Sublime

Berkeley’s argument consists of two parts. On the one hand, he argues that we do not perceive material things, but only colours, sounds, etc., and that these are “mental” or “in the mind.” His reasoning is completely cogent as to the first point, but as to the second it suffers from the absence of any definition of the word “mental.” He relies, in

deductive and inductive arguments,

a man defines himself by his make-believe as well as by his sincere impulses.

Berkeley, as we have seen, thinks that there are logical reasons proving that only minds and mental events can exist. This view, on other grounds, is also held by Hegel and his followers. I believe this to be a complete mistake. Such a statement as “there was a time before life existed on this planet,” whether true or false, cannot be condemned on

“The existent,” he says, “is the being which is compatible with the most things.”

Contradictory propositions do not merely go against one another. They unsay one another. They cancel one another out. The only logical way to read a writer who rejects the law of noncontradiction, who freely and openly contradicts himself, is mentally to insert the words, “or not” after each of his sentences.

utilitarian

The only logic admitted by the Greeks was deductive, and all deduction had to start, like Euclid, from general principles regarded as self-evident. Timon denied the possibility of finding such principles. Everything, therefore, will have to be proved by means of something else, and all argument will be either circular or an endless chain hanging fr

The first of the suggested definitions, and the only one that I shall consider, is set forth by Theaetetus in the words: “It seems to me that one who knows something is perceiving the thing that he knows, and, so far as I can see at present, knowledge is nothing but perception.” Socrates identifies this doctrine with that of Protagoras, that “man i