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“Minima Sensibilia” in Berkeley and Hume

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2010

David Raynor
David Raynor
Affiliation:
Mount Allison University, Sackville, N.B.
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Extract

Philosophers no longer argue whether Hume ever read Berkeley, yet some remain puzzled as to why so little of Berkeley appears in Hume's works. Professor Popkin has remarked that even “where Hume and Berkeley come closest to discussing the same subject or holding the same view, Hume neither uses Berkeley's terms nor refers to him.” An apparent exception to this generalization is Berkeley's doctrine of minima sensibilia, for both philosophers use this term to denote indivisible sensible points, and both invoke such points in order to show that sensible extension is not infinitely divisible. Yet it has been suggested that, although Berkeley and Hume employ the same terms, they nevertheless maintain different doctrines: Hume's minima are unextended, whereas Berkeley's are extended.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , June 1980 , pp. 196 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1980

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References

Notes

1 Popkin, R.H., “So, Hume Did Read Berkeley”, The Journal of Philosophy 61 (1964), p. 778.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Berkeley, , An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision (Dublin, 1709)Google Scholar; A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (Dublin, 1710)Google Scholar; Hume, , A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. Selby-Bigge, (Oxford, 1968)Google Scholar, Bk. I, Pt. II; hereafter abbreviated NTV, Princ., and T., respectively.

3 Bracken, H.M., Berkeley (London, 1974), pp. 23, 27, 28, 161 n. 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Hicks, G.D., Berkeley (London, 1932), p. 168Google Scholar; Warnock, G.J., Berkeley (Hammondswortr 1969), P. 208Google Scholar; Hamlyn, D.W., Sensation and Perception (London, 1961), p. 114Google Scholar; Luce, A.A., The Dialectic of Immaterialism (London, 1963), p. 101.Google Scholar

5 Philosophical Commentaries, No. 273: Works, ed. Luce and Jessop (London, 1948), 1, p. 34.Google Scholar

6 Alciphron (London, 1732), Dial. 4, Sec. 8; Works, III, p. 150, italics added.

7 Philosophical Commentaries, No. 321; cf. No. 494; and Princ, Intro. §7.

8 Luce, Op. cit., pp. 74ff.; Bracken, op. tit., pp. 24–8.

9 Bayle, Pierre, Historical and Critical Dictionary: Selections, trans. Popkin, (Indianapolis 1965)Google Scholar, art. “Zeno of Elea”, Remark G, p. 362.

10 Philosophical Commentaries, no. 345.

11 Luce, op. cit., p. 101.

12 Bayle, op. cit., p. 360.

13 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Nidditch (Oxford, 1975), I, XV, 9Google Scholar. Berkeley refers to this section in his notebooks. Bracken (op. cit., pp. 27, 161 n. 7) think that this establishes that Berkeley accepted Locke's view that minima visibilia are extended. But it only shows that he considered Locke's view.

14 Treatise, I, ii, iv, esp. pp. 42–3, 39. Flew overlooks Hume's innovation when he mistakenly asserts that Hume's points “are ideal and not physical”; while they are not physical i.e. extended, they are not mind-dependent either. A Flew, “Infinite Divisibility in Hume's Treatise”, Hume. A Re-evaluation, ed. Livingston, D. and King, J., (New York, 1976) P. 269Google Scholar. Cf. Hume, 's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Selby-Bigge, (Oxford, 1963), p. 156.Google Scholar

15 Leibniz maintained that physical points only appear indivisible “while mathematical points are exact [i.e. indivisible] but are nothing but modalities. It is only metaphysical points … which are exact and real….” “New System of Nature and of the Communication of Substances”, §11, Philosophical Papers and Letters, 2nd ed., ed. Loemker (Dordrecht, 1969), pp. 456–7Google Scholar. Both Hume (T. 30–1) and Leibniz were impressed by Malezieu: argument that “l'existence appartient aux unites, & non pas aux nombres.” See McRae, Robert, Leibniz: Perception, Apperception, and Thought (Toronto, 1976), pp. 131–2.Google Scholar