An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision (1709)
Argues that we do not see distance directly but learn to judge it from experience
Philosophy
George Berkeley
1685–1753 · Irish (Anglo-Irish)
British empiricism; idealism (immaterialism)
Irish philosopher and Anglican bishop of Cloyne, the second of the great British empiricists between Locke and Hume. He argued for immaterialism: there is no material substance, and physical objects exist only as ideas perceived by minds, ultimately sustained by God. He also wrote on vision, mathematics and the medicinal virtues of tar-water.
How to spot them
- ▸Immaterialism; for sensible things, "their esse is percipi" – to be is to be perceived
- ▸Hylas and Philonous; the tree in the quad
- ▸Samuel Johnson kicking a stone: "I refute it thus"
- ▸Bishop of Cloyne; tar-water; the university town in California named after him
Key works
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710)
Main statement of immaterialism and attack on abstract ideas and matter
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713)
Popular restatement of immaterialism in dialogue; Philonous ("lover of mind") persuades Hylas ("matter")
The Analyst (1734)
Attack on the logical foundations of Newton's calculus, mocking fluxions as "ghosts of departed quantities"
Siris (1744)
Chain of reflections beginning with the medicinal virtues of tar-water and ending in metaphysics
Key ideas
- Immaterialism: there is no mind-independent material substance; physical objects are collections of ideas
- For unthinking things, existence consists in being perceived ("their esse is percipi")
- Objects persist when no human perceives them because they are continually perceived by God, whose ideas also explain the regularity of nature
- Against Locke, there are no abstract general ideas (such as a triangle neither equilateral nor scalene)
- Against Locke's primary/secondary distinction, primary qualities are as mind-dependent as secondary ones
- Distance is not seen immediately but suggested by visual and tactile cues learned through experience
Quick-fire facts
- •Born in County Kilkenny and educated at Trinity College Dublin
- •He became Anglican Bishop of Cloyne, County Cork, in 1734
- •He lived at Newport, Rhode Island (1729–31) while trying to found a college in Bermuda, a scheme that failed for lack of funds
- •Berkeley, California, and its university are named after him, inspired by his line "Westward the course of empire takes its way"
- •According to Boswell, Samuel Johnson kicked a large stone and declared "I refute it thus"
- •He promoted tar-water as a near-universal medicine in Siris
- •Ronald Knox's limerick about the tree in the quad parodies Berkeley's view that objects persist because God perceives them
- •He died in Oxford and is buried in Christ Church Cathedral
Drill it — 9 cards
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Sources
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — George Berkeley
- Anthony Kenny — A New History of Western Philosophy