I want to talk about my own views:
Becquerel changed Descartes' dualism of body and mind into idealism monism. So we should understand the source of Descartes' dualistic mind-body split. From this source, we still haven't explained how body and mind are unified well today. This is what science is still trying to do so far, and there is no complete answer yet. Descartes believes that the body is extensive (length, width and height), but the heart does not have such an attribute. The function of the heart is thinking, thinking has no universality, and universality has no thinking. So how to unify the two? This is the origin of physical and mental problems from Descartes.
2. In Becker's works, he actually emphasized that his "being is perceived" is the most common sense, so he did not intentionally challenge people's common sense that foreign objects exist, but only gave different explanations. This argument and explanation are detailed as follows.
Last year, I made an editor for Becquerel in various materials, and the landlord can have a look (of course, I don't agree with Becquerel's point of view):
Becker's idea is this: for me, the existence of an apple, for example, means that I see its color, smell its fragrance, feel its shape, warmth, softness, sweetness and so on. Without these attributes, there would be no apple, but the color, shape, fragrance, sweetness and softness of apple are nothing more than my feelings. Without my feelings, there would be no such attributes. So the existence of this apple and its perception by me are the same thing. It only exists in some feelings in my mind.
When Becker first put forward this theory, many people thought he was crazy, which is understandable. In fact, it was not until Becker's death that philosophers began to take him seriously and admit what he tried to do before his death. Samuel johnson, his contemporaries, heard about Becquerel's theory, kicked a stone in the street and said loudly, "I refute this theory like this." Johnson's view is that material things do exist, not a collection of ideas-when he kicks a stone, his toes feel it is hard, so Becquerel must be wrong. However, Becquerel is more resourceful than Johnson thought. What your feet feel is the hardness of that stone, which does not prove the existence of that object, but the concept of "hard stone". Becquerel thinks that because of this, our so-called "stone" is just the feeling it gives us. Behind it, there is no "real" material stone that makes feet feel pain. In fact, there is no reality outside our thoughts.
Becker's attack on physical entities.
(1) Matter is incredible and redundant.
Becker's starting point is that Locke believes that the object of human knowledge is ideas. The conclusion drawn from this premise should be: what we can know is only the concept, not something outside the concept. Locke believes that primary quality is something that exists in an entity that cannot be thought outside the heart, and the concept of primary quality is its "copy", which is equivalent to saying that thought can be similar to non-conceptual things, which is contradictory in Becker's view. Locke's theory does not explain how he knows the real world, because we can't test the real world. How can you be sure that the concept caused by "firstness" (such as size and shape) is the same as that of the external real world? So in Becquerel's eyes, the world has nothing but thoughts. All experiences are experiences of reality.
(2) Things are a collection of ideas.
Becker put forward several viewpoints to prove that what we call matter is just our idea. For example, we put a warm hand and another cold hand in the same water container. Water is hot for cold hands, but cold for warm hands. Therefore, Becker believes that pain, like cold and heat, is a feeling that exists in the mind. And sound is "a special perception", but without us, sound is just "vibration or fluctuation in the air" Regarding sports, Becker believes that sports must be based on time, and we can only measure time by "the continuity of ideas in our minds". Therefore, if we take one mind as the frame of reference, an object may move very fast, but if we take another mind as the frame of reference, it may move very slowly. Therefore, exercise must not be the nature of external things. As for solidity, Becker made two explanations: first, the relative soft or hard feeling of an object depends on the force acting on it and the condition of its hands or other parts of the body. Our toes feel harder when they accidentally hit the wall than when we lean against the wall. Second, any kind of resistance-only we are "hard" or "soft" pointers-is among us, not outside our things. When I catch a baseball with the root of my glove, I feel the impact when my hand touches this side of the ball, not the other side of the glove. Finally, there is the question of quantity. Is it 1, 3 or1000-it all depends on whether our minds can measure by meters, feet or kilometers. If I close my eyes or put my fingers on my eyes, I will see one thing as two. Therefore, quantity is not the essence of things independent of the mind. It only exists in the mind. To sum up, in Becker's view, these attributes are not the attributes of fixed substances in the external world.
In Becker's early work "A New Theory of Vision", it has actually laid the groundwork for his later idea of conceptualizing objects. Becker discusses the relationship between vision and touch mainly from the psychological point of view in the theory of new vision. Previous empirical philosophers, such as Hobbes and Locke, often regarded ductility as the basic attribute of matter and the object of touch. However, Becker believes that the extension of touch comes from the extension of vision, and vision is not felt, but seen. When we observe an object, we first form a psychological impression of the shape of the object in vision, and then influence the sense of touch according to this psychological impression, forming an extension of the sense of touch. For a born blind person, he can't feel the same sense of touch as us. This just shows that the extension of objects in touch is actually formed according to previous visual impressions. Becker's view is profound and explains the relationship between vision and touch from a psychological point of view.
Psychologist Oliver Seck discussed a recent case in detail in the article "Seeing and Not Watching". There was a man, whom he called Virgil, who had poor eyesight when he was a child. When he was three years old, he was very ill and was in a coma for two weeks. After he woke up, his retina was seriously damaged. At the age of six, he suffered from cataract and soon became blind. When he 15 years old, he was very happy that his cataract had been removed, but he could not distinguish between complicated light and color. It took him a long time to recognize the doctor's face.
Virgil also has difficulty in distinguishing objects: he said that when he saw the packages on the shelves of department stores, "everything was crowded together." You can't tell his black and white cat from his black and white dog without touching him. He can recognize single letters. He learned letters by touch in a school for the blind, but it was difficult for him to make them into words. Similarly, it is difficult for him to regard isolated trunks, branches and leaves as a tree. Just like the patient in Cheserden, although he can recognize the shape of objects by touch, he can't use vision. He studied "y" carefully and was stunned by the objects he had learned by touching before; Only by closing his eyes and touching him can he feel a little comfort.
All this clearly shows that if the modes of feeling are different, I will not touch and see the same object.
(3) Spiritual entity
When talking about the source of thoughts, Becker thinks that our thoughts have three sources. One is our feelings, through which we form ideas about various things; The other is our intuition about self or mind, which is the supporter of all ideas, but it can not be felt by ourselves, but can only be the object of our intuition; The last source of ideas is reasoning, which leads to the idea of God. God is neither the object of our feelings nor intuition, but inference. Starting from a limited thing, keep moving forward, and finally get an infinite thing, that is, God.
Although Becker denied the material entity, he did not deny the spiritual entity. Since things are a collection of ideas, we must admit the existence of spiritual entities, otherwise we can't carry out perceptual activities. But what exactly is this spiritual entity? Becker, like Locke, thinks it is imperceptible, but as a supporter and dependent of the concept, we must admit this. In this way, on the one hand, Becquerel denied the objective material entity, on the other hand, he retained the spiritual entity. In this respect, Becquerel is contradictory and his empiricism is incomplete.
Being is being perceived, and the existence of ideas means that there must be something that perceives or perceives ideas, which is the mind. Becker also called the mind "soul", "spirit", "spiritual entity" and "self". The importance of the mind lies in its initiative. It can not only perceive ideas, but also exercise the will, memory and imagination in ideas.
Becker said that there are two kinds of hearts, one is the human heart, and the other is the heart of God. The human mind includes not only "I", that is, the mind of myself, but also the mind of others. Becker believes that the existence of other minds can also be known through reflection. He said: "Obviously, we can only know the existence of other spirits according to their functions or according to the ideas they evoke in our hearts. I feel the movement, change and combination of some ideas, which makes me know that there are some special motives. They are similar to myself, and with those ideas, they have those ideas. Therefore, my understanding of other spirits is not as direct as my understanding of my ideas, but depends on the media of ideas. I attribute these thoughts to some motives or spirits different from mine as their effects or accompanying marks. " In the same way, we can infer the existence of God's mind. Because everything in nature is much broader and more complicated than our individual mind perceives, and it is also something that our limited mind can never create. They must be the creation of an eternal, all-knowing, all-good and perfect "mind", which is the mind of God, and God is the supreme spirit.
To sum up, when Becquerel said that "existence is perceived" and "things are a collection of ideas", people often regard him as an extreme solipsist, thinking that what he said is his own mind, his ego and everything depend on his mind. As can be seen from the above, this statement is inaccurate. Because Becquerel's mind is not only his mind, but also his own. At this point, he did not violate obvious common sense and denied the existence of other minds. Of course, people regard Becquerel as a solipsist, and the representative of subjective idealism is not unreasonable. We can see that Becquerel's ontology and his theory of immaterialism are completely centered on "self" and its concept. He thinks that we only have direct experience and knowledge about the concept of "myself". Based on this empirical knowledge, we get a certain concept about the existence and essence of "self". On this basis, after further reflection and inference, we "realize" (in a different sense from the understanding of concepts) the existence and essence of other minds. All these drinking processes ultimately depend on the observation and experience of my inner activities. In this sense, "I" and its concept have become the core of all theoretical discussions of Becker, the starting point of all cognitive activities and the basis of all philosophical conclusions. The novelty of Becker's theory lies in his unique exposition of "self" and its conceptual nature. People say that Becquerel is a solipsist, which also captures his theoretical feature and emphasizes the aspects that can truly reflect his 1 theoretical spirit. In this regard, this view of a philosopher's point of view, although contrary to strict historical truth, is not completely inappropriate. When the French philosopher Diderot attacked Becquerel's solipsism, saying that he was like a crazy piano, thinking that "all the harmony of the universe happened on it", he did not elaborate on his commitment to "the other" and "the heart of God", that is, his objective idealism. Did he not properly highlight the real opposition and conflict between their views?