Reading Notes: September 18th, 2024

“Inches, feet, &c. are settled, stated lengths, whereby we measure objects and estimate their magnitude. We say, for example, an object appears to be six inches, or six foot long. Now, that this cannot be meant of visible inches, &c. is evident, because a visible inch is itself no constant determinate magnitude, and cannot therefore serve to mark out and determine the magnitude of any other thing. Take an inch marked upon a ruler; view it successively, at a distance of half a foot, a foot, a foot and a half, &c. from the eye: at each of which, and at all the intermediate distances, the inch shall have a different visible extension, i.e., there shall be more or fewer points discerned in it. Now, I ask which of all these various extensions is that stated determinate one that is agreed on for a common measure of other magnitudes? No reason can be assigned why we should pitch on one more than another….Farther, an inch and a foot, from different distances, shall both exhibit the same visible magnitude, and yet at the same time you shall say that one seems several times greater than the other.” (Berkeley, An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision, §61)

“The Absolute must synthesize the diversity which it contains into a harmonious system. All inconsistency and incoherence must somehow be eliminated. Appearances, which at the level of appearance are in open conflict, must be reconciled and harmonized. How in detail the Absolute achieves this self-consistent synthesis of the manifold, Bradley does not pretend to show. But we know that reality must unmake the contradictions of what appears in thought, since reality must satisfy thought’s criterion of self-consistency. We also know that the Absolute may remove these contradictions, since there are no differences which are, as such, contradictory. There is no contradiction when one attempts to unite differences without a ground of union and distinction, but the contradiction will be resolved when the necessary ground is supplied. And what may be, if it also must be, certainly is.” (MacLachlan, Epistemological Realism and Metaphysical Pluralism, 124-125)