Berkeley's Active Mind

by Robert McKim (Urbana)

In section 139 of the Principles Berkeley tells us that "a soul or spirit
is an active being, whose existence consists not in being perceived, but
in perceiving ideas and thinking/' Berkeley appears to say here that it
is qua perceiving and thinking being that the soul or mind is active. It
seems that the mind is active in perception. This is suggested also by
remarks of Philonous in the Dialogues "[the mind is] a thinking
active principle that perceives, knows, wills and operates about ideas"
(D233) and by many other passages (e. g. PC437a, 673, 808, 821,
829, 848, 854, 870-1; P2, 27, 28, 89, 148; D231).
1
The existence of the
Berkeleian mind is said to consist in percipere, in perceiving. He
constantly says that spirits are active. It seems that perception must be
active.
Berkeley also tells us that sensations are passively received by our
minds and that in sense-perception the mind is passive. "[You] are,"
Philonous tells us in the Dialogues, "in the very perception of light and
colours altogether passive ..." (D197.) At P33 he writes of "[the] ideas
imprinted on the senses by the Author of Nature." The view that in
sense-perception ideas are stamped or inprinted on the mind is one
which Berkeley expresses at many points in his writings (e. g. PC301,
378.10-11, 645; P74, 90; D235, 250).
In this paper "PC" stands for the Philosophical Commentaries* "PC" is followed
by the number of the entry in the Commentaries to which I am referring. I follow
George Berkeley, Philosophical Commentaries, ed. George H. Thomas (Mount
Union College: Alliance, Ohio, 1976) in presenting the entries. The reader should
know that entries in PC which have "a" after a number (e. g. 37a) were added
by Berkeley some time after he wrote the surrounding entries. So PC38 was
probably written at the same time as 37, or shortly afterwards, but we have no
way to tell how much later 37a was written. This is one of many factors that
makes it hard to trace Berkeley's development. "P" stands for The Principles of
Human Knowledge. "P" is followed by the number of the section in that work
to which I am referring. "D" stands for Three Dialogues Between Hylas and
Philonous. "D" is followed by the number of the page in The Works of George
Berkeley, ed. A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop, Vol. 2 (London, 1949) to which 1 am
referring.
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336 Robert Mc Ki m
Berkel ey emphasizes the activity of the mind when he is concerned
with the differences between minds and ideas (e. g. PC706; P27, 89,
139, 142; D231). His emphasis on the passivity of the mind in sense-
-perception is central to his case for God's being the source of our
sensations of the world. But it is one thing to recognize Berkeley's
reasons for making the claims he does about the activity and passivity
of the mind, and quite another to explain what exactly those claims
amount to. And that is what I wish to discuss.
I take it as uncontroversial that Berkeley thought that mental activity accompanies
sense-perception. He may have thought this to be so in two distinct respects. First,
we can vol untaril y arrange the circumstances in which our sensations are received.
For example, one can pluck a tulip, hold it to one's nose, inhale, and so on. But
all of this is prior to, and distinct from, the smelling of the tulip (D196f, also
PC672a). Second, Berkeley may also say that mental activity accompanies perception
in that, in order for us to perceive at all, we must choose to exist as perceivers
rather than to cease to exist (I have in mind PC833 or 791). In sum, we have some
control over the circumstances in which we perceive and over our being in a position
to perceive anything. So there is a respect, perhaps two respects, in which mental
activity accompanies sense-perception.
Are there respects in which, for Berkeley, sense-perception itself
involves mental activity? Is the Berkeleian mind doing anything in
having sensations, and if so, what is it doing? In Berkeley's terms, this
is a question about what is immediately perceived (D174/5, 183). By
sight we immediately perceive light, colour and, perhaps, figures; by
hearing sounds; and so on. My question concerns those cases of
immediate perception which are cases of sense-perception.
In our ordinary experience of the world around us, on Berkeley's view, what is
immediately perceived by sense is supplemented with ideas which we ourselves
contribute, and in whose production we are active. So when we immediately perceive,
say, the sounds of a coach, we ourselves contribute other ideas, including presumably
visual ideas, other auditory ideas, and tactile ideas. He also tells us that when we
see, say, a picture of Julius Caesar, what we immediately perceive are colours and
figures and we supplement these ideas with the information that what is before us
is a picture of Jul ius Caesar. So mediate perception seems to involve our activity in
at least two respects.
Here is an unconvincing response to the question of whether or not the Berkeleian
mind is active in sense-perception which has been suggested to me. One might read
Berkeley's remarks about the mind's being active in having sensations as ampunting
to the view that in sense-perception the mind is in act, where this is contrasted with
being in potency. When the mind is having sensations, on this view, what is capable
of having sensations is having sensations, and therefore is in act. This usage of "act"
may have had some very limited influence on Berkeley, but I do not think we should
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Berkeley's Active Mind 337
interpret his remark about the activity of the mind in this way. His view is that the
mind is active in that it engages in activities. By being active in one or another way
the mind is f ul f i l l i ng certain of its potentialities, but its being active does not seem
to consist in the mere fact that it is ful fil l ing its potentialities.
The following serious difficulty arises for all attempts to make the
Berkeleian mind to any extent passive. Berkeley makes it clear that
there cannot be an idea of a mind, because ideas are passive and minds
are active (e.g. PC230, 706; P27, 139. 141, 142; D231). But it seems
that to the extent that the mind is passive, to that extent also there
could be an idea of a mind. Someone might object that there might be
other reasons why there cannot be ideas of mind, so that even if minds
are partly passive, it does not follow that there would be ideas of minds
or ideas of parts of minds. For example, the requirement that an idea
must resemble what it is an idea of might be said to exclude ideas of
minds or ideas of parts of minds. But Berkeley's explanation of why it
is that ideas do not resemble minds seems to be that ideas are passive
and minds are active (e.g. PC230, 706; P27, 139, 142; D231). So if
minds were not active, or had parts which were not active, perhaps
ideas would resemble minds. And here is a further problem. An idea
can, on Berkeley's account, be an idea of something only if the idea
resembles what it is an idea of, and an idea can resemble only another
idea. Therefore an idea can be an idea of nothing but another idea.
So if there were ideas of minds in so far as minds are passive, it would
seem to follow that the mind qua passive thing is just a set of ideas.
An awareness of where this line of reasoning leads may have contributed to
the development of the Humean view of the understanding in the Philosophical
Commentaries (e.g. PC577, 579 81, 587, 614, 637, 643), although there probably
were other factors that led to the temporary adoption of that view. It may also have
contributed to the view that the mind and the will are identical, a view which also
appears in the Philosophical Commentaries (e. g. 194a, 362a. 478a). It seems t hat
there may have been an early phase in which Berkeley thought sense-perception to
be entirely passive, and in which he embraced some of the implications of t h a t idea.
In considering this possibility it is interesting to note that, although there are some
exceptions (e. g. PC37a), it is in Notebook B, the first of the notebooks which make
up the Philosophical Commentaries, and relatively early in Notebook A. t hat we
find most occurrences of the view that sense-perception is purely passive (e g
PC301, 378.10 11, 645). And it is at the end of Notebook A that we find the view
that the mind is an active entity, which is active in perceiving as well as in wi l l i ng
Thus, for instance, entry 821, "Understanding is in some sort an Action", or cnt i \
829, "Substance of a Spirit is that it acts, causes, wills, operates, or if you please
[to avoid the quibbl e yt may be made on ye word it] to act. cause, will, operate ..".
or again entry 848, "(by spirit) ... I mean all that is active". Il was in \ \
23 Arch, (icsch Philosophic- B< 1 71
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33S Ro b e r t M c K i m
Not ebook t h a i Berkeley seems to have been t h i nki ng ca ref ul l y a bout the mind.
Moreover we oug h t genera l l y to f ol l ow t h e pri nci pl e "the earlier the entry in the
C' ommenturi es, the less weight shoul d it receive when we are interpreting the
publ i sh ed wri t i ng s. " (We might call it t h e heiler late than early principl e.) So we
sh ou l d not pay a great deal of a t t ent i on to the earl y entries in which sense-perception
is said to be compl etel y passive. In any case, the a na l ysis of mi nd as consisting of
an a cti ve pa rt and a collection of ideas, to wh i ch the view t h a t the mind is entirel y
passive in sense-perception seems to lead, is at odds with the mature view of the
mi nd i n th e major writings.
So wh a t is the alternative? I believe we should thi nk of perceiving
as an act of the Berkeleian mind. Ian Tipton reads Berkeley in this
way:
[Berkeley t h i nks of] the mind as passive in sense-perception in that
in a given situation we cannot choose what we shall perceive, but
rather have it presented to us, but he at the same time regards it as
active in that the activity of the perceiving mind is essential to
awareness.
2
Tipton suggests that perception, including sense-perception, involves
the activity of the mind. He does not mean merely that there are
respects in which volition accompanies sensation or that there are
respects in which mediate perception involves volition. He takes Berke-
ley's view to be that awareness, including awareness of sensations, in
itself involves activity.
It seems clear tha t some of the time, at any rate, when we are aware of, or
conscious of, something, this awareness can reasonably be characterized as being a
result of an act of will: it occurs subsequent to a conscious act of directing our
awareness. For example, as you read this paper there probably are many faint
sounds of which you are aware only if you direct your awareness to them. On the
other hand, it also seems clear that we perceive much by our senses without such
acts of directing our awareness. For example, we are aware of much of what we
hear or see without directing our awareness to it. So there seem to be cases where
we have willed in an important respect that we should be aware of what we perceive,
and other cases where this is not so. When we suggest that awareness of consciousness
is an activity of the Berkeleian mind, we do not want to commit Berkeley to the
implausible position tha t all awareness or consciousness involves the mind actually
directing its awareness to what is to be perceived. For th a t we would need solid
textual evidence that that is what he had in mind.
2
Ian Tipton, Berkeley: The Philosophy of Immaterialism (London: Methuen, 1974),
268. In Berkeley: An Introduction (Basil Blackwell: Oxford, 1987), Jonathan
Dancy indicates th a t he is sympathetic to this interpretation.
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Berkeley's Active Mind 339
The preferable alternative is to t hi nk of awareness as involving
undirected activity. On t hi s view, perceiving is something we do and
something we do constantly, but generally wi t hout directing ourselves
as we do it. One might think of it as a process which goes on in us,
and over which we have some control, rather than as an activity. Yet
it is reasonable to say that it is something we do: we are active in it in
something like the way in which we are active in breathing. It is
something we will normally continue to do during our lives and we do
it fairly spontaneously. We can stop doing it temporarily, we can
arrange the circumstances in which we do it, we can exercise some
control over how we do it, and we do not need to focus any attention
on doing it in order to do it perfectly well.
What is the place of the will in such activity? There are two ways
to go here. We might consider this spontaneous and undirected activity
to be something distinct from volition. This is unappealing since Berke-
ley seems to make it clear that talk of the will is just talk of the mind's
being active. The more appealing approach is to make room for
undirected willing. So I take talk of undirected mental activity to be
just talk of undirected willing.
But does Berkeley not explicitly rule out the possibility of undirected willing?
For he says at PC812 that "in t rut h a blind Agent is a Contradiction." And the
activity involved in much sense-perception would seem to be, in Berkeley's terms.
blind activity in an important respect. We perceive one thing, and then another, but
often without directing our awareness from the one to the other. Much of the time
we just find ourselves perceiving whatever is there to be perceived. 1 do not think
that this objection is a serious one. One might suggest, I suppose, that PCS 12 refers
solely to God's agency. But Berkeley seems to mean it to apply to all agents. The
suggestion that PC812 rules out blind agents but not all blind activity is more
promising. Although there cannot be a blind agent, perhaps an agent can bli ndly
do some things; perhaps an agent can engage in some activities without his will
being directed by his understanding. The following consideration seems yet more
important.
Berkeley needs to posit undirected or blind mental activity if he is
to account plausibly for certain important parts of our mental lives.
Memory and imagination, and other operations of the mind, are
conducted by the will. For example, the operations of the mind involved
in supplementing our sensations with other ideas are conducted by the
will. Much of the time when we remember or imagine we do not direct
.ourselves to do so. Sometimes we imagine or remember against our
wishes. Berkeley must allow that we can produce and recall ideas
wi t hout directing ourselves to do so. There must be ment al act i vi t y
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340 Rober t Mc Ki m
which is rather independent of our control. Berkeley must accept that
there is undirected activity if he is to account for important parts of
our mental lives. (Perhaps he recognizes this to be so at PC599). So our
positing it in the case of sense-perception is more plausible, although the
precise nature of the undirected willing differs between the two cases.
But what about those passages in the major writings in which
Berkeley asserts that the mind is passive in sense-perception? In a
passage in the Dialogues which I mentioned at the outset Philonous
tells us that we "are in the very perception of light and colours
altogether passive." (D197.) Yet it is striking that the only attempt
which Philonous makes to spell out what this passivity amounts to
seems to come to this: we do not decide, at least when we perceive the
natural world, which sensations we are to receive. Consider these
crucial remarks made by Philonous after he has remarked that he is
active in plucking a flower, in holding it to his nose, and in breathing
in.
But I do not find my will concerned any farther. Whatever more
there is, as that I perceive such a particular smell or any smell at
all, this is independent of my will, and therein I am altogether passive
... [It is] in your power to open your eyes, or keep them shut ...
[but it doth not] in like manner depend on your will, that in looking
on this flower, you perceive white rather than any other colour ...
[And in] directing your open eyes toward yonder part of the heaven
... (you can not] avoid seeing the sun ... [Light] or darkness [is not]
the effect of your volition ... You are then in these respects altogether
passive. (D196.)
Philonous seems to say that he does not find the will involved in
sense-perception except in that we are able to arrange the circumstances
in which sensations will occur. He does not find the will involved any
further. And this might be taken to imply that the will is not involved
in the mere occurrence of sensations. But when Philonous says that he
does not find the will involved except in that we are able to arrange
the circumstances in which sensations occur, we may reasonably under-
stand him to mean only that we do not decide which sensations we
are to receive. Philonous goes into some detail here in explaining what
it means to say we are passive in sense-perception. Everything he says
seems to indicate that our passivity amounts to this: the content of
our sense-experience of the world is not under our control.
Moreover, it is important to look at these remarks in their context in the
Dialogues. Philonous is concerned to reject a particular type of activity which Hylas
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Berkeley's Active Mind 341
believes to be involved in the occurrence of sense-perception. Hylas has made these
remarks:
The sensation I lake to be an act of the mind perceiving; beside which, there is
something perceived; and this I call the object. For example, there is red and
yellow on that tulip. But then the act of perceiving those colours is in me only,
and not in the tulip. (D195.)
So Hylas says there is a clear distinction between the act of sensation and the object
which is sensed. Philonous's primary concern in the ensuing discussion is to show
that the particular sort of act of sensing which Hylas thinks there to be involved in
sense-perception is non-existent.
I suggest we read all of the remarks in which Berkeley seems to say
that the mind is passive in sense-perception as statements of the view
that God determines what we perceive when we perceive the world.
For example, when he writes in a letter to Johnson, "[that] the soul of
man is passive as well as active, I make no doubt," (Works, II, 293)
he should be taken to mean that the mind is passive in sense-perception,
and perhaps in some other types of perception, in that it does not
determine what ideas it is to have. And what about those texts in which
sensations are said to be imprinted on our minds? At D250 Berkeley
seems to say that all that he means when he says that sensations are
imprinted on our minds is that "the mind ... is affected from without,
or by some being distinct from itself." But in that case it can be the
case both that sensations are imprinted on our minds and that the
mind is active in sense-perception.
3
There are two further difficulties for the view that the Berkeleian
mind is active in sense-perception. The first arises from Berkeley's
claim that there is no possibility of error in sense-perception.
I cannot err in matter of simple perception ... (PC 693.)
[It is] a manifest contradiction to suppose ... [we] should err in
respect of ... what [we perceive] immediately ... (D 238.)
3
Jonathan Dancy (op.cit., 134f.) mentions passages which provide additional
support for the view that sense-perception involves mental activity. "But whatever
power I may have over my own thoughts, I find the ideas actually perceived by
sense have not a like dependence on my will." (P29.) "The ideas of sense are
less dependent on the spirit that perceives them, in that they are excited by t he
will of another and more powerful spirit ..." (P33.) Dancy notes that P2V may
be read as allowing t hat ideas perceived by sense arc somewhat dependent on
our wills, and t hat P33 may be read as suggesting that the sort of dependence
which such ideas have on God's spirit. And this fits well wi t h t he suggestion
that the human will has a role in the occurrence of sensations.
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342 R o b e r t M c K i m
l i rrour is not in the underst andi ng but in ye Will, wt I understand
or perceive, t hat I understand there can be no errour in this. (PC816;
also PC740, 794.)
If we cannot err in sense-perception, then the will must not be involved
in it: the mi nd must not be active in sense-perception. But this dif f iculty
is not as serious as it may seem.
We mi ght try to argue as f ollows: PC816 indicates that the mind qua will is
responsible f or error, and t hat the mind qua understanding is not responsible f or
error. And t his is compatible wi t h holding t hat if it should turn out that much, or
even < / / / , perception involves the will, then we can err in perception to the extent
t hat t hat is so. The trouble with this maneuver is that it is at odds with Berkeley's
conf ident declaration that there is no room f or error in "simple perception" or in
"immediate perception", both of which include sense-perception, whatever else they
include.
A better tack in dealing with this dif f iculty is as f ollows. Although
entry 816 says that the will and not the understanding is responsible
for error, entry 821 says that "Understanding is in some sort an
Action." This entry, hard on the heels of 816, should at least give pause
to anyone who argues f or the complete passivity of sense-perception
on the basis of an entry such as 816. One way to combine entries 816
and 821 is to posit a sort of mental activity which is immune f rom
error, either because it does not involve the will, and error resides in
the will, or, more plausibly, because it involves the will, but not in a
way that permits error. For while Berkeley says that the will is respon-
sible for error, he does not seem to commit himself to the view that
all operations of the will are susceptible to error. And even if he were
so to commit himself , he ought to make an exception in the case of
the operation of the will in the occurrence of sense-perception. That
undirected willing should be immune f rom error is not surprising: it is
f aulty direction, f aulty judgment, that introduces error.
The second dif f iculty is this. Berkeley says that the esse of unthinking
things is per dpi. (P3.) He is f requently taken to mean that an idea is
identical with its being perceived. But if ideas are passive and perception
is active, an idea cannot be identical with the perception of that idea.
An idea and the perceiving of an idea would seem to belong in two
entirely dif f erent categories. This dif f iculty could lead us into deep
waters and f ar f rom my present concern. Here I will merely point out
that Berkeley need not be understood to mean that an idea and its
being perceived are identical. Esse es t per dpi may plausibly be taken
to mean that it is impossible for something (other than a spirit) to
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Berkeley's Active Mi nd 343
exist unless it is perceived. To talk of an idea is to t alk of a perceived
idea. On this reading esse esf percipi is consistent with the view t hat
perception is active while ideas are passive.
To conclude, I have defended the view that the Berkeleian mind is
active in sense-perception. This interpretation is not without problems,
but it seems the most reasonable way to construe Berkeley's remarks.
There are but two alternatives. Either the mind is entirely passive in
sense-perception or it is to some extent active. Neither reading is
entirely satisfactory and both have some textual support. If the mind is
entirely passive in sense-perception, then Berkeley's crucial distinction
between minds and ideas risks erosion, and his close association, if not
outright identification, of the existence of a spirit with its perceiving is
undermined. On the other hand, the view that the mind is active in
sense-perception has to be defended against a number of objections,
including those based on the denial of blind agency, on passages in
which the mind is said to be passive in sense-perception, on the claim
t hat we cannot err in sense-perception, and on the claim that an idea
is identical with its being perceived. I suggest that these objections can
be answered.
It might be asked if the question raised about sense-perception in
this paper does not arise for all perception. If there is a question about
whether or not our minds are active in perceiving ideas which God
arouses in us, the.n is there not a corresponding question about whether
or not our minds are active in perceiving ideas we arouse in ourselves,
in memory or imagination for example? Do memory and i magi nat i on
sometimes involve undirected mental activity in two respects: first,
in that the will produces certain ideas without being guided by the
understanding to do so, and second in t hat our awareness even of ideas
which we ourselves produce involves undirected activity on our part?
My view is that if t hi s more general question about all perception
arises, then what I say about sense-perception will bear on t hi s larger
question about perception in general.
4
4
An earlier version of t hi s paper was read at a conference on Berkeley in Oxford.
England in September, 1985. Comments from A. C. Grayli ng and C. C. W.
Taylor helped me to i mprove it. I am also grat eful to Charles McCrackcn. Ian
Tipton, Kennet h Wi nklcr, and the referees for, and edi t or of, t hi s j our nal for
hel pful suggestions.
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