but my point was that our perception of the world - irrespective of its real existence - is sufficient to lead us to a basic understanding of the difference between material objects and mental ones

You keep saying that. At first, I thought maybe you were talking about the apparent perceived differences between the mental and the material, and gave a corresponding reply. Now, I have no idea what you mean. I'm inclined to think you're just under the spell of some prejudice.

Here is what I need from you: (i) some clear, non question begging identity conditions for the mental and the material and (ii) an explanation of how these identity conditions mark the mental off as different from the material (cf. Ramsey's problem for the particular-universal distinction).  

even to try to explain perceived material objects as hylemorphic compounds (even if we're just hallucinating them; we're hallucinating by seeing what we can describe as structured material things, distinct from mental ones)

Berkeley thinks that objects are composites of (what we now call) tropes, which are species of forms. He just also thinks those tropes are mental. I'm happy to debate whether the hylemorphists or the trope theorists are right some time, but I (i) think that Thomas's account of individuation issues in a contradiction (see the bottom here) and (therefore) (ii) think that the question of whether the world is to be assayed as hylemorphic compounds or systems of tropes is distinct from the question of whether the world is all mental or mental and material. I also think that the dispute between hylemorphists and trope theorists is (and is likely to remain) undecided, and so that maybe going there isn't the best use of our time.

Miguel wrote:

That's not my position. I don't think I'm conflating the two; my point is that the basic experience seems to me to support a radical difference between trees (even hallucinated trees) and thoughts. A hallucination of a tree will be very different from a thought. So I'm not talking about veridicality, I'm just talking about the cogitatum.

But you're not just talking about the cogitata. A thought is a cogitatio.

John West wrote:

Cats and trees could be a kind of mental1, while thoughts and concepts are mental2.

I don't know why you're making such heavy weather about the difference between cogitatum and cogitationes. They are different, but they're part of everyone's mental life—the Thomist's no less than the Berkeleyan's. That difference, I've argued, doesn't justify going beyond the mental.

In this sense, my impression is that a monism of any kind doesn't do justice to experience, and not in the sense that trees must be external objects independent of observers, but in the sense that even if trees were mental they would be very, very different mental objects from concepts, words and thoughts.

Yes, and I've argued that immaterialism can in fact do justice to experience—your table pounding insistence otherwise to the contrary aside.

 
But is that difference irrelevant with respect to ontology? What do you mean going beyond the mental, if all I said is we could then categorize things into mental1 and mental2?

Immaterialism can do justice to experience only if we accept that mental trees don't think and qua individual mental phenomena are not universal either. But then mental trees will be different from concepts, words and such.

Last edited by Miguel (6/29/2018 3:07 pm)

Immaterialism can do justice to experience only if we accept that mental trees don't think

Of course mental phenomena don't think. Minds, not cogitationes or cogitatum, think. (A perception or a memory, for instance, doesn't think. Nor does a dreamt orange tree.)

and qua individual mental phenomena are not universal either.

It's not at all obvious that all mental phenomena are universal, and, in fact, I think it's obvious that they're not. My memory of the graffiti on the way to Limehouse station is my memory. It's not a universal, capable of multiple instantiation. (Anyway, Berkeley is a trope nominalist. He holds the thesis that everything is particular. Aquinas thinks that the mental includes universals, but that the non-mental—including non-mental forms—is all particular. I'm happy to get into the nominalist-realist debate some time, if you want. But it's a different debate.)

It's also not clear that cogitata don't involve universals. Neither Berkeley nor Aquinas think they do, but others have.

But then mental trees will be different from concepts, words and such.

They are different from concepts, words, and such. Berkeley, however, never claims that the perceived tree is composed of concepts, or words.

I think immaterialism is false but I am not arguing against it here; I mean, for instance, I'm not sparguing that trees are not mental objects that cannot exist in the absence of observers. I take it that they're not, but I'm not discussing that. My position is that if they are, relevant general differences between mental trees, minds, words and concepts would remain, and these differences are the relevant ones, and I take them to be sufficient to nonetheless kickstart arguments for hylemorphism and such (which is why I said maybe an idealist could be a kind of hylemorphist)

John West wrote:

Immaterialism can do justice to experience only if we accept that mental trees don't think

Of course mental phenomena don't think. Minds, not cogitationes or cogitatum, think. (A perception or a memory, for instance, doesn't think. Nor does a dreamt orange tree.)

and qua individual mental phenomena are not universal either.

It's not at all obvious that all mental phenomena are universal, and, in fact, I think it's obvious that they're not. My memory of the graffiti on the way to Limehouse station is my memory. It's not a universal, capable of multiple instantiation. (Anyway, Berkeley is a trope nominalist. He holds the thesis that everything is particular. Aquinas thinks that the mental must be universal, but that the non-mental—including non-mental forms—is all particular.  I'm happy to get into the nominalist-realist debate some time, if you want. But it's a different debate.)

But then mental trees will be different from concepts, words and such.

They are different from concepts, words, and such. Berkeley, however, never claims that the perceived tree is composed of concepts, or words.

 
I meant to say refer/intend in the sense of intentionality that is usually given to thoughts. But of course, mental trees don't think either, while minds do. Minds are different from trees.

I don't think mental trees can determinately mean or signify something in the same way words can, so mental trees would be a kind of thing (say, mental1) while words will be another (mental2). Same for universal concepts.

Yeah, memory is different (but as you mentioned, Berkeley can also account for the veridicality of sense data on the basis of God's thoughts etc, so there's a difference). My concepts of trees are also "mine" in the sense that they are my own, but with respect to trees they are universal. Of course I think concepts are universal but I'm not specifically arguing for their universality here; I'm saying that if they're universal while the individual mental phenomena of trees are particular, we have another relevant difference between mental trees and concepts - mental1 and mental2. It's these kinds of differences - intentionality, determinacy, universality, perhaps also privacy, etc - that are behind the common distinctions between "matter" and "mind", and these can remain in place whether or not trees exist independently of observers. Can a Berkeylean be a hylemorphist? I was suggesting that yes, a berkeylean can be a hylemorphist. If not, still, I think the basic differences between so-called "material objects" and concepts words minds etc can still remain anyway, and I find them more relevant than the question of whether rocks exist without observers.

"Berkeley never claims that the perceived tree is composed of concepts, or words" I know, and that's good for him.

Last edited by Miguel (6/29/2018 3:46 pm)