108 CONCEPTIONS OF ULTIMATE REALITYin either of two quite different ways as follows, using a cat named “Oscar” as our
sample physical object:
III “Oscar” designates what “this collection of catty images”^13 designates.
So far, so good. Are we then to go on to IV or to V?:
IV All true statements about Oscar can be translated without remainder into
(reduced to) statements about this collection of catty images.
V Statements about Oscar should^14 be dropped from our speech and replaced by
sentences that speak only of this collection of catty images.^15
What IV recommends is reduction; what V commends is replacement. It seems
clear that the idealist, at least of Bishop Berkeley’s sort, wants V. Berkeley takes
statements about physical objects to be true only if there are exactly the sort of
experience-independent extended objects it is the purpose of his theory to reject.
Statements to the effect that there are such things, being in principle false, should
be banned from our theories. The idea is that the truths cat sentences aim at and
miss, collections of catty images sentences hit.
More formally, a statement A reduces without remainder to a statement B only
if it is logically impossible that A and B differ in truth value. Statements about
physical objects can differ in truth value from statements about collections of
catty images. So IV recommends a logical impossibility. Further, given the
conditions for reduction, if the recommended reduction could be carried out, it
would import talk of objects into idealistic theory. Berkeleyian idealism is a
replacement theory. It is eliminativist, not reductionist.
So is Advaita Vedanta, and for analogous reasons. Consider the difference
between:
IV All true statements about any Atman can be translated without remainder
into (reduced to) statements about Brahman.
V Statements about any Atman should be dropped from our speech and replaced
by sentences that speak only of Brahman.^16
Suppose that This Atman is tired (i.e., I am tired) is true. It has as truth conditions
that I exist as the sort of being that can tire; if Atman is Brahman is treated as IV
requires, it will be true that Brahman is tired. Shankara rejects this. It is V that his
view requires. His view is eliminativist, not reductionist. It is in that context that we
should understand his view that only Brahman without qualities exists.^17
Advaita Vedanta will receive further description when we come later to ask what
considerations have been offered on its behalf. In philosophy, understanding a view
and understanding what can be said for and against it are not separate enterprises;
they are intrinsically related, part of a single enterprise of understanding. What can