Baxter’s Prefatory Remarks
on Berkeley’s Philosophy
1. “… it seems impossible that a man
should be seriously persuaded that he
has neither country nor parents, nor any
material body, nor eats, or drinks, nor
lies in a house, but that all these things
are mere illusions, and have no
existence but in fancy.”
2. Baxter’s own arguments for the
existence of God are based on premises
concerning the inertia, motion &
cohesion of matter. “… if the
conclusions [of those arguments] be
solid, this itself will be a weighty
argument against [Berkeley’s] scheme.”
Problems with Baxter’s First Remark
 Berkeley did not deny the existence of
any of the things Baxter listed — he just
considered them to be either spirits or
collections of ideas rather than material
things.
 Berkeley did not consider any of the
things Baxter listed to be mere illusions
or to exist only in his imagination — he
just considered them to either be spirits
or to exist only “in” the mind of some
spirit, i.e., only insofar as they are
perceived
Problems with Baxter’s Second Remark
 Baxter commits the fallacy of affirming
the consequent. If we grant the
conclusions of his arguments, it does
not follow that we have to accept their
premises.
 Berkeley was able to provide for the
truth of claims concerning the inertia,
motion, and cohesion of matter by
reducing those claims to claims about
laws governing the manner in which
ideas follow one another over time.
Nothing in Berkeley’s philosophy is
inconsistent with any of the principles of
physics.
Baxter’s Parity Argument
The same considerations that Berkeley
invoked to deny the existence of matter can
be invoked to deny the existence of spirit.
Berkeley’s Argument:
We perceive only our own ideas.
None of these ideas is a material substance.
No property of a material substance could be like
any of our ideas.
Any talk of material substances must be either
contradictory or meaningless.
Baxter’s Paired Argument:
We perceive only our own ideas.
None of these ideas is a spiritual substance.
No property of a spiritual substance could be like
any of our ideas.
Any talk of spiritual substances must be either
contradictory or meaningless.
Problems with Baxter’s Parity Argument
 Baxter allowed for an exception:
intuitive self-consciousness
Baxter considered this exception to drive
Berkeley into solipsism.
He didn’t appreciate that once you grant that we can have
a direct or immediate consciousness of the existence of
our own minds, you have given Berkeley all he needed to
claim that we can form some extra-ideational concept of
minds and spiritual causes, and so infer the existence of
other minds as causes of our ideas of sense.
Baxter’s Attempt to Deepen the Problem
Berkeley not only denied that we can have
any ideas of spirits, but also that we can
have any ideas of the active properties of
spirits (perceiving or willing).
So nothing having to do with spirit should
ever have come into our minds.
(The same neglect of Berkeley’s appeal to
intuitive self-consciousness occurs here.)
A further attempt to deepen the problem
Berkeley’s claim that we have no ideas of
perceiving or willing is based on the
assumption that we can only have ideas of
things that can be pictured or imaged
(“painted in the imagination”)
But then it should follow (wrongly) that we
can have no ideas of virtue, justice, or truth,
as well as no idea of spirits or activities.
Baxter’s Principal Objection
A review of the argument of Principles 1-4:
Principles 1: The objects of human
knowledge are ideas.
[Principles 2: In addition to ideas, we
recognize the existence of spirits.]
Principles 3: An idea cannot exist apart
from being perceived by some spirit.
So, all the objects of human knowledge are
things that cannot exist apart from being
perceived.
Principles 4: Three rhetorical questions
asked in response to those who
would hold the strangely prevalent
opinion that things continue to exist
unperceived.
Baxter took the rhetorical questions of
Principles 4,
rather than the argument of Principles 1-3,
to be Berkeley’s initial “two line
demonstration” of his thesis.
This allowed Baxter to charge Berkeley with
“sleight-of-hand reasoning”
(because Principles 4 insinuates, rather than proves,
that we only perceive our own sensations)
The sleight of hand is not present in
Principles 1-3
(Principles 1 is explicit in asserting all we
perceive are our own sensations.)
Nonetheless, Baxter’s criticism is forceful:
It is question-begging to simply assert that
we perceive nothing but our own
sensations.
Baxter’s Alternative Account
Sensations are effects brought about in us
by objects acting on our sense organs.
We do not automatically perceive
these effects
(though we can bring ourselves
to do so through a subsequent
“reflex act” of self-consciousness)
Instead we perceive objects through
our sensations.
e.g., perceiving a wall in the dark by
means of the interrupted motion of a
stick
In this case, I do not perceive the
motion of the stick; I perceive the
wall.
In any act of perception there are two
objects
the sensation, which passes
unnoticed and can only be recalled
by a reflex act
the proper object, which causes the
sensation and is perceived by means
of the sensation
So the assertion of Principles 1 is false.
The objects of human knowledge are
not just ideas impressed on the
senses, ideas formed by reflection
on the operations of the mind, and
ideas formed by memory and
imagination.
They are also external objects.
A Berkeleyan Reply
All that we immediately perceive is our
sensations.
Objects are at best inferred as
external causes of our sensations.
But there is no way of conceiving
these supposed causes that is not
either contradictory or empty.
(Proving this requires appeal to
arguments Baxter neglects, esp. the
likeness principle.)
Baxter’s Argument against Berkeley’s
Minima theory
According to Berkeley, nothing smaller than
the minimum visibile can exist.
So a million-millionth part of a minimum
visibile cannot exist (it must be 0)
But 1012 x 0 = 0.
So a minimum visible cannot exist.
Baxter’s error
A minimum visible is a smallest possible
part. You cannot assume it is composed of
yet smaller parts without begging the
question by presuming infinite divisibility.
[A variation on Baxter’s Argument]
Suppose a minimum visible is a smallest
possible part.
Then either it has unit magnitude or it has
no magnitude.
If it has unit magnitude, then it is
divisible (because any positive
quantity of magnitude, e.g., the unit,
1, is divisible into ½’s)
If it has no magnitude, then it does
not exist.
[An answer]
Minima do not compose an extension
through addition of their magnitudes (they
have none), but through being disposed at
immediately adjacent locations.
Though a minimum visible has no
magnitude, it is not nothing because it has
colour (or tangible quality) and location.
A Further Argument
Where do solidity and figure exist?
There seem to be only three answers:
in themselves (not “in” anything else)
in material substances (as their
properties)
in ideas (as their properties)
The first answer turns solidity & figure into
matter, the second into properties of matter.
The latter answer entails that there are
solid, figured ideas. But this is “monstrous.”
(Baxter does not say why.)
An Objection to Baxter’s Position
God could have given us the same ideas
we are having now without having created a
material world.
So we can have no assurance that he
actually did so.
Baxter’s Reply
The laws of nature are laws concerning the
behaviour of matter, not laws concerning
the behaviour of ideas in God’s mind.
(Baxter again shows his ignorance of Berkeley’s
philosophy of science, according to which laws of
nature describe regularities in the succession of
ideas.)
But it is inconsistent with the “reason and
truth” of God that he should …
… make us concerned to discover laws
concerning the behaviour of something that
does not exist …
… by giving us ideas in such a way as to
trick us into believing it does exist, …
and so perpetrate a massive hoax.
Further Replies
 If God can deceive us in this way about
the existence of material things, he can
similarly deceive us about the existence
of other minds.
In that case:
When we are tempted by others to do
wrong, it is God alone who tempts us.
(and why shouldn’t he if he deceives
us in other things?)
We have less reason to refrain from
wrongdoing, because we have no assurance
that there is anyone else who actually
suffers from our deeds.
The fact that an all-good being would not tempt us to
evil is the best argument for the existence of other
minds.
It is, moreover, an argument that is not available to
us to prove the existence of unthinking stuff.
 We have less reason to accept the
design argument for the existence of
God if the world around us is just a
collection of ideas.