Berkeley's Subjective/Empirical Idealism Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Hawking (1988: 18):

Newton was very worried by this lack of absolute position, or absolute space, as it was called, because it did not accord with his idea of an absolute God. In fact, he refused to accept lack of absolute space, even though it was implied by his laws. He was severely criticised for this irrational belief by many people, most notably by Bishop Berkeley, a philosopher who believed that all material objects and space and time are an illusion. When the famous Dr. Johnson was told of Berkeley’s opinion, he cried, “I refute it thus!” and stubbed his toe on a large stone.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, George Berkeley did not believe that "material objects and space and time are an illusion", but that material objects only exist as ideas in the minds of perceivers, and this does not logically entail that they are illusions.  Moreover, Samuel Johnson's stubbing of his toe on a large stone was no refutation of Berkeley's claim, since seeing and feeling the stone are both perceptions in Berkeley's terms. 

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, material objects are construals of experience of the non-semiotic domain as the material-relational domain of meaning by the processes of the mental-verbal domain of meaning (consciousness).  Such meanings entail a relation of identity between perceptual and linguistic systems such that perceptual tokens realise linguistic values.