Philosophical Writings (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy)
George Berkeley
Language: English
Pages: 387
ISBN: 2:00148692
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
George Berkeley - Philosophical Writings. Ed. by Desmond M. Clarke. Cambridge University Press, 2009. 386 pages (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy). ISBN: 9780521707626
George Berkeley (1685–1753) was a university teacher, a missionary, and later a Church of Ireland bishop. The over-riding objective of his long philosophical career was to counteract objections to religious belief that resulted from new philosophies associated with the Scientific Revolution. Accordingly, he argued against scepticism and atheism in the Principles and the Three Dialogues; he rejected theories of force in the Essay on Motion; he offered a new theory of meaning for religious language in Alciphron; and he modified his earlier immaterialism in Siris by speculating about the body's influence on the soul. His radical empiricism and scientific instrumentalism, which rejected the claims of the sciences to provide a realistic interpretation of phenomena, are still influential today. This edition provides texts from the full range of Berkeley's contributions to philosophy, together with an introduction by Desmond M. Clarke that sets them in their historical and philosophical contexts.
that inspired his missionary enterprise. He remained in London until 1734, when he was appointed Bishop of Cloyne (in County Cork, Ireland); he was consecrated bishop in Dublin, before travelling south to his diocese. Apart from a few brief interludes, Berkeley remained in the village of Cloyne for the following seventeen years. During this period, he published various pamphlets which addressed some of the economic, political, and religious issues that were relevant to Ireland at the time. He
nearer or farther off. But that this is not true I am convinced by my own experience, since I am not conscious that I make any such use of the perception I have by the turn of my eyes. And for me to make those judgments, and draw those conclusions from it, without knowing that I do so, seems altogether incomprehensible. 20 From all which it follows that the judgment we make of the distance of an object, viewed with both eyes, is entirely the result of experience. If we had not constantly found
it is that in all times and places visible figures are called by the same names as the respective tangible figures suggested by them, and not because they are alike or of the same sort with them. 141 But, say you, surely a tangible square is liker to a visible square than to a visible circle. It has four angles and as many sides; so also has the visible square. But the visible circle has no such thing, being bounded by one uniform curve without right lines or angles, which makes it unfit to
corresponding to the four sides of the tangible square, as likewise four other distinct and equal parts whereby to denote the four equal angles of the tangible square. And accordingly we see the visible figures contain in them distinct visible parts, answering to the distinct tangible parts of the figures signified or suggested by them. 143 But it will not hence follow that any visible figure is like unto, or of the same species with, its corresponding tangible figure, unless it be also shown
men, for ease of memory and help of computation, made use of counters, or in writing of single strokes, points or the like, each whereof was made to signify an unit, that is, some one thing of whatever kind they had occasion to reckon. Afterwards they found out the more compendious ways of making one character stand in place of several strokes, or points. And lastly, the notation of the Arabians or Indians came into use, wherein by the repetition of a few characters or figures, and varying the