The subjective idealism of Berkeley and Hume

Among the many philosophical systems that recognize the primacy of the spiritual principle in the world of material things, the doctrines of J. Berkeley and D. Hume stand out somewhat apart, which can be briefly described as subjective idealism. The prerequisites for their conclusions were the works of medieval scholastics-nominalists, as well as their successors - for example, D. Locke's conceptualism, which states that the general is a mental distraction of the often recurring signs of various things.

Based on the positions of D. Locke, the English bishop and philosopher J. Berkeley gave them his original interpretation. If there are only isolated, single objects and only the human mind, catching repetitive, inherent in some of them properties, allocates objects into groups and calls these groups by any words, then we can assume that there can be no abstract idea based on properties And the qualities of the objects themselves. That is, we can not imagine an abstract person, but thinking "man", we imagine a certain image. Consequently, abstractions in addition to our consciousness do not have their existence, they are generated only by our brain activity. This is subjective idealism.

In his work On the Principles of Human Knowledge, the thinker formulates his basic idea: "to exist" means to be "perceived". We perceive an object with our senses, but does this mean that the object is identical with our sensations (and ideas) about it? Subjective idealism of Berkeley states that by our sensations we "model" the object of our perception. Then it turns out that if the subject does not feel the cognizable object in any way, then there is no such object at all - as there was no Antarctica, alpha particles or Pluto in the time of J. Berkeley.

Then the question arises: was there anything before the appearance of man? As a Catholic bishop, J. Berkeley was forced to abandon his subjective idealism or, as it is also called solipsism, and move to the position of objective idealism. Infinite in time, the Spirit had in mind all things before the beginning of their existence, and he gives them to us to feel. And out of all the variety of things and order in them, one has to conclude how God is wise and good.

British thinker David Hume developed the subjective idealism of Berkeley. Proceeding from the ideas of empiricism - cognition of the world through experience - the philosopher warns that our operation with general ideas is often based on our sensory perceptions of single objects. But the subject and our sensuous idea of it are not always the same. Therefore, the task of philosophy is a study not of nature, but of the subjective world, of perception, of feelings, of the logic of man.

The subjective idealism of Berkeley and Hume had a significant influence on the evolution of British empiricism. It was used by the French enlighteners, and the installation of agnosticism in the theory of knowledge of D. Hume gave impetus to the formation of Kant's criticism. The position of the "thing-in-itself" of this German scientist formed the basis of German classical philosophy. F. Bacon's epistemological optimism and D. Hume's skepticism later led philosophers to think of "verification" and "falsification" of ideas.