Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Much Ado About a Mite
Berkeley argues for his idealism from the relativity of perception. He compares the size of a mite's foot as seen by the mite itself, by a human and by some smaller microorganism. What, exactly, is the argument? Is the argument successful? If not, how do we resist the sucking of all so-called primary qualities into the mind?
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ReplyDeleteWith his analogy of the mite, Berkeley claims two things: that the perception of all the qualities that constitute an object is relative to the perceiver, no matter if it’s a primary or secondary quality, as categorized by fellow philosopher John Locke, and that the external, materialist world is non-existent.
ReplyDeleteJohn Locke believes that there is a primary and secondary quality distinction in the properties of an object. Primary qualities are properties of an object independent of the observer/perceiver, while secondary qualities produce sensations in the mind and are qualities of an object perceived only in the mind of the perceiver. Berkeley fights this claim through his analogy of the mite, by arguing that primary qualities such as size, shape, and figure are all really secondary qualities as well, and that the distinction of qualities Locke articulates is all rubbish. Berkeley calls this notion idealism, the belief that claims that the only things that exist are minds and ideas, and qualities one might’ve thought constituted as part of an object actually reside in the mind rather than in the object itself. He proves idealism by rejecting Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities of an object, and ultimately proves the non-existence of a physical world and material substance.
From the perspective of the person about to squish the mite, the mite’s foot is really really tiny. However, from the perspective of a tiny microorganism, the size of the mite’s foot is ginormous. Berkeley would immediately call this absurd: how can an object have contradicting and incompatible qualities? How can a foot both be large and tiny? Thus, Berkeley proves that size, a primary quality, is all relative to the perceiver, as with all other properties pertaining to an external object. By proving the relativism of perception, Berkeley can then conclude that material substance is non-existent. Due to the relativism of perception for each individual, it is then impossible to have a single object which contains all of these diverse qualities and ideas. Thus, there is no external object that can underlie all qualities and ideas perceived by different individuals, and therefore the physical, material world is non-existent. All objects are ideas rather than physical objects, and are all relatively perceived by a mind.
Berkeley argues that an object can have more than one opposing characteristic at once. In this instance of a mite, the foot is perceived as giant by the mite, but small to the human. The mite is perceived as tiny by the human, but normal to the mite. The perception of an object is only relative to the one perceiving it. I think this argument is successful. A single object cannot be completely characterized as, for instance, big or small because it would depend the size of the thing perceiving it. As a human, it isn't true to represent an object as small as other living things may perceive it as big based on their size. The perception of ones viewing of an object's size is a secondary quality. This means that the object can be perceived in multiple ways depending on the viewer's size relative to the object. This is the same with sound, taste, etc. The mind perceives these characteristics in different ways as what my tastebuds perceive as good, someone else's may perceive as bad. Primary qualities cannot be argued. If there is a cubical house, one cannot argue that the house is spherical. It is a known fact that the house is cubical, therefore the perception would be primary. Yes, one object can have multiple perceptions based on the viewer. This argument is completely successful as the perception of an object is relative to the viewer. A human doesn't have the right to call something universally big or small, it is just their opinion based upon their own views. In a community of midgets, one may be perceived as tall in their community, but compared to other humans as a whole, they are small. This argument is successful.
ReplyDeleteBerkeley's argument with the mite is that the mite appears to itself as normal. The mite to something smaller appears large and the mite to something larger appears tiny. The takeaway here is that Berkeley believes that size is relative and thus in the mind since to believe something is both big and small is an absurdity. However Berkeley makes an enormous mistake in trying to conclude that size is a secondary quality off of this.
ReplyDeleteUnlike something like taste which has no objective way of being quantified or define (at the moment), the dimensional size of things can be quantified. Similarly, while hot and cold are unable to be defined in units, the property that gives rise to them, temperature, can be. If we choose an arbitrary scale and create a unit label we can define everything no matter the scale and thus compare things relative to each other. If we make the unit of measurement a mite-size, everything will still fall into order of height. Whereas the condition of hot and cold, when we change the instrument of measurement, the spectrum falls apart - things that are hot might not be hot to something else. However, the temperature of things from any scale still remains constant, things that are hotter than something else won't become colder just because we changed the measuring tool.
We can still preserve the primary qualities, as long as a certain quality's position on a scale isn't modified when we change our tool of measurement, the quality is primary. This method of identification thus preserves the primary qualities of the world while still not resulting in any absurd arguments. If we use this metric we will realize that Berkeley made absolutely no arguments regarding the dimensions of an object but merely arguments of large and small. I feel Berkeley did a horrible job overall in his attempts to destroy the primary qualities and left too many holes as the only way he was able to reduce primary qualities into secondary qualities was by completely changing the meaning of these primary qualities. Using my conception of how to delineate between primary and secondary, we can resist idealism while not falling into the absurd contradictions total realism crashes into.
The argument that Berkeley is attempting to make is essentially stating that perception can depend on different opinions. The mite may see the foot of the human to be "ginormous" but the human may see his/her own foot as "teeny-weeny". This being said he is bringing a whole new factor of perception and opinion into the philosophical world. Before, most philosophers would speak generally for the whole world, kingdom, town, etc. But now, Berkeley is starting to speak individually by saying that he himself may see things differently then somebody else might. Let's bring in the common example of a glass of water. If half the water is gone, is it half empty, or half full? Berkeley might say the glass is half full, given that he see that the water is closer to the top then the bottom. But, say Berkeley's friend comes over and says that it is half empty because he thinks that the water is closer to the bottom of the glass. Now, mathematics would prove one of them right, but in the situation of the mite, you cannot measure perception. The mite analogy is a good lead-in for the subject of opinion and perception. It brings in the view of two objects who see the same item, but fell differently about it. In philosophy, there can be situations with perception being different with other people. Some people might disagree of what a color looks like, or what a warbler sound like, but it is okay because that is just the way that humans are. And regardless of what philosophy can solve, there will always be differences in perception.
ReplyDeleteIn making this argument, Berkeley is trying to prove that the size of an object is a secondary quality, meaning that it exists in the mind of the perceiver and is not inherent to the object. The example with the mite’s foot shows that according to two different observers, the foot is both ginormous and teeny weeny, at the same time. This is clearly an absurdity, much like his example to prove that heat and coldness are perceptions as well.
ReplyDeleteHowever, what Berkeley fails to consider, is the fact that we can also objectively measure size. This is the entire reason that we have units of measurement – to determine how large an object is, without any doubt. Even if the human and the microscopic being perceive the mite’s foot to be different sizes, they can both agree on the measurement of the foot; that will never change, no matter the perspective.
So, Berkeley’s argument still holds in one sense, although there is a way around it. It is definitely true that there is an aspect to size that depends on the viewpoint of the observer, and this characteristic can vary wildly. I mean, we all know that the moon isn’t actually like one inch tall, even though that’s what it looks like from our perspective. Berkeley, with his argument, has proven that there is a secondary characteristic of objects, its relative size, but this stems from the primary characteristic of the object, its actual size. In fact, this argument seems to support moderate realism, in that there is the primary quality of size, and this size leads to a secondary quality. Berkeley fails to use this argument to support idealism, but there is merit in the example, when applied to moderate realism.
Descartes makes quite the interesting argument here. He goes on to claim that everything in reality is simply a creation of our mind. He wants to try to convince us that everything is simply a perception, our interpretation of something. By proving this, he wants to prove Idealism, the thought that everything is simply in our minds, that is, all primary qualities of an object are in our mind. He does this by first proving it with size. The first premise is to say that size is relative. If I look down at a tiny mite, I will think that his legs are very small compared to mine. A microorganism on the other hand will perceive the mite’s legs as being ginormous. So, we can say that size is relative. If size is relative, we can say the mite’s legs are both big and small. However, it is impossible for something to have to opposing properties (according to Berkeley, must like if water seems warm to one hand and cold to the other, the property of heat is in the mind). Berkeley extends this argument to say that everything is only because we perceive it that way. So, the question arises, is there anything that is absolute? Is there anything that is not relative? Is there some intrinsic property that everyone will agree on? Up until about 100 years ago, the answer would have been no. However, Einstein managed to come along and show that this is not the case. According to the second postulate of special relativity, all perceivers will measure the same speed of light in a vacuum. Let us think for a moment, if you and your friend are standing 100 feet away from each other and your friend throws a baseball at your face at 50 mph, you’re going to measure the ball traveling at 50 mph. However, if you’re running away at a rate of 10mph, you will measure the ball traveling at 40 mph (50-10 = 40). In this sense, speed is relative, but not for the speed of light. If instead of a baseball, your friend fired a laser at you, you would always measure the laser traveling at the speed of light, regardless of your speed. This amazing fact shows that there is in fact one thing that is not simply perception. This probably doesn’t destroy the rest of Berkeley’s arguments that use idealism, but it does show that idealism is not 100% true.
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