Berkeley on Divine Archetypes
Melissa Frankel
*DRAFT*NOT MEANT FOR CIRCULATION*
Introduction
George Berkeley writes in his Dialogues that he “acknowledge[s] a twofold state of
things, the one ectypal or natural, the other archetypal and eternal[.] The former was created in
time; the latter existed from everlasting in the mind of God.”1 On a straightforward
interpretation of this passage, Berkeley is making the claim that divine ideas, that is, the ideas
that God perceives, are the archetypes or originals of the ideas that we finite minds perceive.
The term ‘archetype’ is generally used to stand in for ‘that of which our ideas are copies’ or
perhaps ‘that which our ideas are meant to represent’- this is at least how Berkeley uses the word
when attacking the representative realist’s archetypes.2 So we perceive ectypal ideas that are
copies of, or meant to represent, God’s archetypal ideas; that is, the objects that human
perception is ultimately aimed at are not the ectypal ideas that we in fact perceive, but the
archetypal ideas that those ectypes represent. In other words, the ‘straightforward interpretation’
suggests that Berkeley is committed to an indirect theory of perception.3 But this is problematic
because Berkeley thinks that it is precisely by being committed to a direct theory of perception
that he undermines the possibility of scepticism. Noting that indirect perception opens up the
possibility of being mistaken about whether or not the ideas that we perceive accurately represent
their representative objects, he writes:
1
Dialogues p.254
See, e.g., Principles §§87, 90, Dialogues pp.204, 206, etc.
3
This, for instance, is how Johnson interprets Berkeley. He summarizes the view as follows: “The divine idea,
therefore, of a tree I suppose (or a tree in the divine mind), must be the original or archetype of ours, and ours a copy
or image of His (our ideas images of His, in the same sense as our souls are images of Him) of which there may be
several, in several created minds, like so many several pictures of the same original to which they are all to be
referred,” Works p.286.
2
What a jest is it for a philosopher to question the existence of sensible things, till he hath it proved to
him from the veracity of God: or to pretend our knowledge in this point falls short of intuition or
demonstration? I might as well doubt of my own being, as of the being of those things I actually see
and feel.4
We can also see this problem as a textual difficulty: Berkeley consistently claims that when we
perceive (presumably ectypal) ideas, we directly perceive the world – when combined with the
thesis that we directly perceive ideas, this leads to the idealist metaphysic on which the world is
constituted of those ideas that we perceive, and that we thus perceive the world as it really is.5
But if what we directly perceive are ectypal ideas that represent divine archetypes, then surely
we should not think of the ectypal ideas as constituting the world – their archetypes would be a
much better candidate. Similarly, if we wanted to know what the world is really like, then surely
we should not consult our own ideas, but the divine ideas, since those are more likely to
constitute the world as it really is.
1. The problem of indirect perception
There are at least three responses that one could make to this problem: first, one could
dismiss these remarks on archetypes as not representative of Berkeley’s considered view;
second, one could argue that Berkeley does not object to indirect perception per se, but only to
indirect perception when coupled with materialism; and lastly, one could offer a competing
interpretation of the passages on archetypes. I will begin by considering the first two responses;
I will then offer my own response, which is a version of the third.
4
Dialogues p.230
So, e.g., at Dialogues p.229 he writes that “the real things are those very things I see and feel, and perceive by my
senses,” which clearly indicates that he is committed to the view that we directly perceive the ideas that constitute
the world (‘real things’); similarly, at Principles §87 he writes that “Colour, figure, motion, extension and the like,
considered only as so many sensations in the mind, are perfectly known, there being nothing in them which is not
perceived,” i.e., when we restrict ourselves to our ideas, we can have knowledge of what there is and what it is like.
Note that he continues this passage as follows: “if they are looked on as notes or images, referred to things
or archetypes existing without the mind, then are we involved all in scepticism. We see only the appearances, and
not the real qualities of things.” This reinforces the claim that indirect perception leads to scepticism.
5
1a. Dismissal
One response to the problem outlined here is to dismiss Berkeley’s talk of archetypes as
either off-hand remarks, or as not part of his considered view.6 The latter tactic is sometimes
taken when it comes to passages from the Notebooks, where Berkeley seems to flirt with
positions that he later abandons. So, for example, in the Notebooks Berkeley seems to profess an
adherence to a bundle theory of mind, whereas in the published writings Berkeley is fairly
clearly committed to a substance theory; commentators on this issue tend to argue that we should
take only the remarks in the published works to be indicative of Berkeley’s considered view.7
But this is not a tactic that we can take with respect to Berkeley’s remarks on divine archetypes,
since those do appear in the published works (as in the passage from the Dialogues with which
we are here concerned.) So perhaps we can take the former tactic, of dismissing them as offhand or unreflective remarks – especially in light of the fact that Berkeley seems only rarely to
make them, and is sometimes ambivalent when he does make them. For instance, when Johnson
characterises divine ideas as archetypes, Berkeley responds to this as follows: “I have no
objection against calling the ideas in the mind of God archetypes of ours.”8 This is far from a
ringing endorsement.9 On the other hand, although the passage from Dialogues p. 255 is one of
the few places where Berkeley directly discusses divine archetypes, nonetheless there are a
number of places in the published works where Berkeley makes passing or tacit references to
archetypes in a way that further suggests that he may indeed have been committed to their
existence.10 So, for instance, at Principles §9 Berkeley writes that “extension, figure and motion
are only ideas existing in the mind, and that an idea can be like nothing but another idea, and that
6
See Brykman, Dancy
Though some commentators argue that his view did not actually change; see Muehlmann and maybe Daniel
8
Works p.292
9
Daniel (2001) goes so far as to write that this remark to Johnson is only “half-hearted” (246).
10
Of course I leave out here the numerous passages where he makes references to material archetypes.
7
consequently neither they nor their archetypes can exist in an unperceiving substance.”11 And in
a later passage in the Principles, Berkeley seems tacitly to be referring to divine archetypal ideas
when he writes that “whoever shall reflect, and take care to understand what he says, will, if I
mistake not, acknowledge that all sensible qualities are alike sensations, and alike real; that
where the extension is, there is the colour too, to wit, in his mind, and that their archetypes can
exist only in some other mind” (presumably, the Divine Mind).12 So in fact there is quite a bit of
evidence from the published works that Berkeley was comfortable referring to divine ideas as
archetypes.
1b. Indirect perception + x
A second response would be that it is not the indirect theory of perception alone that
undergirds the possibility of scepticism, but rather, an indirect theory of perception in
combination with certain other claims. So, e.g., Malebranche’s theory of perception has it that
the intelligible idea of extension represents material bodies but is not caused by those same
material bodies (this follows from Malebranchean occasionalism, i.e., his claim that no finite
thing, but only God, can be a genuine efficient cause.) The sceptical problem here might be taken
to arise from the causal thesis, and not the claim about indirect perception: given that material
bodies do not cause our idea of extension, it is possible that we should continue to have that idea
11
My emphasis. See also Principles §45, Dialogues pp.204, 214, 240, 248 for passing references to archetypes.
Now it is possible that in these and similar passages Berkeley means only to commit himself here to the conditional
claim that if ideas have archetypes, then they cannot be material archetypes, but must exist in a mind. But this is not
what he says in these passages.
12
Principles §99. This passage, among others (e.g., Dialogues pp.214, 240) has been taken as evidence that
Berkeley appeals to divine perception to underwrite the persistence of objects. In a similar passage at Dialogues
p.239, Berkeley flirts with using the term ‘archetypes’ (though he pulls back from this). Berkeley’s interlocutor
Hylas argues that our ideas must have some external source: “That we are affected with ideas from without is
evident; and it is no less evident, that there must be (I will not say archetypes, but) powers without the mind,
corresponding to those ideas.” In response to this, Philonous does not argue that Hylas is wrong, but only that the
thing in which these archetypes inhere cannot be a material entity. I discuss these passages below, in §3.
while those material bodies ceased to exist.13 Or, e.g., Locke’s theory of perception has it that
simple ideas represent qualities in the world, and that some of those simple ideas (ideas of
primary qualities) resemble the world while others (ideas of secondary qualities) don’t – this is
the so-called ‘resemblance thesis.’ Here we might think that the sceptical problem arises only
from the resemblance thesis, since (perhaps) if all ideas resembled their objects, then we should
have no worry about whether or not our ideas accurately represented the world. Finally, one
might think that the problem is simply the combination of an indirect theory of perception with
materialism: it is not the existence of archetypes, but the existence of material archetypes –
archetypes that can exist unperceived by any mind – to which Berkeley objects.
Let me start with Malebranche. It is true that Berkeley argues against Malebranchean
materialism on the grounds that occasionalism leaves material bodies explanatorily inert – that is,
Berkeley primarily focuses on the lack of a causal connection between material bodies and our
ideas in his attack on Malebranche. On the other hand, it is not occasionalism per se that
Berkeley finds problematic in Malebranche’s philosophy; after all, Berkeley agrees with
Malebranche that only spirits can be causally active, although he does suggest that Malebranche
goes too far, and that finite spirits can be genuine efficient causes.14 So it is not the causal thesis
that Berkeley objects to, but rather, the combination of the causal thesis with the materialist
thesis: it is only when we add material bodies into the picture that we get the problem of
scepticism. And indeed, Berkeley typically does not attack occasionalism per se, but rather,
attacks Malebranche on the relation between occasionalism and materialism. Consider, e.g.,
Indeed, Malebranche explicitly says as much at Dialogues 1.5: “on the supposition that the world is destroyed and
that God nonetheless … presents to our mind the same ideas that are produced in the presence of objects, we would
see the same beauties.” This is at least in part related to the causal thesis: the ideas are ‘produced in the presence of
objects,’ not caused by objects.
14
He is committed at least to the view that finite spirits can be the causes of some of their own ideas, namely, ideas
of imagination and of volition – see e.g. Principles §28. Some commentators argue that he was also committed to
the view that finite spirits can be the causes of the ideas that constitute the motions of their bodies (e.g. McDonough
(2008)) but I will not argue this point here.
13
Dialogues p.220, where Berkeley argues variously that occasionalism renders bodies
explanatorily superfluous, that occasionalism combined with materialism might detract from
God’s omnipotence, and – perhaps most importantly for our purposes – that occasionalism does
not rationally justify a belief in material substance:
[I ask] whether, in case I granted all you contend for, it would make any thing to your purpose, it not
being easy to conceive how the external or absolute existence of an unthinking substance, distinct
from its being perceived, can be inferred from my allowing that there are certain things perceived by
the mind of God, which are to Him the occasion of producing ideas in us. 15
None of this suggests that Berkeley objects to occasionalism, just that he objects to materialist
occasionalism. Of course, this supports the final suggestion, above, that Berkeley’s problem is
not with indirect perception per se, but with indirect realism; I will come back to this point.
Meanwhile, with respect to Locke, Berkeley does indeed think Locke’s resemblance
thesis is problematic. He repeatedly attacks the Lockean distinction between ideas of primary
qualities and ideas of secondary qualities.16 On the other hand, Berkeley also seems to think that
it is the mere distinction between ideas and the world, and not the addition of the resemblance
thesis, that has the objectionable sceptical consequence. After all, as soon as we posit an
ontological distinction between what there is and what we perceive, this leaves open the
possibility that the two objects differ, i.e., that what we perceive is not like what there is. In
Principles §87, e.g., Berkeley writes that
“if they [ideas] are looked on as notes or images, referred to things or archetypes existing without the
mind, then are we involved all in scepticism. We see only the appearances, and not the real qualities of
things. What may be the extension, figure, or motion of any thing really and absolutely, or in it self, it
is impossible for us to know, but only the proportion or the relation they bear to our senses. Things
remaining the same, our ideas vary, and which of them, or even whether any of them at all represent
the true quality really existing in the thing, it is out of our reach to determine. So that, for aught we
know, all we see, hear, and feel, may be only phantom and vain chimera, and not at all agree with the
real things, existing in rerum natura.”
15
This is not an explicit attack on Malebranche for being a sceptic, though it does come close. Berkeley does claim
that Malebranche is committed to a kind of scepticism at Dialogues p.213, but in this passage he does not explicitly
link Malebranche’s supposed scepticism to his occasionalism ... Note also the way in which this passage echoes the
passage from Malebranche’s Dialogues 1.5, quoted above.
16
See, e.g., his perceptual relativity arguments at Principles §§10-15
That is, it is the distinction between ‘appearances’ and ‘real qualities’ that is problematic,
because this on its own underlies the possibility of systematic misperception. Looking to Locke’s
resemblance thesis as underlying the possibility of scepticism is not completely misleading, since
the resemblance thesis does tell us that in some cases (secondary qualities / ideas of secondary
qualities), the way things appear does not resemble the way things really are. But what one
might say is that the resemblance thesis is made possible through the original distinction between
what there is and what we perceive.
That said, there are texts where Berkeley suggests that the problem with archetypes is not
that they exist at all, but that some people suppose them to be capable of existing independently
of minds. Indeed, the passage above, from Principles §87, alludes to this point: Berkeley does
not attack the distinction between ideas and their archetypes without qualification; he attacks the
distinction between ideas and their archetypes ‘existing without the mind.’ Moreover, he
continues the passage as follows:
All this scepticism follows, from our supposing a difference between things and ideas, and that the
former have a subsistence without the mind, or unperceived. It were easy to dilate on this subject, and
shew how the arguments urged by sceptics in all ages, depend on the supposition of external objects.
Now it does seem that the problem that Berkeley earmarks in this passage does not depend on
the archetypes being specifically material. After all, as I mentioned, it seems to follow merely
from the distinction between ideas and their archetypes that ideas can systematically differ from
those archetypes. Nonetheless, in this passage at least, Berkeley seems to think that materialism
– ‘the supposition of external objects’ – is at the root of the problem.17 But why think this? Here
we might consider Berkeley’s so-called likeness principle, that ideas can only be like other ideas,
We can find other, similar passages, e.g., at Principles §86: “this which, if I mistake not, hath been shewn to be a
most groundless and absurd notion, is the very root of scepticism; for so long as men thought that real things
subsisted without the mind, and that their knowledge was only so far forth real as it was conformable to real things,
it follows, they could not be certain that they had any real knowledge at all.”
17
hence can never be like – never resemble – material archetypes.18 Berkeley is perhaps leaning on
this principle to argue that it is not indirect perception in general that is problematic, but rather,
the more specific view that we indirectly perceive material objects via ideas that represent them,
since the likeness principle rules out that ideas can represent material objects. What this suggests
is that Berkeley might be able to allow for indirect perception just so long as there is no
possibility that the objects of immediate perception can differ systematically from their
archetypes. That is, he might be able to allow for indirect perception of divine archetypes just in
case the likeness principle does not rule out human ideas being like divine ideas. And on the
face of it, it ought not to: for ideas to be like material objects would violate the principle that
ideas can only be like other ideas; but for ectypal ideas to be like archetypal ones seems not to
violate that principle, since they are both ideas.
Now, I do think that this is something implausible about this claim that indirect
perception is acceptable in the case of divine archetypes. After all, as I have noted, Berkeley
writes that on his view there is no danger of scepticism because “the real things are those very
things I see and feel, and perceive by my senses.”19 But if the ‘things I see and feel’ are supposed
to represent ideas in God’s mind, then one might wonder to what extent they really constitute
‘the real things.’ Otherwise put, if our ideas are ectypes, it might seem that “we see only the
appearances, and not the real qualities of things.”20 That said, it is worth considering whether in
fact the likeness principle allows for ectypal ideas to represent divine archetypes, as it seems
prima facie to do. In what follows, I will consider some different interpretations of Berkeley’s
argument for the likeness principle in order to see whether the reasoning that Berkeley applies
In this case Locke’s resemblance thesis errs, not in positing that secondary quality ideas do not resemble
secondary qualities in the world – Berkeley thinks this is necessarily true, given the likeness thesis – but in positing
that primary quality ideas do resemble their material causes, which is impossible, given the likeness thesis. texts??
19
Dialogues p.229
20
Principles §87
18
for thinking that ideas can never resemble material archetypes generalizes to the case of divine
archetypes; I want to argue that, for varying reasons, Berkeley should think that it does, and so
that in fact an ectypal idea cannot be like an archetypal one.
2. Archetypes and the likeness principle
Now, one reading of the likeness principle has it that this involves a straightforward
ontological claim, that an immaterial entity can never be like a material entity simply by virtue of
their ontological status.21 If this is Berkeley’s reason for thinking that ideas can’t accurately
represent material objects, then the reasoning is not transferrable to the case of divine archetypes,
since those are ideas, as are the things meant to represent them: so there is no problem about our
ectypal ideas being like them. That said, this reading of the likeness principle attributes to
Berkeley a failure to distinguish between the vehicle of representation and the representative
content; the principle of charity thus speaks against attributing it to Berkeley.22 Moreover,
Berkeley does provide some reasons to think that immaterial things cannot be like material
things, so we need not attribute to him this failure. The problem is that each of these reasons
seems to generalize in such a way that it precludes ectypal ideas from being like archetypal ones.
Consider, for instance, that Berkeley argues that whereas ideas are fleeting, material
things are not, and offers this as a reason to think that ideas cannot be like material things: “How
then is it possible, that things perpetually fleeting and variable as our ideas, should be copies or
images of anything fixed and constant?”23 But if this is Berkeley’s reasoning for thinking that
ideas can only be like other ideas, then the principle cannot be extended to include archetypal
21
See e.g. Stoneham (2003) - although Stoneham does gesture at other readings as well
Note though that there are possible historical precedents for this kind of view... E.g. Gassendi worries about
Descartes, that his ideas cannot represent extended things because the ideas are not extended, and something
unextended can’t be like something extended... how if at all is this different from the claim that something
immaterial can’t be like something material?
23
Dialogues p. 205
22
ideas, as those are just as ‘fixed and constant’ as material objects – after all, archetypes “existed
from everlasting in the mind of God.”24
In his Notebooks, meanwhile, Berkeley indicates that the reason that immaterial things
cannot be like material things is not due merely to their ontological status, or to the fleeting
nature of ideas versus material things, but rather to their status as possible objects of comparison.
He argues that immaterial things cannot be like material things because we cannot compare the
two, writing that “Two things cannot be said to be alike or unlike till they have been compar’d,”
and also that “Comparing is the viewing two ideas together, & marking what they agree in &
what they disagree in”25 (i.e., we cannot compare ideas with material things, but only ideas with
other ideas.)26 Ken Winkler has used these texts to support an ‘epistemological’ reading of the
likeness principle, on which for any x and y, we cannot justifiably assert that x is like y unless
we are capable of comparing them and observing this resemblance; since we can only compare
ideas, it follows from this that ideas can only be like other ideas.27 We can find some further
support for this reading of the principle at Principles §86, where Berkeley writes that indirect
realism leads to scepticism because we cannot know whether our ideas are like the material
world: “for how can it be known, that the things which are perceived, are conformable to those
which are not perceived, or exist without the mind?”
24
Dialogues p. 255. We can see some clues as to why Berkeley thinks that fleeting, variable ideas cannot be like
constant, fixed entities at Dialogues p. 206: “our ideas are continually changing upon every alteration in the
distance, medium, or instruments of sensation; how can any determinate material objects be properly represented or
painted forth by several distinct things, each of which is so different from and unlike the rest.” Here Berkeley seems
to be relying mostly on the variability of ideas, that is, on their perspectival nature, to argue that they cannot be like
aperspectival material entities. Here again we can see that the reasoning will generalize to rule out likeness between
ectypes and archetypes, since divine archetypes are surely also aperspectival. This line of reasoning is perhaps a
version of the metaphysical argument, which I discuss below.
25
Notebooks §378, lines 16 and 17, respectively
26
Similarly, at Notebooks §51 Berkeley writes that “A man cannot compare 2 things together without perceiving
them each, ergo he cannot say any thing which is not an idea is like or unlike an idea.”
27
Winkler (1989)
So suppose that we read the likeness principle as epistemological in this way. Note that
on this reading, there is indeed a problem for divine archetypes. Just as we cannot perceive
material archetypes directly in order to compare them with our ideas, so too it seems that we
cannot perceive divine archetypes directly in order to compare them with our ideas – after all,
divine archetypes are only the (direct) objects of divine perception, and not the (direct) objects of
finite perception. And if it is not possible to compare divine archetypes with our ectypal ideas,
then it is not possible either to assert a likeness between them. That is, we can plausibly alter the
above passage from the Principles slightly, as follows: “how can it be known, that the things
which are perceived by us, are conformable to those which are not perceived by us, but perceived
by God?” That is, Berkeley’s reasoning, if epistemological, would support a more specific
version of the likeness principle – not just that ideas can only be like other ideas, but that ectypal
ideas can only be like other ectypal ideas.28
Another standard reading of the likeness principle is Phillip Cummins’ ‘metaphysical’
reading, on which Berkeley’s argument is that in order for two things to be alike, they have to be
determinates of the same determinable.29 Cummins leans on Principles §8, where Berkeley
writes “I appeal to anyone whether it be sense, to assert a colour is like something which is
invisible; hard or soft, like something which is intangible; and so of the rest.” Here we might
take Berkeley to be suggesting that in so far as (e.g.) material colours are supposed to be
28
Todd Ryan (2006) offers another reading of the likeness principle that also focuses on the problem of comparison,
but in a slightly different way. Ryan notes that likeness is a relation, and that for Berkeley, relations are mental acts
of comparison. Given that relations are acts of comparison, and given that resemblance is a relation, it follows that
“a necessary condition of two things resembling one another is that they either are or have been the objects of a
mental act of comparison. If one can compare only what one directly perceives, and the only thing one directly
perceives are one’s own mind-dependent ideas, it follows that an idea cannot resemble an unperceived material
object, because only ideas can stand in a relation of resemblance,” p. 16. On this reading, too, there is a problem
with thinking that ectypal ideas are like archetypal ones – and for similar reasons as on Winkler’s epistemological
reading: we can only directly perceive ectypes – ‘one’s own mind-dependent ideas’ – and so only ectypal ideas ‘can
stand in a relation of resemblance.’
29
See Cummins (1968)
reducible to the motions of material corpuscles / particles,30 they share no features in common
with sensed colours – indeed, plausibly our use of the same word ‘colour’ to refer to both of
these things is misleading. (This recalls Locke’s resemblance thesis.)31
Suppose that we read the likeness principle as metaphysical in this way. One might
wonder then whether Berkeley’s ectypal ideas could in this sense be like archetypal or divine
ideas: could they share sufficient features such that they could plausibly be thought of as
determinates of the same determinable – could even be referred to by the same word? Here it is
instructive to think about the case of pains, which Berkeley characterises as among our ideas of
sense.32 If our ectypal ideas are like divine archetypal ideas, then our pain-sensations must
somehow be copies of pains in God’s mind. In the third Dialogue, Berkeley is concerned with
precisely this point; he grapples with the thought that if God perceives all the ideas that we finite
beings perceive (though perhaps in archetypal form), then this implies that God perceives – i.e.,
feels – pain. But “that God ... can Himself suffer pain, I positively deny,” he writes, since that
would mean that “there is an imperfection in the Divine Nature.”33 This does not lead him to
argue that there are no archetypal pain-ideas – after all, this would be incompatible with divine
omniscience. Instead, he seemingly argues that God’s pain-ideas do not require God’s suffering.
The passage is a significant one, so I will reproduce a large part of it here:
That God knows or understands all things, and that He knows among other things what pain is, even
every sort of painful sensation, and what it is for His creatures to suffer pain, I make no question. But
that God, though He knows and sometimes causes painful sensations in us, can Himself suffer pain, I
positively deny ... God, whom no external being can affect, who perceives nothing by sense as we do,
whose will is absolute and independent, causing all things, and liable to be thwarted or resisted by
nothing; it is evident, such a being as this can suffer nothing, nor be affected with any painful
sensation, or indeed any sensation at all. We are chained to a body, that is to say, our perceptions are
Or perhaps the powers of those motions to produce certain ideas in us, depending on how one reads Locke’s
claims about secondary qualities in Essay II.viii
31
see also Dialogues pp.182-3, where Berkeley remarks with incredulity that material sounds are supposed to be
unheard, because they are reducible, again, to the motions of corpuscles.
32
See Dialogue 1 in particular, where Berkeley consistently argues that many of our ideas of sense are just like, and
perhaps even identical to, pains and pleasures.
33
Dialogues p. 240
30
connected with corporeal motions ... But God is a pure spirit, disengaged from all such sympathy or
natural ties. No corporeal motions are attended with the sensations of pain or pleasure in his mind. To
know every thing knowable is certainly a perfection; but to endure, or suffer, or feel any thing by
sense, is an imperfection. The former, I say, agrees to God, but not the latter. God knows or hath
ideas; but His ideas are not convey'd to Him by sense, as ours are. Your not distinguishing where there
is so manifest a difference, makes you fancy you see an absurdity where there is none. 34
There are a number of points of interest in this passage. We see here that Berkeley denies that
God suffers pain, not because he denies that God has the idea of pain, but because he thinks that
God’s idea of pain is not like ours. This is already problematic for the argument that ectypal
ideas are like archetypal ideas – but we can deepen the problem in two ways. First, note that
Berkeley’s contention here does not seem to be merely that human pains are somewhat unlike
God’s pains, which would leave open the possibility that they share some features in common. It
seems, rather, that he must hold that human pains are wholly unlike divine pains. After all, one
might reasonably think that it is essential to human pains, that they be felt – that is, that ectypal
pains are not really distinct from ectypal acts of perceiving pain.35 But then if God’s having pain
does not involve God’s feeling it, then the divine idea is essentially unlike ours, which absolutely
cuts off the possibility of appealing to the likeness principle to ground the relationship between
ectypes and archetypes. And second, note that it is evident from the above passage that Berkeley
thinks that this point about pains can be generalized to all other ideas. Human ideas, Berkeley
points out at numerous points in his texts, are sensory. Indeed, for Berkeley, they are essentially
sensory – it is this fact that allows us to trust the testimony of sense. As Berkeley notes, “a
cherry, I say, is nothing more but a congeries of sensible impressions, or ideas perceived by
various senses” and also “take away the sensations of softness, moisture, redness, tartness, and
you take away the cherry.”36 In the passage on pains, he notes that the sensory nature of ectypes
34
Dialogues pp. 240-241
This point underlies the contention that Berkeley denies that there is a distinction between acts and objects of
perception (see e.g. Reid, Moore, Tipton, Pitcher.)
36
Dialogues p. 249
35
is partly due to humans being corporeal: we are not wholly active beings, but rather, our
corporeal nature means that we are passive with respect to sensory perception. Divine ideas, on
the other hand, cannot possibly be so sensory, because God is not so corporeal: divine “ideas are
not convey’d to Him by sense, as ours are.”37 But if this is right, then it seems to cut off the
possibility of claiming that ectypal ideas can be like archetypal ones in so far as they can share
features.
The nonsensory nature of divine archetypes thus reinforces the worry that Berkeley is not
only committed to an indirect theory of perception, but that this theory will embroil him in
precisely the same kind of scepticism that he sees as following from materialism. This point is
made particularly acute in a passage from Principles §40, where Berkeley argues that
materialism leads to scepticism because
That what I see, hear and feel doth exist, that is to say, is perceived by me, I no more doubt than I do
of my own being. But I do not see how the testimony of sense can be alleged, as a proof for the
existence of any thing, which is not perceived by sense. We are not for having any man turn sceptic,
and disbelieve his senses.
The problem with materialism that Berkeley is earmarking here is that we can have no evidence
of ‘the existence of any thing, which is not perceived by sense.’ But the passage on divine pain
shows that precisely the same problem arises for divine archetypes, since they, too, are not
‘perceived by sense.’ That is, if indirect realism leads to scepticism because our sensory ideas
cannot be taken as evidence of the existence of anything nonsensory, then the view on which we
indirect perceive divine archetypes leads to scepticism for precisely the same reason.
This has led a number of commentators (Jacquette 1985, Roberts forthcoming) to argue that God’s perception is
intellectual and not sensory. I take this reading to be problematic for a number of reasons; in this paper I restrict my
argument to the claim that it is problematic because it embroils Berkeley in an indirect perception problem, but see
Frankel (forthcoming) for further arguments.
37
3. The third response: rereading the passages on archetypes
I have argued that we cannot easily dismiss Berkeley’s remarks on archetypes as not
representative of his considered view; I have also argued that even if it is not indirect perception
per se that Berkeley is objecting to when it comes to materialism, but some other element of the
materialist view (namely, that our ideas cannot be like material objects), nonetheless a parallel
objection can be made for the case of divine archetypes, and so that Berkeley’s remarks on
archetypes remain problematic on these two responses. At this point I want to consider a third
possibility, namely, that the ‘straightforward’ reading of the archetype passages, on which divine
archetypes are the originals of which our ectypal ideas are copies, ought to be abandoned. I will
first mention a competing interpretation, on which divine archetypes are reread as being
numerically or qualitatively identical to ectypes; I will then offer my own reading, on which
divine archetypal ideas turn out to be identical to divine causal powers.
3a. Archetypes and ectypes are identical
Some commentators, in puzzling about divine archetypes, have concluded that they must
in fact be identical – either numerically or qualitatively – to ectypes.38 This view is sometimes
motivated by the problem about indirect perception that I have outlined, but it is more often
motivated by readings of Berkeley on which he underwrites the continuous existence of objects
by appealing to continuous divine perception of the ideas that constitute those objects. Typically
Berkeley is read as claiming either that (i) since objects persist even when we do not perceive
them, it follows that some other mind (the Divine Mind) must be perceiving them in those
E.g. Jacquette (1993) who writes of “God's infinite mind as the repository of all ideas constituting identical
sensible things” (456) and “the identical archetypes of sensible things contained in God's mind” (457). Note that
this is not the same as dismissing the talk of archetypes altogether, but it does involve a reinterpretation, since if
archetypes and ectypes are identical then the latter is not a copy of the former except in a very trivial sense.
38
intervals when we do not;39 or, perhaps more modestly, that (ii) we can make sense of objects
persisting when we do not perceive them if we note that God exists and can perceive them when
we do not. On either of these readings, it seems that Berkeley is committed to at least the
possibility that God perceives all of the same ideas that we finite minds perceive.40
There is a hidden tension in the view that God and human beings perceive the same ideas
– one that can be brought out by reconsidering the passage on divine pain. Given that ectypal
ideas are essentially sensory, it seems that God and human beings must perceive qualitatively
identical ideas – else they would not count as being the same ideas at all. Recall Berkeley’s
characterisation of the cherry as “nothing more but a congeries of sensible impressions, or ideas
perceived by various senses;”41 if the continuous existence of the cherry is guaranteed by God’s
perceiving the ideas that constitute it, then arguably God perceives that ‘congeries of sensible
impressions.’ But we have seen that Berkeley claims that divine ideas are all nonsensory,
because God is noncorporeal. It seems then that Berkeley cannot be appealing to a view on
which God and human beings perceive qualitatively identical ideas.
But it is not plausible either to argue that God and human beings perceive qualitatively
distinct ideas. Either those qualitatively distinct ideas are also numerically distinct – which
returns us to the straightforward reading of archetypes – or they are numerically identical. If
they are numerically identical,42 then it looks like one would have to say that one and the same
idea could be both sensory and nonsensory – presumably, sensory in some aspect, but
nonsensory in another, where human beings perceive the sensory aspect of the idea and God the
nonsensory aspect. This is untenable because it leads to a knowledge problem: there is
This is the so-called ‘continuity’ argument for God’s existence.
If God perceives any of them, then God must perceive all of them, since God is omniscient.
41
Dialogues p. 249
42
And I am not sure how they could be numerically identical but qualitatively distinct, given that human ideas are
essentially sensory – but let me put this aside for the moment
39
40
something about the idea that God does not know, namely, its sensory aspect. But God is
omniscient, so there is nothing that God does not know; so our ideas cannot be numerically
identical to but qualitatively distinct from God’s ideas.43
3b. Archetypes as divine powers
I do not want to argue against the view that divine perception is somehow supposed to
underwrite the continuous existence of objects. There are a number of texts in which Berkeley
seems to assert just this, e.g., at Dialogues p. 212, where he writes that “sensible things do really
exist [that is, they exist independently of us]: and if they really exist, they are necessarily
perceived by an infinite mind: therefore there is an infinite mind, or God.”44 I also don’t want to
deny that God and human beings have the same ideas. If divine ideas are different from human
ideas, then we are back to the straightforward reading of archetypes, on which Berkeley is
committed to an indirect perception theory with all of its attendant difficulties. On the other
hand, the problem of God’s suffering means that one can’t straightforwardly assert that God
perceives numerically and qualitatively the same ideas that we human beings perceive. So what
I want to do now is to assert this claim nonstraightforwardly – I want to suggest that for
Berkeley, God does perceive numerically and qualitatively the same ideas that we do, but that
the term ‘perceive’ cannot be understood univocally when referring to human and divine
perception. Specifically, I want to claim that whereas human perception is passive or receptive,
divine perception is active – hence, for Berkeley, divine perception is not really distinct from
divine causation. When Berkeley talks of divine archetypes, what he really is referring to is
God’s constant causal power, which underwrites the possibility of human sensory perception.
43
Note that this problem does not arise for the straightforward interpretation of archetypes. If archetypes are the
originals of, hence numerically distinct from, ectypes, then Berkeley can argue that God’s knowledge is perfect just
in virtue of God’s having archetypal ideas, and that having ectypal ideas is a deficient form of perception /
knowledge, so that God’s lack of those ideas is not problematic.
44
We can find similar passages at Dialogues pp. 214-215, 230-231, 240
I will not argue for this view at length here.45 What I want to do primarily is to show
how well this interpretation accords with the passages on archetypes. First I would note that a
number of texts confirm that Berkeley identifies archetypes with divine powers. Consider, for
instance, from Dialogues pp. 214-215:
these ideas or things by me perceived, either themselves or their archetypes, exist independently of my
mind, since I know myself not to be their author, it being out of my power to determine at pleasure,
what particular ideas I shall be affected with upon opening my eyes or ears. They must therefore exist
in some other mind, whose will it is they should be exhibited to me.
Here Berkeley is indicating that the distinction between finite ideas and archetypal ideas is
not a numerical or qualitative distinction, but a distinction in their source: since I (a finite
mind) find that I am not the cause of my sensory ideas, since they are not under my control
– that is, I cannot determine whether or what ideas I will have when I open my eyes, nor
can I subsequently control the contents of those ideas – it follows that those ideas are
caused by some other mind. That is, Berkeley’s claim here that archetypes “exist
independently of my mind” is not a claim that they are perceptually independent of my
mind but just a claim that they are causally independent. Or again, at Dialogues p. 239,
Berkeley writes,
That we are affected with ideas from without is evident; and it is no less evident, that there must be (I
will not say archetypes, but) powers without the mind, corresponding to those ideas. 46
Here Berkeley shies away somewhat from using the term ‘archetype,’ but the point is clear:
in so far as ideas are independent of human minds, this is a causal independence; when we
use the term ‘archetype’ to refer to a divine idea, we are not drawing a distinction between
the nature or content of human ideas versus divine ones, rather, we are drawing attention to
this causal independence. That is, archetypes are not numerically or qualitatively distinct
45
See Frankel (forthcoming) for some more detailed argumentation
As I point out in a note, above, this passage appears in the mouth of Hylas, Berkeley’s materialist interlocutor.
That said, in what follows this passage, Berkeley does not deny that there are archetypes in the sense that Hylas has
it, but just that those archetypes are material.
46
ideas – indeed, archetypes in some sense are not ideas at all, but rather, ‘powers without
the mind.’ Lastly, consider that in his Notebooks, when discussing the persistence of
objects (which, we have seen, is related to his views on archetypes) Berkeley writes that
“Bodies etc do exist even wn not perceiv'd they being powers in the active Being,”47 and
also that “Bodies etc do exist whether we think of 'em or no, they being taken in a twofold
sense. Collections of thoughts & collections of powers to cause those thoughts.”48
Compare this to Berkeley’s claim at Dialogues p. 254, that he “acknowledge[s] a twofold
state of things, the one ectypal or natural, the other archetypal and eternal;”49 we might say
that the ectypal or natural state of things is as ‘collections of thoughts,’ whereas the
archetypal and eternal state of things is as ‘collections of powers to cause those thoughts.’
Beyond the texts that provide (I think) clear support of my reading of Berkeleyan
archetypes as divine causal powers, there are also some texts in which Berkeley does not
explicitly link the two points. But none of these texts are decisive. Consider, for instance,
the passage from Dialogues p. 254 on the twofold state of things, where Berkeley goes on
to say that archetypes “existed from everlasting in the mind of God.” Berkeley’s reference
to the existence of archetypes in God’s mind here is ambiguous between their existence as
divine percepts or their existence as divine powers (notice, e.g., that Berkeley does not here
say that God eternally perceives archetypes.) So at the very least the passage is consistent
with my reading; moreover, if one stresses the similarities between this passage and the
47
Notebooks 52
Notebooks 282, my emphasis. See also 293: “The twofold signification of Bodies viz. combinations of
thoughts & combinations of powers to raise thoughts. These, I say, in conjunction wth homogeneous
particles, may solve much better the objections from the Creation. than ye supposition that matter does exist
upon wch supposition, I think, they cannot be solvd” (my emphasis) and 293a: “Bodies taken for Powers do
exist wn not perceiv'd but this existence is not actual. wn I say a power exists no more is meant than that if in
ye light I open my eyes & look that way I shall see it i.e ye body &c.” Although we might not take any
particular entry in the Notebooks to be a statement of Berkeley’s considered views, these entries in
combination with the passages that I have already cited seem to me fairly decisive.
49
my emphasis
48
one from the Notebooks reproduced above, one might even take it to be suggestive of my
reading. Similarly, at Dialogues p. 248, Berkeley writes “[you may] suppose an external
archetype on my principles; external, I mean, to your own mind; though indeed it must be
supposed to exist in that mind which comprehends all things.” Again, this talk of the
existence of archetypes is ambiguous between their existence as percepts and existence as
powers. Moreover, in so far as this passage seems to invoke the claim that ideas exist
independently of finite minds (they are ‘external … to your own mind’) to underwrite the
existence of archetypes, it recalls Berkeley’s earlier claim that “these ideas or things by me
perceived, either themselves or their archetypes, exist independently of my mind, since I
know myself not to be their author”50 – and in so doing, again suggests that Berkeley has
causal independence in mind here.51
4. Some concluding remarks
I have argued that a straightforward reading of Berkeley’s remarks on divine
archetypes, on which those archetypes are the originals of which our ectypal ideas are
copies, is problematic because it commits Berkeley to an indirect theory of perception,
which cannot be overcome by appeal to such bridging principles as the likeness principle.
I have further claimed that reading archetypes as identical to ectypes is also troubling, in so
far as (on the view that divine perception is just like human perception) it either embroils
Berkeley in a problem about divine suffering, or it creates a knowledge problem. In
response to this, I have claimed that we should read Berkeley as thinking that archetypes
are divine causal powers to produce sensory ideas in us. This gets rid of the indirect
perception problem, in so far as the objects of divine causation and human perception are
50
Dialogues p. 214
The only problematic texts for my purposes, I think, are the ones in which Berkeley seems to deny divine blind
agency. But this is beyond the scope of the present discussion.
51
identical; it also avoids the problems of divine suffering and a lack of divine knowledge, in
so far as God can cause pain without feeling it, and lacks no knowledge in virtue of lacking
sensory perception. Finally, I argue that my reading accords with the texts on archetypes.
Indeed, passages from the Notebooks, in which Berkeley talks of a twofold existence of
objects (on the one hand, as bundles of sensations, and on the other hand, as bundles of
powers to produce those sensations) indicate quite clearly that Berkeley has divine powers
in mind when he refers to archetypes in the later writings.