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Tue 24 Mar, 2009 04:18 pm
this is my brief attempt at understanding the misunderstanding of Russell with regards to Berekly's idealism.
Russell, in his book "the problems of philosophy", Criticized Berekly's theory of "idealism" on the grounds that he confused the "act" of apprehension with the "object" of apprehension. however, Russell achieves this by using a different understanding of "sense data", than the one he discusses in the same book.
Because sense data is the immediate “object” of my awareness, the distinction between the act of apprehension and the object of apprehension cannot be made. If I were to make such a distinction, it would be between the sense data and the "content" of the sense data, the nature of which is unknown. Because sense data and its contents cannot be proved to be distinct, the making of such a distinction is an assumption, or the understanding of “sense data” must be different from the one Berekly uses.
it is only brief but could anyone tell me whether it is roughly the right idea.
There are several good summaries of Russell's position with respect to Berkely's idealism to be found on Google. One of them concludes:
Quote:The practice of analytic philosophy emerges in view of Russell's analysis of what we mean by "idea" or "know." Like modern day ordinary language philosophers, Russell focuses on the role that the words at issue play in the lives of their ordinary speakers. His analysis, especially in the case of Berkely's idealism, escapes philosophical confusion by exposing the tendency to be misled by the grammatical form of a question or phrase. In so doing, he gains meaningful insight about the structure of the world through the structure of language
This transcends your point about whether Russell was correct or not about Berkely's usage of "sense-data" ( a
technical term) by taking a Wittgensteinian position (post Russell) that much philosophical "argument" is nebulous when "normal language goes on holiday". Russell accuses Berkeley of taking the word "
idea" ( an
everyday term) on holiday by using
it in an exotic/ inappropriate location.
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