Thursday, October 20, 2011
MacBeth's Dagger and Other Illusions
Hylas objects to Philonous' idealism by claiming that on his view there is no way to distinguish between veridical appearances and illusions. In other words, idealism implies that the danger than Macbeth sees before his eyes but cannot clutch is just as real as the dagger he uses to kill Duncan. Is this a valid objection? How successful is Philonous' response?
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I believe that the overall argument for what we perceive, exist fails. I believe that Berkeley fail to give a reasonable argument and contradicts his self throughout his argument. For example on page 68 Philonous responds to Hylas objection with the example with the farmer who explained why he thought it was a cherry tree on the field and he said because he can perceive it with his senses. The farmer knew it was not an orange tree because he could not perceive that so therefore the cherry tree existed and the orange tree did not. But in other arguments Philonous argues that our minds exist but we cannot perceive our minds nor see our minds. On page 68 Philonous says “the ideas perceived by the senses, that is real things, are more vivid and clear”. But in Macbeth, Macbeth sees a dagger vivid and clear and goes on to grab an object that was not there. I believe this refutes his argument because we can imagine things clearly and perceive things in our dreams clearly not always but sometimes. Also our senses can deceive us, even though Philonous states it is our judgment that deceives us not our senses I believe that is our senses that gives us a false understanding of reality. Overall I believe the senses argument fails, because it does not convince me that all our senses are correct and because we perceive some things it does not mean it exist. We can see one thing and it not be there but we do not perceive God nor our minds but we are supposed to know they exist.
ReplyDeleteHylas’ objection to Philonous’ idealism is not valid in the case of Macbeth and the floating dagger because it can be argued that the dagger Macbeth sees prompts him to act which was more important than Macbeth’s possession of an actual dagger. According to idealism, the things you perceive cannot be wrong and therefore hold as much reality as material objects. In Macbeth’s case this analysis is fitting. When Macbeth sees the floating dagger, he is still undecided on wether or not to kill Duncan. The floating dagger leads him to where Duncan is sleeping and thus is an important catalyst in the murder of Duncan. Without the floating dagger Macbeth could not have killed Duncan in much the same way he could not have killed Duncan without a real dagger; both play an equally important part in Duncan’s murder. It follows, that both daggers play an equally important role in reality and therefore are equally real. Because the floating dagger is in Macbeth’s mind, and because dualism is impossible due to the mind-body problem, both daggers are in Macbeth’s mind. This is logical because both daggers are equally real and influential to Macbeth and the floating dagger obviously isn’t in the material world. Things cannot exist in the material world and the mind because things in the mind cannot influence things in the material world. This leaves the possibility that either everything is in the mind or everything is in the material world. Macbeth’s floating dagger is definitely in his mind which establishes that everything is in Macbeth’s mind.
ReplyDeleteI believe that this objection is quite valid.
ReplyDeleteWhat is an illusion? An illusion is a collection of imagined perceptions that the mind interprets to be reality. When you are perceiving the illusion, you know believe that it is reality. This is demonstrated in the example, where he reaches out to grasp for the dagger. If he didn't believe that it was reality, when he reached out, he wouldn't have tried to reach for the dagger. Philonous’ response to this objection is quite weak; he says that the images created by the imagination is hazy, but there is a problem with this statement- when you are dreaming, do you know that you are in a dream? When you are in a nightmare, do you know that you aren't experiencing anything real? If a zombie starts to attack you, you open your mouth in an noiseless scream, not a speech about how you will wake in a few minutes and how the nightmare is false. If you knew the dream was false, it wouldn't feel real, and you wouldn't wake with cold sweat if you had a nightmare. Common sense turns Philonous' objection on its head.
However, the problem with the objection using Macbeth for evidence is that fiction cannot be used as a reliable source. What becomes of the black magic that the witches used to prophesy? Just because Shakespeare references magic in the novel, it definitely does not mean that black magic exists in the real world.
On what Bella said about dualism, I don't believe that this is an example where idealism is proved wrong. The dagger is nothing more than a hallucination, which is a perception of the mind, it stimulates the mind to think of the idea of killing Duncan. Thus, something in the mind causes another idea in the mind, namely the idea to kill Duncan. The action of killing Duncan, by the definition of idealism, is only a bundle of ideas. So, the entire scenario is constructed of a chain of ideas that result in the killing of another mind.