Berkeley's Pin Prick Argument

"When a pin pricks your finger, does it not rend and divide the fibres of your flesh? / It does."

"And when coal burns your finger, does it [do] any more? / It does not."

""Since, therefore, you neither judge the sensation itself occasioned by the pin, or anything like it to be in the pin, you should not, conformably to what you have now granted, judge the sensation occasioned by the fire, or anything like it, to be in the fire." (P 166a)

(For "occasioned" read "brought about"; sort of like "causes," but not necessarily involving any causal power.)

Conclusion: Heat is not in the coal which burns.

Premise: Pain is not in the pin which pricks.

Argument by Analogy:

Nothing like the sensation brought about by it is in the pin which pricks.
The coal which burns is similar to the pin which pricks.
So,Nothing like the sensation brought about by it is in the coal which burns.


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Richard Lee, rlee@uark.edu, last modified: 21 February 2003