Russell, Bertrand Arthur William 3rd, Earl, 1872-1970 / 2008-11-06 00:00:00
Thus, by an unconscious equivocation, we
arrive at the conclusion that whatever we can apprehend must be in our
minds. This seems to be the true analysis of Berkeley's argument, and
the ultimate fallacy upon which it rests.
This question of the distinction between act and object in our
apprehending of things is vitally important, since our whole power of
acquiring knowledge is bound up with it. The faculty of being
acquainted with things other than itself is the main characteristic of
a mind. Acquaintance with objects essentially consists in a relation
between the mind and something other than the mind; it is this that
constitutes the mind's power of knowing things. If we say that the
things known must be in the mind, we are either unduly limiting the
mind's power of knowing, or we are uttering a mere tautology. We are
uttering a mere tautology if we mean by '_in_ the mind' the same as by
'_before_ the mind', i.e. if we mean merely being apprehended by the
mind. But if we mean this, we shall have to admit that what, _in this
sense_, is in the mind, may nevertheless be not mental. Thus when we
realize the nature of knowledge, Berkeley's argument is seen to be
wrong in substance as well as in form, and his grounds for supposing
that 'ideas'--i.e. the objects apprehended--must be mental, are found
to have no validity whatever.
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