Q&A: Berkeley and Kant
Berkeley and Kant
Question
Good evening!
Kant wrote that he had no interest in dealing with Berkeley’s hypothesis because it was nonsense. I would like to argue that, as I understand it, they are both saying the same thing in different words and concepts—of course, according to my own formulation of how I understand them (even though they did not phrase it exactly this way, this seems to me to be the gist of it):
After all, Berkeley’s claim is that although everything is phenomena, still that which bears our cognition is the consciousness of God. And seemingly the reason he was forced to add the divine element is that he understood that we are not the source of our consciousness, and therefore we did not create ourselves, so necessarily God is the underlying subject. On the other hand, Kant’s claim is that there must necessarily be noumena, since we are not the source of the phenomena—in other words, we did not create ourselves.
That is, both agree that there is no place for the object-in-itself as something we directly apprehend, and both agree that we require an object that contains / created us, except that Berkeley calls it God and Kant calls it noumena.
So if so, isn’t this the same cloak in a different cloak (of course, according to my analysis)?
Thank you very much!
Answer
If in your view this is only a change of name, then you are right. But it isn’t a change of name. Kant thought there is an external world, and Berkeley thought there isn’t.
Discussion on Answer
The question whether the difference that exists is important or not is up to the observer. There’s nothing to discuss here.
Indeed, but the question is whether I am right in my analysis?
I don’t see any significant analysis here. You are claiming that some difference is not significant. Good for you.
I mean, am I right that these are the questions that troubled them?
Yes, but that seems obvious to me.
Obviously Kant holds that there is an external world and Berkeley does not, but my claim is this:
A. In any case, Kant’s noumenon has no meaning, since there is no access to it; so what difference does it make whether it is a world-in-itself that is responsible for our existence or a transcendent God (of course, aside from religion—rather, conceptually)?
B. My main claim is that, without noticing it, they are circling around and troubled by the same questions (that we did not create ourselves, and that there is no way to get outside the subject), and they arrive at the same essential answers with only a slight cosmetic change.
That is, my main claim is that when you analyze the arguments deeply, you discover that they are not really two such different systems, but simply that they did not define very well what troubled them (though of course, in part they did)?