George+Berkeley

George Berkeley (Ariel Seidner, Daisuke Inoue)



- Life (1685-1753) Ireland - Anglo-Irish Priest (Strong Catholic Influence) -Studied in Trinity College, here he encountered new sciences and philosophies that he deemed a threat to Christianity.
 * Autobiography:**


 * Philosophical Thinking:** (Berkeley is considered to be part of both of the following)--> also Subjective Idealism

Empiricism(School of thought): "a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience."

Idealism - "the doctrine that reality is fundamentally mental"

-Entire Philosophical thinking is intended to reinforce the presence of God which is threatened and rejected by materialist school of thought. -Ideas are all that exist, there is no such thing as external reality. What we know as "external reality" is simply the perception of ideas. Humans are incapable of perceiving matter itself, we only understand the //idea// of matter. According to Berkeley, there is a spirit that causes these ideas, which we consider to be our world, our reality. This spirit is off course a reference to the existence of God. Furthermore he dwells within us through the ideas we perceive. Reality is only as much as our perception allows.

"When we do our utmost to conceive the existence of external bodies, we are all the while only contemplating our own ideas. But the mind taking no notice of itself, is deluded to think it can and doth conceive bodies existing unthought of or without the mind; though at the same time they are apprehended by or exist in it self."

-Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge -Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous - An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision
 * Famous Works:**

- Plato and the world of ideas ( Idealism) - Aristotle ( formed the earliest idea of Empiricism) -John Locke-all that we can know are the contents of our consciousness
 * Connections:**

- First to spread ideas of subjective idealism to western world - He posed challenge to the ideas of materialism and atheism
 * Influences:**


 * Gamble Endnotes:**

In a way, Berkeley is a caveless Plato. All this is is the "idea" realm. Yet Berkeley would also say that like the cave, our ideas are not perfectly conceived or understood, there is "shadow" there. Our reality is limited by our perception; perception being all we have. Where do the ideas come from? From God. We exist inside his circle of ideas, apprehending our own limited portion.

His is subjective (that is, personally defined and understood, not absolute) "idealism" -- as Daisuke and Ariel say above, the notion that reality is mental, dwells in the realm of __ideas__.

It might be questioned, "How then, can Berkeley be known as an empiricist if all of reality to his is simply ideas, and not measurable or physical. The idea here, is that Berkeley would say that we get our idea of reality by what we sense, by what we experience. In this sense it is classically empirical. However, Berkeley would say, what we sense, feel, experience are actually just ideas, as though were were disembodied brains who are simply being stimulated (by God, he would say) with ideas.