eiv ing isundermined. On the o ther hand, the view that the mind is active insense-perception has to be defended against a n u m b e r of ob jec t ions ,inc luding those based on the denia l of blind agency, on passages inwhich the m i n d is said to be passive in sense-perception on the claimtha t w e canno t err in sense-perception, and on the c la im that an ideais ident ical with its being perceived. I suggest that these objections canbe answered.

It mig ht be asked if the question raised ab ou t se nse-perception inthis paper does not arise for ll perception. If there is a quest ion aboutw h e t h e r or not our m i n d s are active in perceiving ideas which G od

arouses in us, the.n i s there not a cor responding ques t ion about wheth eror not our minds are active in perceiving ideas w e arouse in ourselves,in m e m o r y or imaginat ion for example? Do memory and i m a g i n a t i o nsometimes involve undirected mental act ivi ty in two respects: first,in that the will produces certain ideas without being guided by theunders t and ing to do so, and second in t ha t our w reness even of ideaswhich w e ourselves produce involves undirected activity on our part?M y v iew is tha t if th is more general quest ion about all percept ionarises then what I say about sense-perception will bear on th is larger

question about perception in general .4

4 A n ear l ier version of t h i s paper was read at a conference on Berkeley in Oxfo rd .England in September, 1985. Comments from A. C. G r a y l i n g and C. C. W .Taylor helped m e to i m p r o v e it. I am also grateful to Char les McCrackcn . I anTipton K e n n e t h W i n k lc r, and the referees for, and e d i t o r o f, th i s journa l for

helpful suggest ions.



berkeley’s active mind

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