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Language and the structure of Berkeley's world / Kenneth L. Pearce

Author
Pearce, Kenneth L.
Published
Oxford, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2017.
Edition
First edition.
Physical Description
xiv, 218 pages : illustration ; 24 cm
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Contents
Machine generated contents note: The Problem: Structure -- The Solution: Language -- Aims and Methodology -- Summary of the Chapters -- 1.Berkeley's Attack on Meanings -- The Theory of Meanings -- The Dialectical Structure of Berkeley's Attack -- The Case against Abstraction -- The phenomenological appeal -- The impossibility of abstract ideas -- The uselessness of abstract ideas -- Conclusion -- 2.Berkeley's Early Thoughts on Language -- General Words -- Operative Language -- Mathematical and Scientific Language -- Arithmetic and algebra -- Geometry -- Physics -- Conclusion -- 3.Berkeley's Theory of Language in Alciphron 7 -- Overview of the Dialogue -- A General Theory of Language -- Meaning as Use -- Ideational and Operative Language -- Conclusion -- 4.Rules and Rule-Following -- Implicit and Explicit Rule-Following -- Rules and Knowledge -- The Conventional Rules of Language -- Inference Rules -- 5.Reference and Quasi-Reference -- Labeling -- Generalizing -- Labeling and Existence -- Quasi-Referring -- The Metaphysics of Quasi-Entities -- 6.Quasi-Referring to Bodies -- Against Materialist Semantics -- Bodies as Linguistic Constructions -- Alternative Interpretations -- Subjunctive interpretations -- Idea interpretations -- The Richness of Berkeleian Bodies -- Knowledge of Bodies -- Predication -- Existence, Reality, Identity -- 7.Referring to Spirits and Their Actions -- Referring to Actions -- Referring to Spirits -- Existence, Reality, Identity -- Conclusion -- 8.Assent and Truth -- The Nature of Assent -- Assent without ideas -- Scientific knowledge: Berkeley's anti-skepticism -- Religious faith: Berkeley's replies to Toland and Browne -- Partial assent -- The Nature of Truth -- Truth and usefulness -- Degrees of truth -- Holism -- Fit with reality -- Conclusion -- 9.The Linguistic Structure of Berkeley's World -- A Literal Language of Nature -- Visual language -- Other sense modalities -- Lexicography: Co-Instantiation -- Syntax: Causation and Laws -- Excursus on Common Sense and Natural Science -- Semantics -- Informing and instructing about ideas -- Informing about other finite minds -- Informing about God -- The interpretation of the discourse of nature.
Summary
According to George Berkeley (1685-1753), there is fundamentally nothing in the world but minds and their ideas. Surprisingly, Berkeley tries to sell this idealistic philosophical system as a defense of common-sense and an aid to science. However, both common-sense and Newtonian science take the perceived world to be highly structured in a way that Berkeley's system does not appear to allow. The author of this book argues that Berkeley's solution to this problem lies in his philosophy of language. The solution works at two levels. At the first level, it is by means of our conventions for the use of physical object talk that we impose structure on the world. At a deeper level, the orderliness of the world is explained by the fact that, according to Berkeley, the world itself is a discourse 'spoken' by God. The structure that our physical object talk aims to capture is the grammatical structure of this divine discourse. This approach yields surprising consequences for some of the most discussed issues in Berkeley's metaphysics. In Berkeley's view, physical objects are neither ideas nor collections of ideas.
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ISBN
0198790333 hardback
9780198790334 hardback
Bibliography Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 205-214) and index.
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