The philosophy of George Berkeley

George Berkeley (12 March 1685 – 14 January 1753), also known as Bishop Berkeley, was an Anglo-Irish philosopher and Anglican bishop of Cloyne of the Anglican Church of Ireland. He is best known for his empiricist and idealist philosophy, which holds that reality consists only of minds and their ideas; everything save the spiritual exists only insofar as it is perceived by the senses. Berkeley’s primary philosophical achievement is the advancement of a theory he called “immaterialism” (later referred to as “subjective idealism” by others). This theory denies the existence of material substance and instead contends that familiar objects like tables and chairs are ideas perceived by the mind and, as a result, cannot exist without being perceived. Berkeley is also known for his critique of abstraction, an important premise in his argument for immaterialism.

 

In 1709, Berkeley published his first major work, An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision, in which he discussed the limitations of human vision and advanced the theory that the proper objects of sight are not material objects, but light and color. This foreshadowed his chief philosophical work, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, in 1710, which, after its poor reception, he rewrote in dialogue form and published under the title Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous in 1731. In this book, Berkeley’s views were represented by Philonous (Greek: “lover of mind”), while Hylas (“hyle”, Greek: “matter”) embodies the Irish thinker’s opponents, in particular John Locke. Berkeley argued against Isaac Newton’s doctrine of absolute space, time and motion in De Motu (On Motion), published 1721. His arguments were a precursor to the views of Ernst Mach and Albert Einstein.

 

Immaterialism was Berkeley’s name for his theory of the perceived world. This theory consists of two parts: a negative thesis that there are not, and could not be, material substances or substrata, and a positive thesis that the existence of bodies consists in their being perceived (as Berkeley says: their esse is percipi). In other words, Berkeley’s immaterialism denies the existence of material substance and instead contends that familiar objects like tables and chairs are ideas perceived by the mind and, as a result, cannot exist without being perceived.

 

Berkeley’s immaterialism is often described as a form of idealism, which holds that reality consists only of minds and their ideas. This view is in contrast to materialism, which holds that reality consists of material objects independent of perception. Berkeley’s immaterialism is also sometimes referred to as subjective idealism, to distinguish it from other forms of idealism that allow for the existence of objective, mind-independent reality.

 

Berkeley’s ideas were met with a range of responses from other philosophers. Some, like David Hume, were influenced by Berkeley’s empiricism and idealism, and developed their own philosophical systems based on similar principles. Others, like Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, developed their own idealist systems in response to Berkeley’s ideas.

 

Berkeley’s critique of abstraction was also met with a range of responses. Some philosophers agreed with Berkeley that abstract ideas were impossible, while others argued that abstract ideas were necessary for certain kinds of reasoning and knowledge. For example, according to Berkeley, philosophers maintain that a general name must stand for a single general idea that represents all members of a kind. To do that, they say, an idea needs to abstract the qualities that are shared by all members of a kind and exclude all those in which they differ.

 

Overall, Berkeley’s ideas had a significant impact on the development of philosophy, and his critique of abstraction continues to be an important topic of discussion in the field