Philosophical queries are multifaceted and involve reflection and awareness. Especially notable is the thought that people’s limited capacity for perception creates a subjective stance toward the world. A direct consequence of this is a belief in the distance and increased priority over the rest of the world. Buddha and Berke held these ideas, and they undoubtedly have an essential role in the philosophical current. Existence invariably implies perceptibility; this concept is the primary source of reflection on knowledge and being.
The essence of Berkeley’s evolving theory directly concerns perceptibility. He identifies the properties of external objects with the sensations of these properties; in this sense, all things are nothing but complexes of sensations (Williamson 43). According to the philosopher, if man no longer perceives an item, it can continue to be sensed by others. If a human does not perceive a thing, it continues to exist in the divine consciousness. Thus, Berkeley argued that the only knowledge available to man is the ability of his sensations and the perceptions formed from them (Williamson 49). Nevertheless, it is impossible to know abstractions as matter because they do not affect feelings.
Apart from sensations, only mental images closely connected with the perceived object are available to people. Therefore, in the smell of a rose, one cannot separate the idea of aroma from its concrete carrier (a rose). The oversight occurs when people accept words for something that exists. In other observations, the concept of “smell per se” is not something one can sense directly (Williamson 134). This means that words convey nothing but a specific individual object. They are not more than signs of an idea corresponding to a particular object.
Thus, perceptions of the external world depend on individuals, but specific images have a different purpose and cannot be comprehended. All the qualities of an object exist only in the spirit by which they are perceived, and the ideas of objects can be sensed precisely because they are passive. It stimulates the issue of the recognizability of the self and contemplating everything without losing one’s qualities.
Work Cited
Williamson, Timothy. The Philosophy of Philosophy. John Wiley & Sons, 2021.