ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on the Idealism of Berkeley. Idealism cannot state its case without assuming Realism by the way. Space permitting, it might be argued at length that Bishop Berkeley confounds the having a sensation with the knowledge of having a sensation. Unconsciously doing homage to the principle that the fewer times the Universal Postulate is assumed, the more certain is the conclusion, he professes to recognize that only which is immediately perceived—that which involves but one assumption of the postulate; and declines to recognize the mediate perceptions which involve it more than once. For if the notion of self be made up of those impressions of self received through the senses, then it is a manifest corollary that the infant’s earliest perceptions must be unaccompanied by any notion of self; seeing that there at first exist no materials out of which that notion can be formed.