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Why Do You Think Berkeley Argues That Material Substances Do Not Exist

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1. Berkeley aims to overcome the atheism and skepticism in Locke’s philosophy by denying the existence of material substances and by arguing that only mind and ideas exist.
2. Berkeley argues that material substances do not exist, because, first, we perceive no external objects existing independent of mind, but only sensible qualities as ideas in mind; second, we cannot infer the existence of material substances based on our
3. perceptions, from which we discover no necessary connections between objects and our ideas. Hence, we have neither immediate sensual experience nor knowledge based on any sensual experience to support that material substances exist. As a result, supposing the existence of external objects is insufficient to explain our ideas because we do not know any …show more content…

Berkeley also has a Continuity Argument for the existence of God as below:
a) All ideas must be perceived.
b) Sensible objects are collections of ideas.
c) Objects continue to exist even when they are not perceived by any finite minds.
d) Therefore, there is an infinite mind that perceives objects.
16. Berkeley suggests that the only substances are minds, which are simple, undivided, and active entities. We have no idea of spirit or mind, because a mind is of an an active nature, while ideas, on the other hand, are passive. However, the term spirit is still comprehensible for us because each of us is a mind and is conscious of its own being. Thus we have the notion of a spirit. The mind has understanding via perceiving ideas; it is a will as it produces ideas.
17. Since I can only perceive the ideas in my own mind, I am conscious of my own existence. However, the existence of other people is perceived as a mere collection of ideas in my mind, directly caused by God. Therefore, there is no evidence that lead me to believe in the necessary existence of other minds, to which Berkeley explains that there exist signs and effects that suggest the existence of other finite

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