But, say you, surely there is nothing easier than for me to imagine trees, for instance, in a park, or books existing in a closet, and nobody by to perceive them.
Check around the internet long enough—(around 0.61 seconds ought to do it)—for the originator of that famous philosophical conundrum about a forest without humans and whether that tree that fell made a sound when it did so and you will almost certainly first be led to the name George Berkeley. Berkeley is so thoroughly attached to the origin of the “if a tree falls” quote on the internet that sheer volume would be enough to convince the entirety of any conspiracy theory organization immediately. The internet said it, so it must be so. Except that it isn’t. This, in fact, is the closest thing that Berkeley ever wrote and published to the much, much more famous line he didn’t write. And yet, the concept is pretty much identical. So, at least one can perceive some sense of accuracy and authority to the idea that this text poses the question of whether a tree falling in the forest makes a sound if it can’t hear it, which is a lot more than you can say about some conspiracy theories.
I do not argue against the existence of any one thing that we can apprehend either by sense or reflexion. That the things I see with my eyes and touch with my hands do exist, really exist, I make not the least question. The only thing whose existence we deny is that which philosophers call Matter or corporeal substance.
This is really the substance—pun intended—of Berkeley’s overall argument. The entire work is constructed upon a thesis which is intended to stand in direct contradiction to the principles of human knowledge as outlined by fellow philosopher John Locke. Locke argues that all knowledge arises as a result of perception but insists upon a division between perceiving things which can be seen with the eyes or touched with the hands and abstract ideas which cannot be perceived through the senses. Berkeley’s argument seems counterintuitive at first: even those things which can be touched or seen only exists as a result of being perceived. In other words, if a tree falls in the forest, this can only be known if someone was there to perceive that it existed. Likewise, if someone if someone imagines a tree falling in the forest, then it exists because that person perceived it as existing in his imagination. Perception is existence.
For, after all, what deserves the first place in our studies is the consideration of GOD and our DUTY; which to promote, as it was the main drift and design of my labours, so shall I esteem them altogether useless and ineffectual if, by what I have said, I cannot inspire my readers with a pious sense of the Presence of God.
These are the words which bring the text to a close and sum up the purpose of Berkeley’s composing it in the first place. The main thrust of his argument is that everything which we perceive to exist is really just a perception of a perception and that original perception is arrived at through the handiwork of God. Everything that is assumed to be reality—even those things we can see and touch and hear and taste—is merely an idea instilled in human consciousness as a replication of form put there by God. Ultimately, this is a text that belongs less to the discipline of philosophy than it does to theology because by the end its purpose is revealed to be not so much disproving Locke’s theories as proving the existence of God.
