More than a Critic of Locke and Berkeley: Baxter on Dreams and Imagination

Andrew Baxter, an eighteenth-century philosopher best known for criticizing Berkeley, developed a sophisticated and original theory of dreaming that has been largely ignored. His account emphasizes the passivity, uniqueness, and epistemic significance of dreams, distinguishing them clearly from imagination—an improvement over the faculty psychology of his predecessors. Baxter's theory also reveals problems in Locke and Berkeley's attempts to treat dreaming and imagination as similar, particularly regarding mental transparency and self-consciousness. The paper explores possible Berkeleyan responses to Baxter's challenges.

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Abstract

Andrew Baxter is a generally overlooked philosopher of the first half of the eighteenth century, known almost exclusively for his critique of Berkeleyan idealism. In this paper, I show that he was much more than just a critic of his immediate predecessors, by setting out his undeservedly ignored theory of dreaming and demonstrating its depth, originality as well as its potential to challenge his peers. I begin by highlighting the unprecedented richness of his account, focusing on the passivity, uniqueness and epistemic significance of dreams. Underpinned by an idiosyncratic causal explanation, Baxter’s theory of dreams is not only original, but also allows him to clearly distinguish dreaming from related but importantly different phenomena, especially imagination. This is a remarkable improvement on the more coarse-grained faculty psychology of his immediate predecessors. Moreover, Baxter’s account of dreaming also points to the difficulties, generally glossed over in scholarship, in Locke and Berkeley’s attempt to lump dreaming and imagination together. In particular, their apparent view that dreams are caused in the same way as ideas of imagination threatens to undermine their commitment to mental transparency and the validity of self-consciousness. Finally, I consider some possible Berkeleyan responses that draw on Baxterian considerations and distinctions.