A Pragmatic Bishop: George Berkeley's Theory of Causation in De motu

Abstract

In this doctoral thesis, I will argue that in his De motu (1721, 'On motion'), Bishop George Berkeley (c.1684-1753) develops a pragmatist theory of causation regarding mechanical theories outlined previously with Newtonianism. I place chief emphasis on the importance of logic and mathematics in Berkeley's scientific approach, on which the other levels of semantics, epistemology, and mechanics build up. On my rendering, Berkeley s pragmatic method to conceive or mathematically imagine causation makes sense in terms of mechanical causes or mathematical hypotheses. For the mechanist maintains the usefulness and truthfulness of causation by the following definition. Definition. A pragmatist theory of causation is one which holds that: 1. Causal terms are indispensable in scientific deliberation for their usefulness; they cannot be eliminated [contra reductionism]. ­2. What a cause is is defined by one s temporal deliberative practices, independent of atemporal structure that theories hold [contra structuralism]. 3. Causal laws (theories formulated in causal terms) are genuinely true, not fictitious, when one confirms and deduces them [contra instrumentalism]. By justifying this definition, I will object to three rival readings - reductionism, structuralism, and instrumentalism - to my reading of Berkeley as a pragmatist about causation. In particular, my pragmatist reading criticises the most popular instrumentalist reading because, according to the latter, talk of causal terms like forces can be false or merely fictitious inasmuch as one can hold the utility of theories in mechanical practices. The instrumentalist reading is then compatible with mathematical formalism, according to which it is not truth or meaning that counts as formal manipulation or game of meaningless symbols, thereby eschewing a platonist attitude towards mathematical objects. However, I rebut the formalistic instrumentalism from Berkeley's logical and realist standpoint, maintaining the irreducibility of occult qualities that mathematical objects have in their formulation from hypotheses to propositions. Light shall be shed on the tenet I propose that law-propositions formulated in hypothetical, causal terms must be true, neither false nor fictitious, when we (1) frame, (2) confirm, and (3) express them to the extent of our discursive thinking (in three steps).