Philosophy 100 (4) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Philosophy 100 (4) - Essay Example His theory is contrary to the idea that there is some sort of underlying matter that is responsible for that which we experience. The type of thought that Descartes exemplified stated that we experience things through our senses, and while we might not be able to directly experience the matter that is responsible for being perceived by our senses, we know that it is there because we are in fact able to experience these senses. We know it is there because we perceive that it is there through the experience of our senses, but in the end we can only ever know it is there because of our senses because we have no way of directly experiencing matter. Berkeley’s ideas are so contrary to what a person might initially think because he wants to put our own existence as being dependent upon things that don’t have any direct effect on a person. To think about it as a solid example, Berkeley would state that the person who is walking down the street and is perceiving themselves as existing owes nothing to their own perception of themselves walking down the street and everything to the random person who sees the initial person walking down the street who is perceiving this happening. In other words, reality is not based in one’s own mind but in the minds of everyone else. While a person does not contribute to their own existence by merely being able to perceive their own existence, they are able to contribute to other people’s existence by perceiving other people. However, why is it exactly that a person can do this for another person while being incapable of doing it for themselves? We can observe the reacti ons we have upon other objects when we act upon them. Of course, this begs the question as to how a person continues to exist without being in the presence of other people constantly, but Berkeley uses this trouble in his logic to introduce the idea of God. In order to get to his point that existence depends upon being