Berkeley's arguments against matter

Can Berkeley be refuted? Lewis said that his arguments were unanswerable.

A redated post.

C. S. Lewis rejects idealism

A tutor must make things clear. Now the Absolute cannot be made clear. Do you mean Nobody-knows-what, or do you mean a superhuman mind and therefore (we may as well admit) a Person? After all, did Hegel and Bradley and all the rest of them ever do more than add mystifications to the simple, workable, theistic idealism of Berkeley? I thought not. And didn't Berkeley's "God" do all the same work as the Absolute, with the added advantage that we had at least some notion of what we meant by Him? I thought He did. So I was driven back into something like Berkeleyanism; but Berkeleyanism with a few top dressings of my own. I distinguished this philosophical "God" very sharply (or so I said) from "the God of popular religion." There was, I explained, no possibility of being in a personal relation with Him. For I thought He projected us as a dramatist projects his characters, and I could no more "meet" Him, than Hamlet could meet Shakespeare. I didn't call Him "God" either; I called Him "Spirit." One fights for one's remaining comforts.

Keith Ward on the Impact of Kant

C. S. Lewis on idealism

It is astonishing (at this time of day) that I could regard this position as something quite distinct from Theism. I suspect there was some willful blindness. But there were in those days all sorts of blankets, insulators, and insurances which enabled one to get all the conveniences of Theism, without believing in God. The English Hegelians, writers like T. H. Green, Bradley, and Bosanquet (then mighty names), dealt in precisely such wares. The Absolute Mind—better still, the Absolute—was impersonal, or it knew itself (but not us?) and it was so absolute that it wasn’t really much more like a mind than anyone else….We could talk religiously about the Absolute; but there was no danger of Its doing anything about us…There was nothing to fear, better still, nothing to obey.

Surprised by Joy, pp. 209-210

C. S. Lewis and idealism

When you study the philosophical content of C. S. Lewis's work, as opposed to work in contemporary philosophy, one imporant thing to keep in mind is that Lewis came out of a philosophical climate in which Absolute Idealism was a major player, whereas in philosophy today it is relegated to the olde curiosity shoppe. This is a study of Lewis's philosophical journey, especially as it relates to absolute idealism.

A post on uk.religion.christian from Danielos Georgoudis on consciousness

This is a usenet post from Danielos Georgoudis in response to a thread I started, on why the problem of consciosness is so hard for materialists, and why it is something more than just a bump in the road for materialism.

DG: Well here are some of the reasons why consciousness can't be just
another property of material systems:
1. All other properties of material systems can be described in
materialist language; consciousness cannot. It's reasonable to claim
that if a problem cannot be described within a paradigm of thought then
it can't be solved either.

2. All other properties of material systems are directly or indirectly
observable; that is there are always some means to detect whether a
property is present - or at the very least somebody can propose some
speculative idea about how to detect the presence of that property in a
material system. No so in the case of consciousness. For example nobody
has any idea at all about how to measure whether frogs have conscious
experiences or not. Or whether salt crystals growing in brine have
them. Conversely nobody has any idea about how to measure that at death
a person's conscious experience is extinguished. Or that under
general anesthesia patients are not having conscious experiences (the
fact that when they wake up they don't remember having had them is
quite irrelevant).

3. Scientific thought is about explaining observations. The problem of
consciousness refers to the fact that we observe in the first place.
That's a different kind of problem. Nobody has any idea of how
scientific thought could by applied here.

4. There are several problems that science has not yet solved, e.g. how
life started, or how the human brain produces intelligent behavior.
These are hard problems and it may take a long time to solve them.
Still nobody really doubts that these are scientific problems or that
science can in principle solve them. Also there are many scientists
actively working in solving them. Not so in the case of consciousness.
Scientists are practical people; they won't use their time
investigating a problem nobody can cast in scientific terms. It's
materialist philosophers who must try to solve this problem, and they
are really stuck.

5. Contrary to all other material properties, conscious experience is
about quality rather than quantity. Nobody has any idea how one could
test that two people who are looking at the same red wall have a
conscious experience that is in any way similar.

6. In all other problems that science has encountered it was easy to at
least achieve consensus that the problem exists. Not so in the case of
consciousness; materialists cannot even agree whether consciousness
represents a problem for materialism or not. (Which is not surprising
considering that the problem of consciousness cannot even be described
in materialistic terms.)

The above is a rather quick and dirty exposition. The best book I know
about the problem of consciousness is David Chalmer's "Facing Up to the
Problem of Consciousness". Incidentally David Chalmers is considered
one of the brightest philosophers in the field of the philosophy of
mind. You can read more about him in the following wikipedia article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chalmers


It's interesting to compare the concept of consciousness with the
concept of God. Materialists famously point out that the hypothesis
that God exists is not required to explain any objective observation.
But, equally, the hypothesis that conscious experience exists is not
required to explain any objective observation either. If the former
fact is sufficient reason for believing that God does not exist, so
would the latter fact be sufficient reason for believing that conscious
experience does not exist, which would strike most people as absurd.
Actually there are a few people who go as far as to claim that
conscious experience does not *really* exist but is only an illusion
(whatever that exactly means in this context). Quite a few materialists
claim that free will does not exist - indeed the hypothesis that free
will exists is not necessary to explain any objective observation
either, and it's easier to deny that free will exist than to deny
that conscious experience exists. In any case materialism pushes people
into making claims that to most people sound absurd. Not a good sign.
It appears that materialism is incapable or producing a coherent
worldview. (Worldview is the set of all propositions one accepts as
true.) But theism can.

> Also, re the development of materialism, you'll know doubt be aware of
> many ancient non-dualistic philosophies/religions which have no problem
> seeng mind/body as one and not transcendent/imminent.

I think the most powerful worldview is not based neither on materialism
nor on dualism, but on idealism. Contrary to what many people believe
idealism is fully compatible with science and technology (actually in
simplifies the scientific endeavor) - and is also fully compatible with
theism.