Berkeley and the Immanent View of Meaning: A Comparison

George Berkeley’s idealism and the immanent view of meaning share a core principle: reality or meaning does not exist independently of the perceiving or meaning-making system. In both cases, there is no reference to an external, observer-independent world. But how far does the comparison hold, and where do the two perspectives diverge?

1. Reality and Meaning as Immanent

Berkeley’s idealism asserts that to be is to be perceived (esse est percipi). Objects do not exist independently of perception; rather, their existence is constituted by the act of being observed. Similarly, the immanent view of meaning holds that meaning does not exist as an external reference but only within semiotic systems. There is no inherent meaning ‘out there’—it is instantiated within the structures of a language or system of signs. Just as Berkeley sees no need for material substance, the immanent view sees no need for an external ‘real’ meaning beyond its expression in discourse.

2. The Role of the Observer

In Berkeley’s philosophy, a persistent problem arises: if objects exist only when perceived, what happens when no human observer is present? Berkeley’s solution is that God is the ultimate perceiver, ensuring continuous existence. In an analogous way, one might ask: if meaning is immanent to semiotic systems, what ensures that meaning persists beyond individual meaning-makers? Here, rather than a divine perceiver, the collective semiotic system itself plays that role. Meaning persists not because of an overarching mind like Berkeley’s God, but because the semiotic system is continuously instantiated through use.

3. The Key Difference: The Nature of the System

Where the analogy falters is in the nature of the systems they describe. Berkeley’s philosophy is concerned with experience, making perception primary, whereas the immanent view of meaning is concerned with semiotic systems, making structure and instantiation primary. Berkeley insists that ideas cannot exist outside minds, while the immanent view of meaning does not require a single mind but rather a functioning system in which meaning is instantiated.

4. The Breakdown of the Comparison

The key limitation of the analogy is that, for Berkeley, perception is active—there must be a perceiving subject. But meaning, in the immanent view, does not require a continuous perceiver, only a system capable of generating meaning instances. This makes the immanent view more akin to an evolving, self-sustaining structure rather than a series of dependent observations.

Conclusion: Berkeley’s Idealism and the Participatory Universe of Meaning

In many ways, Berkeley’s philosophy anticipated later developments in semiotics and even quantum mechanics. His insistence that reality is tied to observation resonates with discussions about meaning as an emergent property of semiotic activity. However, while Berkeley needed God to sustain reality, the immanent view of meaning sees no need for a transcendent guarantor—only the continued use of a semiotic system.

By comparing Berkeley’s idealism to the immanent view of meaning, we see how both frameworks reject external, independently existing referents—whether of reality or meaning—and instead root existence in perception or semiotic instantiation. The difference lies in whether this process is observer-dependent (as in Berkeley) or system-dependent (as in the immanent model).

In both cases, meaning and reality are not ‘out there’—they are constructed and maintained within the processes that sustain them.