Sophie's World_ A Novel About The History Of Philosophy Part 29

"'That person wants to live too. Therefore you ought not to kill them."

"Was that a logical reason?"

"I don't know."

"What you did was to draw a conclusion from a descriptive sentence-That person wants to live too'-to what we call a normative sentence: 'Therefore you ought not to kill them.' From the point of view of reason this is nonsense. You might just as well say 'There are lots of people who cheat on their taxes, therefore I ought to cheat on my taxes too.' Hume said you can never draw conclusions from is sentences to ought sentences. Nevertheless it is exceedingly common, not least in newspaper articles, political party programs, and speeches. Would you like some examples?"

"Please."

" 'More and more people want to travel by air. Therefore more airports ought to be built.' Do you think the conclusion holds up?"

"No. It's nonsense. We have to think of the environment. I think we ought to build more railroads instead."

"Or they say: The development of new oilfields will raise the population's living standards by ten percent. Therefore we ought to develop new oilfields as rapidly as possible."

"Definitely not. We have to think of the environment again. And anyway, the standard of living in Norway is high enough."

"Sometimes it is said that 'this law has been pa.s.sed by the Senate, therefore all citizens in this country ought to abide by it.' But frequently it goes against people's deepest convictions to abide by such conventions."

"Yes, I understand that."

"So we have established that we cannot use reason as a yardstick for how we ought to act. Acting responsibly is not a matter of strengthening our reason but of deepening our feelings for the welfare of others. "Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger,' said Hume."

"That's a hair-raising a.s.sertion."

"It's maybe even more hair-raising if you shuffle the cards. You know that the n.a.z.is murdered millions of Jews. Would you say that there was something wrong with the n.a.z.is' reason, or would you say there was something wrong with their emotional life?"

"There was definitely something wrong with their feelings."

"Many of them were exceedingly clear-headed. It is not unusual to find ice-cold calculation behind the most callous decisions. Many of the n.a.z.is were convicted after the war, but they were not convicted for being 'unreasonable.' They were convicted for being gruesome murderers. It can happen that people who are not of sound mind can be acquitted of their crimes. We say that they were 'not accountable for their actions.' n.o.body has ever been acquitted of a crime they committed for being unfeeling."

"I should hope not."

"But we need not stick to the most grotesque examples. If a flood disaster renders millions of people homeless, it is our feelings that determine whether we come to their aid. If we are callous, and leave the whole thing to 'cold reason,' we might think it was actually quite in order that millions of people die in a world that is threatened by overpopulation."

"It makes me mad that you can even think that."

"And notice it's not your reason that gets mad."

"Okay, I got it."

Berkeley

...like a giddy planet round a burning sun...

Alberto walked over to the window facing the town. Sophie followed him. While they stood looking out at the old houses, a small plane flew in over the rooftops. Fixed to its tail was a long banner which Sophie guessed would be advertising some product or local event, a rock concert perhaps. But as it approached and turned, she saw quite a different message: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HILDE!

"Gate-crasher," was Alberto's only comment.

Heavy black clouds from the hills to the south were now beginning to gather over the town. The little plane disappeared into the grayness.

"I'm afraid there's going to be a storm," said Alberto.

"So I'll take the bus home."

"I only hope the major isn't behind this, too."

"He's not G.o.d Almighty, is he?"

Alberto did not reply. He walked across the room and sat down again by the coffee table.

"We have to talk about Berkeley," he said after a while.

Sophie had already resumed her place. She caught herself biting her nails.

"George Berkeley was an Irish bishop who lived from 1685 to 1753," Alberto began. There was a long silence.

"Berkeley was an Irish bishop ..." Sophie prompted.

"But he was a philosopher as well..."

"Yes?"

"He felt that current philosophies and science were a threat to the Christian way of life, that the all-pervading materialism, not least, represented a threat to the Christian faith in G.o.d as creator and preserver of all nature."

"He did?"

"And yet Berkeley was the most consistent of the empiricists."

"He believed we cannot know any more of the world than we can perceive through the senses?"

"More than that. Berkeley claimed that worldly things are indeed as we perceive them, but they are not 'things.' "

"You'll have to explain that."

"You remember that Locke pointed out that we cannot make statements about the 'secondary qualities' of things. We cannot say an apple is green and sour. We can only say we perceive it as being so. But Locke also said that the 'primary qualities' like density, gravity, and weight really do belong to the external reality around us. External reality has, in fact, a material substance."

"I remember that, and I think Locke's division of things was important."

"Yes, Sophie, if only that were all."

"Goon."

"Locke believed-just like Descartes and Spinoza- that the material world is a reality."

"Yes?"

"This is just what Berkeley questioned, and he did so by the logic of empiricism. He said the only things that exist are those we perceive. But we do not perceive 'material' or 'matter.' We do not perceive things as tangible objects. To a.s.sume that what we perceive has its own underlying 'substance' is jumping to conclusions. We have absolutely no experience on which to base such a claim."

"How stupid. Look!" Sophie thumped her fist hard on the table. "Ouch," she said. "Doesn't that prove that this table is really a table, both of material and matter?"

"How did you feel it?"

"I felt something hard."

"You had a sensation of something hard, but you didn't feel the actual matter in the table. In the same way, you can dream you are hitting something hard, but there isn't anything hard in a dream, is there?"

"No, not in a dream."

"A person can also be hypnotized into 'feeling' things like warmth and cold, a caress or a punch."

"But if the table wasn't really hard, why did I feel it?"

"Berkeley believed in a 'spirit.' He thought all our ideas have a cause beyond our consciousness, but that this cause is not of a material nature. It is spiritual."

Sophie had started biting her nails again.

Alberto continued: "According to Berkeley, my own soul can be the cause of my own ideas-just as when I dream-but only another will or spirit can be the cause of the ideas that make up the 'corporeal' world. Everything is due to that spirit which is the cause of 'everything in everything' and which 'all things consist in,' he said."

"What 'spirit' was he talking about?"

"Berkeley was of course thinking of G.o.d. He said that 'we can moreover claim that the existence of G.o.d is far more clearly perceived than the existence of man."'

"Is it not even certain that we exist?"

"Yes, and no. Everything we see and feel is 'an effect of G.o.d's power,' said Berkeley. For G.o.d is 'intimately present in our consciousness, causing to exist for us the profusion of ideas and perceptions that we are constantly subject to.' The whole world around us and our whole life exist in G.o.d. He is the one cause of everything that exists. We exist only in the mind of G.o.d."

"I am amazed, to put it mildly."

"So 'to be or not to be' is not the whole question. The question is also who we are. Are we really human beings of flesh and blood? Does our world consist of real things-or are we encircled by the mind?"

Sophie continued to bite her nails.

Alberto went on: "Material reality was not the only thing Berkeley was questioning. He was also questioning whether 'time' and 's.p.a.ce' had any absolute or independent existence. Our own perception of time and s.p.a.ce can also be merely figments of the mind. A week or two for us need not be a week or two for G.o.d ..."

"You said that for Berkeley this spirit that everything exists in is the Christian G.o.d."

"Yes, I suppose I did. But for us ..."

"Us?"

"For us-for you and me-this 'will or spirit' that is the 'cause of everything in everything' could be Hilde's father."

Sophie's eyes opened wide with incredulity. Yet at the same time a realization began to dawn on her.

"Is that what you think?"

"I cannot see any other possibility. That is perhaps the only feasible explanation for everything that has happened to us. All those postcards and signs that have turned up here and there... Hermes beginning to talk ... my own involuntary slips of the tongue."

"I..."

"Imagine my calling you Sophie, Hilde! I knew all the time that your name wasn't Sophie."

"What are you saying? Now you are definitely confused."

"Yes, my mind is going round and round, my child. Like a giddy planet round a burning sun."

"And that sun is Hilde's father?"

"You could say so."

"Are you saying he's been a kind of G.o.d for us?"

"To be perfectly candid, yes. He should be ashamed of himself!"

"What about Hilde herself?"

"She is an angel, Sophie."

"An angel?"

"Hilde is the one this 'spirit' turns to."

"Are you saying that Albert Knag tells Hilde about us?"

"Or writes about us. For we cannot perceive the matter itself that our reality is made of, that much we have learned. We cannot know whether our external reality is made of sound waves or of paper and writing. According to Berkeley, all we can know is that we are spirit."

"And Hilde is an angel..."

"Hilde is an angel, yes. Let that be the last word. Happy birthday, Hilde!"

Suddenly the room was filled with a bluish light. A few seconds later they heard the crash of thunder and the whole house shook.

"I have to go," said Sophie. She got up and ran to the front door. As she let herself out, Hermes woke up from his nap in the hallway. She thought she heard him say, "See you later, Hilde."

Sophie rushed down the stairs and ran out into the street. It was deserted. And now the rain came down in torrents.