What could Berkeley have said about Johnsons refutation?

Yes. Context,context,context. But can we escape from our "modern context" and get at "the historical context" ?

Internet Enc. Phil.

While this may well be true, I think Fresco is playing a slightly different game. I think he dishes out statements that are deliberately obscure and incoherent so that coherent minds can't understand him and he can taunt them for "not getting it". That's what he gets his kick out of.

But that doesn't mean we need to give him this kick. Not getting it is perfectly fine when there is nothing to get in the first place. For us to understand Fresco's position and disagree with it, it would have to be intelligible first. But it isn't. In my opinion, Fresco's arguments have a loooong way to go before they rise to a level were we can listen to them and say: "Boy, that's just dead wrong!" For my part, then, I actually take pride in saying that I haven't got a clue what fresco is talking about. So what? Neither does he.

Sorry I am not servicing your stated "recreational goal". Unfortunately some concepts in modern philosophy are counter-intuitive and require a little intellectual effort on the part of would be recipients to break away from their mental conditioning which could be said to be epitomized by their usage of terms such as "wrong". I have provided at least one YouTube catalyst to help get some of these ideas over. It's obviously up to you whether you follow it. There are many such catalysts available.

See what I mean, Joe?

Point well taken. I suppose I shouldn't have said that I understand fresco's position. What I should have said is that I "understand" it. So much of fresco's "position" is set off by quotation marks, connoting a "private" "language," that "one" is hard-pressed to "determine" exactly "what" is being "asserted" and what "is" not. "I" would "agree," then, that "fresco" doesn't understand "his" "own" position, "but" that "doesn't" exclude "the" possibility "that" "he" "understands" "it."

Well that's certainly an improvement relative to overt pugilism !

BTW:If you are free on the first Tuesday in February you are cordially invited to a meeting of my local philosophy group at which I have been asked to lead a discussion of the cited Magee-Dreyfus interview. Alternatively if you post me your queries in advance I can put them to the meeting, and report back on the answers.

Pass.

So disagreeing with Fresco is now pugilism? Who knew?

A historical context requires a modern context. When a historian attempts to account for what actually happened, they rely on prevalent primary source documents of the time, as well as any pertinent secondary source documents that pertain to the subject, as well as a proper method (whatever that may be) in order to answer the question at hand.

I don't think any historian tries to escape modern context. At least I don't when I deal with history. Or when I do mathematical modeling. Separating the two is fallacious and foolish. It's like saying, "let's check out this ferromagnet and ignore it's hysteresis curve". You can't.

After this post, I'm done with this thread. Joe best answered the question, given the members on this site. Enough with the digressions, "transcendence", and desolate theism.

Sorry to see you go.
You seem to have lost focus on the OP requirement to hypothesize what Berkeley might have said. I have suggested from a postmodernist perspective why that might be a futile exercise. What you think mathematical modelling has to do with that point escapes me.

Now there's an analogy I've got to remember.