Do objects exist independent of the mind?

Do objects exist independent of the mind? This essay will investigate the question of whether mind independent objects exist according to John Locke and George Berkeley. John Locke reasons that objects do exist independently of our mind but this is not without some caveat. George Berkeley on the other hand argues that no material substances exist other than ideas or perceptions in our minds. Hence there are no mind independent objects. I will argue that John Lockes reasoning is actually stronger than Berkeleys and therefore the case for mind independent objects existing is coincidentally stronger as well. Lockes argument in support is that we can be sure of the limits of our knowledge of their existence because of the ideas we obtain from our senses. I will firstly detail how Lockes reasoning supports this contention. Secondly I will explore Berkeleys claim which denies that any form of material substance and hence mind independent objects do not exist independently. I will argue that Berkeleys claim fails because of inadequacies raised during his rejection of Lockes argument. Berkeley relies on an appeal to the supernatural (e.g. God) to counter the universal proposition that he inevitably draws himself into with the existence of other minds in external human bodies and in his contention that external objects only exist as ideas in the mind. Locke adopts a pragmatic approach to this inquiry because he uses the senses in a practical everyday way to assess the degree of certainty of knowledge. Importantly, Locke accepts the limitations of human knowledge which then defines the inquiry question of what level of certainty there is for the existence of external objects (Bennett, 2007). Locke says that an idea is; whatever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks (Bennett 2007 p2). This is an important definition because it suggests an idea to be more than just a representation of an external object. What Locke alludes to here is that we have a cognitive ability to obtain knowledge of the external world through a relationship in our mind between simple (sensations from experience) and complex (abstracted from particular to universal principles) ideas and are thus able to pass judgement (subjective) about the certainty of that knowledge. Locke states that; Knowledge, then, seems to me to be nothing but the perception of the connection and agreement, or disagreement and incompatibility, of any of our ideas. That is all it is (Bennett, 2007, p196). So knowledge then becomes the outcome of complex ideas created in our mind from sensations. The mind has no innate ideas and starts out as a tabula rasa (or blank sheet) but with mental faculties which thus enable the creation of ideas from experiences of the external world (Bennett, 2007). This is not unproblematic though because it raises the question of exactly which faculties are then innate. However, the ideas created come into being from when a person first has sensations. Locke says that: Since there appear not to be any ideas in the mind before the senses have conveyed any in, I think that ideas in the understanding arise at the same time as sensation (Bennett, 2007 p22). These ideas fashioning our knowledge are thus derived from our experience. They are also built upon the immediate impression of external objects in our mind through our senses. More complex and abstract concepts result from our own introspection. Locke then talks about three types of knowledge which are important in our understanding of the certainty of the existence mind independent objects. He claims that these three types of knowledge are; 1. Intuitive Knowledge which is the immediate agreement or disagreement between ideas without an intervention of other ideas; 2. Demonstrative Knowledge which does not immediately perceive the agreement or disagreement of ideas. It therefore brings into itself more ideas and creating complex ideas thus calling it reasoning; 3. Sensitive Knowledge which is knowledge gained through the senses (Bennett, 2007 p22). Sensitive knowledge is the key element of his claim that external objects exist independent of the mind. Whilst it is readily conceded by Locke that sensitive knowledge is not as certain as intuitive knowledge or demonstrative knowledge, it nevertheless goes beyond probability (Bennett, 2007, p202). It follows then that the level of certainty in establishing a case for the existence of external objects knowledge using the senses is limited. But I contend that the degree to which it is limited does not discount its use. Locke also asserts that whilst some philosophers question whether external objects exist even though they may have an idea in their mind, there is a degree of evidentness which puts the question beyond doubt (Bennett, 2007, p202). So he postulates that we can feel the sun, notice the difference at night without the sun and appreciate the contrast between a dream and an idea coming into our mind through the senses (Bennett, 2007, p202). So for all practical purposes, I contend along with Locke that this is all we need to establish a high level of certainty about the existence of mind-independent objects. This is not to say, that his logic is not without some openings for criticism such as the probabilistic certainty of sensitive knowledge. However I argue that the strength of Lockes reasoning for the existence of mind independent objects lies in its pragmatic simplicity. If we have the idea that something exists independently of our mind and we confirm this with our senses, then it is highly probable that it does exist independently of our mind. If we have the idea that the ground we walk upon is solid, then the idea comes from our experience of solid ground through our walking upon it. Using Lockes reasoning then, the idea of solid ground (as a mind independent object) can be held to be certain; to the limit that sensitive knowledge allows. In contrast to Locke, one can postulate as does George Berkeley, that material substances (and hence mind independent objects) do not exist. In his inquiry, scepticism surfaces amidst the proposition that we think only about the idea and not the actual external object. This scepticism charges the materialism of Locke for example, with implying that it leads to disavowing God (Downing, 2011). This aspect of Berkeleys rejection of Lockes materialist conceptions of the existence of external objects is also a key element of my rejection of Berkeleys Idealism. Berkeleys main argument for the mind independent objects not existing is structured thus; That we perceive ordinary objects and I wouldnt have known them if I hadnt perceived them by my senses; Things perceived by the senses are immediately perceived; and Things that are immediately perceived are ideas; and Ideas cant exist outside the mind. So it follows that; The existence of things I perceive by my senses consists in being perceived. When they are actually perceived [the existence of things], therefore, there can be no doubt about their existence (Berkeley P41). Unfolding what Berkeley means by this hinges upon his use of the word perceive. If the definition of perceiving is to become aware of something through the senses, then it seems that what Berkeley is saying is that we can have knowledge of the existence of external objects. But in fact that is not what he is saying. In #1, #2, #3 #4 he is arguing that our perception or awareness of ordinary objects (external) is based upon the use of our senses creating ideas which can then only exist in our minds. Premise #5 makes his argument look remarkably circular but I will grant that it isnt for this purpose. What he is saying is that external objects only exist because we are able to be aware of them. His conclusion at #6 reiterates the thrust of his claim that when we are made aware of external objects by our senses, then we cannot doubt their existence. He does not mean the external object. He means the idea of the external object. So, if the external object is not a representation and it is not anything other than an idea brought about by a perception or awareness through the senses, how is it that we come by the idea of knowledge of the external world? And more so, how is it that when we are not present or are denied our senses for any reason, that other people continue to experience the external world. Berkeley answers this by saying that When I say that sensible things [external objects] cant exist out of the mind, I dont mean my mind in particular, but all minds. Now, they clearly have an existence exterior to my mind, since I find by experience that they are independent of it (Berkeley p42). I argue here that this sentence inherently disrupts Berkeleys claim that there are no mind independent objects. How is it that there can be other independent minds (assuming them to be within external human bodies) which have an existence exterior to his and which perceive external objects whilst Berkeley is say, asleep? How is it that they are not considered to be external mind independent objects? There must be some other explanation. So Berkeley finds himself having to refer to the supernatural deity for relief; God. There is therefore some other mind in which they [external objects] exist during the intervals between the times when I perceive them; à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦.. it necessarily follows that there is an omnipresent, eternal Mind which knows and comprehends all things and lets us experience them in a certain manner (Berkeley p42). In my assessment this appeal to the omnipotence of God diminishes Berkeleys argument dramatically. It is not a question of having or not having a belief in God. It is about establishing a level of certainty that the external world exists independently of our mind. In contrast to Lockes argument which allows for a probabilistic consideration about the certainty of knowledge; Berkeley simply refutes the external mind independent world and fills the void he creates with that of a supernatural deity. It is contextually understandable but I argue that it severely reduces the plausibility and explanatory power of his claim that mind independent objects do not exist. This essay has argued that Lockes assertions about the existence of mind independent objects are stronger than Berkeleys claim that no mind independent objects exist and to this I offer my support. Lockes probabilistic approach to sensitive knowledge assists him to overcome the vicarious connections between the mind and the external world. This is not without its problems though as I have discussed in the paper. Locke struggles with innateness of ideas and faculties along with proving the level of certainty against a measure of probability. In contrast, Berkeley simply rejects mind independent objects outright, which leaves him with the problem of how to then deal with the issue of other minds and human bodies. To this he simply defers to a supernatural deity in God. This I contend creates a most significant weakness in his argument and causes me to reject it. ConAgra Foods, Inc: Economic Analysis ConAgra Foods, Inc: Economic Analysis Author: Artem Zaiets(36981) Summary This paper’s purpose is to look through and analyze the activities of ConAgra Foods within food processing industry. It will touch the areas of the financing of the company as well as those of the business strategies and compare the company’s major competitors’ operations over the past 5 years. The statistics will also project the expected future growth under the rate of 5% over a 3 year period and look at the sensitivity analysis. Using the projected data, this paper will also show the internal growth rate of the company as well as the external funds required for the future. Introduction ConAgra Foods, Inc. is an American packaged foods company that is located in Omaha, Nebraska that was founded a whole century ago in 1919. The company produces and sells products under 27 different brand names, most of which are popular and known only within the North America. Some of ConAgras major brands include Hunts, Healthy Choice, Marie Callenders, Orville Redenbacher, Slim Jim (snack food), Reddi-wip, Egg Beaters, Hebrew National, P. F. Changs, and Bertolli ready meals. The products of the company diverse from cooking oil to hot dogs, frozen dinners, peanut butter, hot cocoa and many more. As was mentioned earlier, the company’s brands are known mostly in North American, including Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, nevertheless, the company still competes with European and Asian packaging food companies in the market and holds a quite strong position in the list. Financial Strategy There are many tools and ratios that can be useful in order to find out a firm’s financing strategy over a course of period. In this passage, I will be discussing 3 of them: debt to equity ratio, payout ratio and retained earnings during the period from 2010 to 2014, and will compare them with other major competitors that the company has in the food processing industry. The first tool that will be used is debt to equity ratio. This ratio indicates the proportion of equity and debt that a company uses to finance its assets to know whether it is conducting a riskier but more profitable business or vice versa. From the chart we can observe the comparison of this ratio with 2 other industry-related companies (Appendix Table 1). As can be seen from the chart, over the course of these 5 years, the ratio for ConAgra Foods, Inc. jumped drastically from 0.7862 to 1.752 in December 31st of year 2013. This can be explained by the fact that the company decided that it did not have sufficient revenue in order to operate further, and as was mentioned earlier the higher the ratio is, the more risk the company takes but the more money it receives as a turn-over at the same time. We can observe the same situation with Kraft Foods, an American company which was founded in year 2012 as a grocery manufacturing and processing conglomerate. A new company has relatively à ¢â‚¬Ëœless’ to lose than an older one, especially when a company such as ConAgra Foods is nearly 100 years old. Indeed, in the short run, according to microeconomic rules of companies, the latter need to have as much revenue as possible in order to operate in the long run. That is why the ratio for the second company is relatively high. As for Nestle which was founded in year 1905 and that is headquartered in Switzerland, we can observer that the situation is rather more stable compared to the 2 other companies. In year 2012, it reached a maximum of 0.4494 ratio in debt to equity which is quite low considering this industry is capital-intensive. The payout ratio, on the other hand, shows the amount of dividends per share to earnings per share that a company makes. For investors, the ratio can show whether the company’s dividend payments seem to be appropriate and sustainable or whether the company’s paying out more than it can sustain. New and-or fast growing companies usually focus on re-investing their earnings so the business can grow, and as a result, tend to have lower dividend payout ratios. Conversely, larger companies usually have a higher payout ratio. Let us analyze the data from Table 2 (Appendix Table 2). ConAgra Foods company’s payout ratio during the period of 2010 to 2011 has been always higher than 40%, and in 2012 even reached 84.8%. This shows that the company decided to increase the relations with their shareholders, or increase the amount of people contributing to the company by having a more attractive dividend payment. As for the new company Kraft Foods, in 2012 the ratio was at 18.2% which is not surprising. However, the company in the next year decided to increase the dividend payments to 48.2%. The reasons may be the same as ConAgra Foods company’s and also that the company does not have much operating cost at this stage. Nestle in years 2010 to 2011 was quite low, but increased to a reasonable amount in the next years. Yet another tool can be used in defining a company’s financial strategy and it is the retained earnings. Retained earnings are usually used to pay off debts and/or gain additional assets (Appendix Table 3). Table shows the relationship between the retained earnings with long-term, short-term debts, as well as non-current assets and stockholders’ equity for ConAgra Foods company. The short-term debt in the company is kept relatively low at all times in the company, which shows that it spends its earnings to keep them down. Non-current assets, however, get increased by twice as much in year 2013. The explanation for this may be that the company decided to increase investments for its many brands recognition, as well as some new equipment. 1.2. The relationship between the financing strategy and the business strategy Since ConAgra Foods, Inc. has so many brands under its name, a wise strategy for the company would be to increase their investments on those brands that have the highest potential, make them more recognizable around the U.S. The company has, therefore, undertaken a few financial actions that would reflect on their business operations. An example of that is the dividend action. The dividend continues to represent one of the highest payout levels among consumer food companies today. As was shown earlier in the chart with the payout ratios of the company and its competitors, we could indeed see that the ratio was the highest for ConAgra Foods, Inc. Restructuring charges is the next strategy that the company recently implemented. The balance of this charge will reflect upon the volatile and non-volatile costs relating to the implementation of restructuring activities, including programs designed to reduce the company’s ongoing operating costs. In other words, the company also focu ses on reducing operating costs. This does make sense, knowing that this industry is quite capital-intensive. The company also announced plans to divest its seafood and domestic imported cheese businesses. 1.3. Internal Growth Rate The internal growth rate of a company illustrates the highest level of growth which is achievable by the company without obtaining external financing. The formula for calculating the growth rate is as following: IGR = Plowback ratio Ãâ€" return on equity Ãâ€" . The plowback ratio is simply 1 subtracted by the payout ratio (1 – payout ratio), and the return on equity is the net income divided by the shareholders’ equity (ROE = ). Using the latest financial data of the company for year 2014, we get that IGR = (1 – 0.527) Ãâ€" Ãâ€" =0.473Ãâ€"0.058Ãâ€"0.272=0.00746 or roughly 0.75%. A conclusion of this is that without external financing, the growth rate of the company is mediocre. In case of any questions considering number (Appendix B Balance sheet of the company). 2.1. ConAgra Foods spreadsheet Assumed growth rate 0,05 Comments Comments Income statement 2014 2015 2016 2017 Revenue 17 702 600 18 587 730 19 517 117 20 492 972 5% increase Cost of goods sold 13 980 000 60,4% of sales 14 679 000 15 412 950 16 183 598 5% increase EBIT 955 400 1 003 170 1 053 329 1 105 995 5% increase Interest expense 379 000 379 000 379 000 379 000 Earnings before taxes 576 400 EBIT-I.expense 624 170 674 329 726 995 Taxes 298 000 51,7% of EBT 322 696 348 628 375 856 Net income 315 100 EBIT I.expense taxes 301 474 325 701 351 139 Dividents 166 057 Payout ratio = 0,527 158 877 171 644 185 050 Reatined earnings 149 043 Net income-dividents 142 597 154 056 166 089 Balance sheet Assets Net working capital 1 588 400 1 667 820 1 751 211 1 838 772 5% increase Fixed assets 15 123 600 15 879 780 16 673 769 17 507 457 5% increase Total assets 16 724 000 17 547 600 18 424 980 19 346 229 Equity and liabilities Long-term debt 8 767 600 8 767 600 8 767 600 8 767 600 Shareholders equity 5 258 500 5 401 097 5 555 154 5 721 242 Increase due to Retained earnings Other liabilities 2 601 200 2 601 200 2 601 200 2 601 200 Minority interest 96 700 96 700 96 700 96 700 Total liability and s.equity 16 724 300 Equal to total assets 16 866 597 17 020 654 17 186 742 Required external finance 0 681 003 1 404 326 2 159 487 Total assets Total liab. and s.equity From this table we can observe how much external finance company needed to maintain future growth. It means that company will either sell equity or borrow debt to obtain extra cash for future growth. Required external finance was calculated, simply, by subtracting future total assets from future total liabilities and shareholders’ equity. In case of any questions considering number (Appendix B Balance sheet of the company). Appendix A 2.1. Financing strategy Table 1 DEBT TO EQUITY 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 ConAgra Foods (CAG) 0.6543 0.6183 0.7862 1.752 1.522 Kraft Foods (KRFT) N/A 0.0021 2.79 1.924 2.298 Nestle (NSRGY) 0.3249 0.3928 0.4494 0.3475 0.3024 The numbers were taken from December 31st of each consecutive year. Table 2 PAYOUT, % 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 ConAgra Foods (CAG) 43 46.8 84.8 82.1 52.7 Kraft Foods (KRFT) N/A N/A 18.2 48.2 53.1 Nestle (NSRGY) 17 18.5 60.6 72.2 47.5 Table 3 Year 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Retained Earnings 4417 4854 4765 5130 5011 Short-term Debt 261 364 78 703 226 Long-term Debt 3226 2870 2859 8887 8768 Non-current Assets 7778 7509 8223 16026 15136 Stockholders Equity 4924 4702 4440 5264 5259 Appendix B 1.3. Internal growth rate; 2.1. ConAgra Foods spreadsheet Balance sheet of the company 2014 Assets Current Assets Cash And Cash Equivalents 183,100 Net Receivables 1,393,200 Inventory 2,292,600 Other Current Assets 361,900 Total Current Assets 4,230,800 Property Plant and Equipment 3,822,800 Goodwill 7,836,500 Intangible Assets 3,205,800 Other Assets 270,500 Total Assets 19,366,400 Liabilities Current Liabilities Accounts Payable 2,416,400 Short/Current Long Term Debt 226,000 Total Current Liabilities 2,642,400 Long Term Debt 8,767,600 Other Liabilities 2,601,200 Minority Interest 96,700 Total Liabilities 14,107,900 Stockholders Equity Common Stock 2,839,700 Retained Earnings 5,010,600 Treasury Stock (3,494,400) Capital Surplus 1,036,900 Other Stockholder Equity -134,3 Total Stockholder Equity 5,258,500 References conagrafoods, (2015).Investor Relations and Investor Information | ConAgra Foods. [online] Available at: http://www.conagrafoods.com/news-room/news-ConAgra-Foods-Announces-Strategy-for-Strengthening-Long-Term-Operating-PerformanceStreamlined-PortfolioIncreased-Marketing-on-Key-BrandsAggressive-Cost-Programs-and-Lower-Dividend-Shape-New-Financial-Profile-1008563 [Accessed 29 Jun. 2015]. Financials.morningstar.com, (2015).Balance Sheet for ConAgra Foods Inc (CAG) from Morningstar.com. [online] Available at: http://financials.morningstar.com/balance-sheet/bs.html?t=CAGregion=usaculture=en-US [Accessed 29 Jun. 2015]. Gurufocus.com, (2015).ConAgra Foods Inc (CAG) Debt to Equity (%). [online] Available at: http://www.gurufocus.com/term/deb2equity/CAG/Debt+to+Equity+%28%25%29/ConAgra+Foods+Inc [Accessed 29 Jun. 2015]. Markets.ft.com, (2015).Nestle SA, NESN:VTX financials FT.com. [online] Available at: http://markets.ft.com/research/Markets/Tearsheets/Financials?s=NESN:VTX [Accessed 29 Jun. 2015]. Finance.yahoo.com, (2015).CAG Balance Sheet | ConAgra Foods, Inc. Common Stoc Stock Yahoo! Finance. [online] Available at: https://finance.yahoo.com/q/bs?s=CAG+Balance+Sheetannual [Accessed 30 Jun. 2015]. Finance.yahoo.com, (2015).CAG Income Statement | ConAgra Foods, Inc. Common Stoc Stock Yahoo! Finance. [online] Available at: https://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=CAG+Income+Statementannual [Accessed 30 Jun. 2015].