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Berkeley and the Argument from Microscopes
Author(s) -
Faaborg Robert W.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
pacific philosophical quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.914
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1468-0114
pISSN - 0279-0750
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0114.00086
Subject(s) - reductio ad absurdum , argument (complex analysis) , realism , philosophy , epistemology , metaphysics , chemistry , biochemistry
In the course of his discussion of the sensible quality of color in the Dialogues Berkeley advances an argument that I shall refer to as the argument from microscopes (AFM). I offer an account of the AFM that treats it as part of Berkeley’s extended Reductio of Hylas’ philosophical theory of metaphysical realism. I then criticize two representative interpretations of the AFM which fail to appreciate its Reductio structure and, as a consequence, mistakenly attribute to Berkeley such problematic claims as that sensible objects are not colored and that the microscopic view of objects reveals the real nature of objects. If I am correct, properly construed, Berkeley’s AFM escapes these and other objections commonly raised against it.