In the debate between idealism and materialism, the ultimate question is, mind over matter or matter over mind? Materialism and Idealism are the two contrary doctrines in philosophy. According to the materialistic view, the world is entirely mind-independent, composed only of physical objects and physical interactions. On the contrary, Idealism is the view that mind-independent physical objects exist and can be experienced through the senses other than those which detect based upon physical interaction. While both aim to answer the question of what, if any, existence is material, I subscribe to a set of beliefs that adopts partial ideas from both of them, straying from the concept that either philosophy is the absolute and entire truth. Not
…show more content…
Berkeley rejects direct realism, which is the theory that people directly perceive the external world through a uniform, invariable lense. He rejects this theory based upon his belief in the reality of people being able to perceive things differently from one another. A famous quote stated by philosopher, Charles Addams is “Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly”. For example, what may be sour to one individual, may not be for another. He held that ordinary objects, as well as perception itself, are topics which are dependent on one's subjective, individual mind. It was these philosophies which sow the seeds for his theory of immaterialism. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Berkeley holds that there are no such mind-independent things, that, in the famous phrase, esse est percipi (aut percipere) — to be is to be perceived (or to perceive)”. Berkeley simply believes that the external world is in fact inconceivable. Berkeley argues in favor of a god who creates laws of nature for our minds to perceive, that God keeps our mental reality in a state of regularity. Even though there may not be human minds to perceive something, its continuity persists due to the existent of the omnipresent mind of …show more content…
However in fact, the best example of something people have been believing in since the dawn of traceable human existence is religion, and that is something that cannot be proven through science. Religion has always been something that people cling onto for comfort and answers when something seems inexplicable. This belief is a universal explanation for something they can not prove with science. Similarly, energy is a belief that can not be proven with science. There is a countless amount of stories based off some kind of “gut-feeling”, also known as intuition, that can not be explained through science. Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without the need for conscious reasoning. For example, there is a number of stories about a person having a flight, but obtaining a gut-feeling telling them not to go, so they listen to it. Later on, they end up finding out the plane crashed with no survivors. This could be consider a coincidence to some, but there is no explanation as to why someone would have this cautious feeling originally. This feeling can fall into the category of energy in the sense that it is an unexplainable
Berkeley rejects direct realism, which is the theory that people directly perceive the external world through a uniform, invariable lense. He rejects this theory based upon his belief in the reality of people being able to perceive things differently from one another. A famous quote stated by philosopher, Charles Addams is “Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly”. For example, what may be sour to one individual, may not be for another. He held that ordinary objects, as well as perception itself, are topics which are dependent on one's subjective, individual mind. It was these philosophies which sow the seeds for his theory of immaterialism. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Berkeley holds that there are no such mind-independent things, that, in the famous phrase, esse est percipi (aut percipere) — to be is to be perceived (or to perceive)”. Berkeley simply believes that the external world is in fact inconceivable. Berkeley argues in favor of a god who creates laws of nature for our minds to perceive, that God keeps our mental reality in a state of regularity. Even though there may not be human minds to perceive something, its continuity persists due to the existent of the omnipresent mind of …show more content…
However in fact, the best example of something people have been believing in since the dawn of traceable human existence is religion, and that is something that cannot be proven through science. Religion has always been something that people cling onto for comfort and answers when something seems inexplicable. This belief is a universal explanation for something they can not prove with science. Similarly, energy is a belief that can not be proven with science. There is a countless amount of stories based off some kind of “gut-feeling”, also known as intuition, that can not be explained through science. Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without the need for conscious reasoning. For example, there is a number of stories about a person having a flight, but obtaining a gut-feeling telling them not to go, so they listen to it. Later on, they end up finding out the plane crashed with no survivors. This could be consider a coincidence to some, but there is no explanation as to why someone would have this cautious feeling originally. This feeling can fall into the category of energy in the sense that it is an unexplainable