Berkeley's Argument

In “The Problems of Philosophy”, Bertrand Russell argues the notion of idealism based on the argument made by Bishop Berkeley. Berkeley believes that the existence of sense data is depends on our sensation. Since sense data is the only evidence to the existence of our perception, whatever we known is mental. Then, anything can be known must be in some mind. Therefore if anything is not in my mind, it must be in some other mind, which indicates the mind of God. Based on the argument, I will argue the validity and objection of the argument in this paper. Before Russell lead us to think deeply about the “ultimate fallacy” of Berkeley’s argument, Russell introduces the notion of the idealism by reconstruct the argument. Accounting to Berkeley’s argument, idealism is that everything we can known must be in the mind. Idealists seeing sense data as the origin and foundation of all the things exist in the world. Thus, Berkeley believes the sense date is the only thing …show more content…
Firstly, we can assume that our sense data is depend on our sensation and which also provide us the existence of our perception. Secondly, we can assume that all the things we known must be in the mind. Thirdly, due the the concept of validity, we need to assume that the conclusion is false. That’s mean anything is not in my mind does not exist, which is in contradictory to the existence of physical object. For example, even if we are not experiencing a physical object anymore, the physical object is still exist, which indicate the sense data of the physical object is not depend on our perception but independence. Therefore, if we assume the premise is true, but the conclusion is false, then there has a contradictory on the assumption. So we can conclude that the argument is valid because if anything does not exist in our mind, it must exist in some other