Author: Tom Jones
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691217491
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 648
Book Description
A comprehensive intellectual biography of the Enlightenment philosopher In George Berkeley: A Philosophical Life, Tom Jones provides a comprehensive account of the life and work of the preeminent Irish philosopher of the Enlightenment. From his early brilliance as a student and fellow at Trinity College Dublin to his later years as Bishop of Cloyne, Berkeley brought his searching and powerful intellect to bear on the full range of eighteenth-century thought and experience. Jones brings vividly to life the complexities and contradictions of Berkeley’s life and ideas. He advanced a radical immaterialism, holding that the only reality was minds, their thoughts, and their perceptions, without any physical substance underlying them. But he put forward this counterintuitive philosophy in support of the existence and ultimate sovereignty of God. Berkeley was an energetic social reformer, deeply interested in educational and economic improvement, including for the indigenous peoples of North America, yet he believed strongly in obedience to hierarchy and defended slavery. And although he spent much of his life in Ireland, he followed his time at Trinity with years of travel that took him to London, Italy, and New England, where he spent two years trying to establish a university for Bermuda, before returning to Ireland to take up an Anglican bishopric in a predominantly Catholic country. Jones draws on the full range of Berkeley’s writings, from philosophical treatises to personal letters and journals, to probe the deep connections between his life and work. The result is a richly detailed and rounded portrait of a major Enlightenment thinker and the world in which he lived.
George Berkeley
Author: Tom Jones
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691217491
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 648
Book Description
A comprehensive intellectual biography of the Enlightenment philosopher In George Berkeley: A Philosophical Life, Tom Jones provides a comprehensive account of the life and work of the preeminent Irish philosopher of the Enlightenment. From his early brilliance as a student and fellow at Trinity College Dublin to his later years as Bishop of Cloyne, Berkeley brought his searching and powerful intellect to bear on the full range of eighteenth-century thought and experience. Jones brings vividly to life the complexities and contradictions of Berkeley’s life and ideas. He advanced a radical immaterialism, holding that the only reality was minds, their thoughts, and their perceptions, without any physical substance underlying them. But he put forward this counterintuitive philosophy in support of the existence and ultimate sovereignty of God. Berkeley was an energetic social reformer, deeply interested in educational and economic improvement, including for the indigenous peoples of North America, yet he believed strongly in obedience to hierarchy and defended slavery. And although he spent much of his life in Ireland, he followed his time at Trinity with years of travel that took him to London, Italy, and New England, where he spent two years trying to establish a university for Bermuda, before returning to Ireland to take up an Anglican bishopric in a predominantly Catholic country. Jones draws on the full range of Berkeley’s writings, from philosophical treatises to personal letters and journals, to probe the deep connections between his life and work. The result is a richly detailed and rounded portrait of a major Enlightenment thinker and the world in which he lived.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691217491
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 648
Book Description
A comprehensive intellectual biography of the Enlightenment philosopher In George Berkeley: A Philosophical Life, Tom Jones provides a comprehensive account of the life and work of the preeminent Irish philosopher of the Enlightenment. From his early brilliance as a student and fellow at Trinity College Dublin to his later years as Bishop of Cloyne, Berkeley brought his searching and powerful intellect to bear on the full range of eighteenth-century thought and experience. Jones brings vividly to life the complexities and contradictions of Berkeley’s life and ideas. He advanced a radical immaterialism, holding that the only reality was minds, their thoughts, and their perceptions, without any physical substance underlying them. But he put forward this counterintuitive philosophy in support of the existence and ultimate sovereignty of God. Berkeley was an energetic social reformer, deeply interested in educational and economic improvement, including for the indigenous peoples of North America, yet he believed strongly in obedience to hierarchy and defended slavery. And although he spent much of his life in Ireland, he followed his time at Trinity with years of travel that took him to London, Italy, and New England, where he spent two years trying to establish a university for Bermuda, before returning to Ireland to take up an Anglican bishopric in a predominantly Catholic country. Jones draws on the full range of Berkeley’s writings, from philosophical treatises to personal letters and journals, to probe the deep connections between his life and work. The result is a richly detailed and rounded portrait of a major Enlightenment thinker and the world in which he lived.
Berkeley
Author: Keota Fields
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739142976
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 254
Book Description
Berkeley: Ideas, Immaterialism, and Objective Presence offers a novel interpretation of the arc of George Berkeley's philosophical thought, from his theory of vision through his immaterialism and finally to his proof of God's existence. Keota Fields unifies these themes to focus on Berkeley's use of the Cartesian doctrine of objective presence, which demands causal explanations of the content of ideas. This is particularly so with respect to Berkeley's arguments for immaterialism. One of those arguments is typically read as a straightforward transitivity argument. After identifying material bodies with sensible objects, and the latter with ideas of sense, Berkeley concludes that putative material bodies are actually identical to collections of ideas of sense. George Pappas has recently defended an alternative reading that grounds Berkeley's immaterialism in his rejection of what Pappas calls category-transcendent abstract ideas: abstract ideas of beings, entia, or existence. Fields uses Pappas's interpretation as a framework for understanding Berkeley's immaterialism in terms of transcendental arguments. Early moderns routinely used the doctrine of objective presence to justify transcendental arguments for the existence of material substance. The claim was that physical qualities are necessary for any causal explanation of the content of sensory ideas; since those qualities are represented to perceivers as ontologically dependent, material substance is the necessary condition for the existence of physical qualities and a fortiori any causal explanation of the content of sensory ideas. On the reading defended here, Berkeley rejects Locke's transcendental argument for the existence of material substratum on the grounds that it turns decisively on the aforementioned category-transcendent abstract ideas, which Berkeley rejects as logically inconsistent. In its place, Berkeley offers his own transcendental argument designed to show that only minds and ideas exist. He uses that argument as a proof of God's existence-and ultimately to argue that the emergence of meaning from a material world simply cannot be explained. A portrait emerges of a thinker deeply engaged with the theories of his time, yet one who is captivated by the question of how meaning arises in the world. Students and scholars of the history of philosophy, particularly early modern history and the British Empiricists, will find this book to be a valuable addition to their collections.
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739142976
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 254
Book Description
Berkeley: Ideas, Immaterialism, and Objective Presence offers a novel interpretation of the arc of George Berkeley's philosophical thought, from his theory of vision through his immaterialism and finally to his proof of God's existence. Keota Fields unifies these themes to focus on Berkeley's use of the Cartesian doctrine of objective presence, which demands causal explanations of the content of ideas. This is particularly so with respect to Berkeley's arguments for immaterialism. One of those arguments is typically read as a straightforward transitivity argument. After identifying material bodies with sensible objects, and the latter with ideas of sense, Berkeley concludes that putative material bodies are actually identical to collections of ideas of sense. George Pappas has recently defended an alternative reading that grounds Berkeley's immaterialism in his rejection of what Pappas calls category-transcendent abstract ideas: abstract ideas of beings, entia, or existence. Fields uses Pappas's interpretation as a framework for understanding Berkeley's immaterialism in terms of transcendental arguments. Early moderns routinely used the doctrine of objective presence to justify transcendental arguments for the existence of material substance. The claim was that physical qualities are necessary for any causal explanation of the content of sensory ideas; since those qualities are represented to perceivers as ontologically dependent, material substance is the necessary condition for the existence of physical qualities and a fortiori any causal explanation of the content of sensory ideas. On the reading defended here, Berkeley rejects Locke's transcendental argument for the existence of material substratum on the grounds that it turns decisively on the aforementioned category-transcendent abstract ideas, which Berkeley rejects as logically inconsistent. In its place, Berkeley offers his own transcendental argument designed to show that only minds and ideas exist. He uses that argument as a proof of God's existence-and ultimately to argue that the emergence of meaning from a material world simply cannot be explained. A portrait emerges of a thinker deeply engaged with the theories of his time, yet one who is captivated by the question of how meaning arises in the world. Students and scholars of the history of philosophy, particularly early modern history and the British Empiricists, will find this book to be a valuable addition to their collections.
Reexamining Berkeley's Philosophy
Author: Stephen Hartley Daniel
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 0802093485
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
George Berkeley (1685-1753) is perhaps most famous for his assertion that our knowledge of the world is nothing other than the experience of our ideas. Reexamining Berkeley's Philosophy examines this aspect of Berkeley's thought, arguing that such a viewpoint assumes that physical objects and minds are better understood when discussed in the contexts of science, morality, and religion. This collection confronts the question: how can we know anything about the world if all we know are our ideas? Comprised of eleven previously unpublished essays by leading scholars in the field, Reexamining Berkeley's Philosophy demonstrates how things in the world are intrinsically related to the sequence of experiences that constitute minds. This collection also discusses how the harmony of experience reveals strategies for recognizing the inherently active character of reality. Ultimately, this volume represents a major contribution to the study of Berkeley's philosophy by critiquing the tendency to generalize his thought as a version of theologically modified solipsism. In this way, it is a unique and invaluable addition to Berkeley scholarship.
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 0802093485
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
George Berkeley (1685-1753) is perhaps most famous for his assertion that our knowledge of the world is nothing other than the experience of our ideas. Reexamining Berkeley's Philosophy examines this aspect of Berkeley's thought, arguing that such a viewpoint assumes that physical objects and minds are better understood when discussed in the contexts of science, morality, and religion. This collection confronts the question: how can we know anything about the world if all we know are our ideas? Comprised of eleven previously unpublished essays by leading scholars in the field, Reexamining Berkeley's Philosophy demonstrates how things in the world are intrinsically related to the sequence of experiences that constitute minds. This collection also discusses how the harmony of experience reveals strategies for recognizing the inherently active character of reality. Ultimately, this volume represents a major contribution to the study of Berkeley's philosophy by critiquing the tendency to generalize his thought as a version of theologically modified solipsism. In this way, it is a unique and invaluable addition to Berkeley scholarship.
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
Author: George Berkeley
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN:
Category : Idealism
Languages : en
Pages : 438
Book Description
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN:
Category : Idealism
Languages : en
Pages : 438
Book Description
The Notions of George Berkeley
Author: James Hill
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350299693
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Book Description
George Berkeley's doctrine of notions is often disparaged or dismissed. In a systematic interpretation and positive reconstruction of the doctrine, James Hill presents Berkeley's understanding of the inner sphere and self-awareness, and reassesses the widely held view of Berkeley as an empiricist. Examining the development of Berkeley's philosophy from the early notebooks to the late Siris, Hill sets out how knowledge by notion involves a radical rejection of the perceptual model of self-cognition and of the attempt to frame our knowledge of the inner by analogy with the outer. He points to Berkeley's divergence from the assumption among rationalists and empiricists that we know our selves and our mental acts by idea, or by an immediate presentation before the mind. Weaving together Berkeley's conception of the intellect, conceptual thought, mathematics, ethics and theology in the light of the doctrine of notions, Hill invites us to treat Berkeley's philosophy of mind as distinct from the empiricist tradition. This cutting edge reflection on the doctrine of notions is essential reading for students and scholars specialising in Berkeley as well as early modern accounts of the self, perception and God.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350299693
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Book Description
George Berkeley's doctrine of notions is often disparaged or dismissed. In a systematic interpretation and positive reconstruction of the doctrine, James Hill presents Berkeley's understanding of the inner sphere and self-awareness, and reassesses the widely held view of Berkeley as an empiricist. Examining the development of Berkeley's philosophy from the early notebooks to the late Siris, Hill sets out how knowledge by notion involves a radical rejection of the perceptual model of self-cognition and of the attempt to frame our knowledge of the inner by analogy with the outer. He points to Berkeley's divergence from the assumption among rationalists and empiricists that we know our selves and our mental acts by idea, or by an immediate presentation before the mind. Weaving together Berkeley's conception of the intellect, conceptual thought, mathematics, ethics and theology in the light of the doctrine of notions, Hill invites us to treat Berkeley's philosophy of mind as distinct from the empiricist tradition. This cutting edge reflection on the doctrine of notions is essential reading for students and scholars specialising in Berkeley as well as early modern accounts of the self, perception and God.
A Metaphysics for the Mob
Author: John Russell Roberts
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195313933
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 195
Book Description
Berkeley claimed that his immaterialist metaphysics was not only consistent with common sense but that it was also integral to its defense. Roberts argues that understanding the basic connection between Berkeley's philosophy requires that we develop a better understanding of the principle components of his positive metaphyics.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195313933
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 195
Book Description
Berkeley claimed that his immaterialist metaphysics was not only consistent with common sense but that it was also integral to its defense. Roberts argues that understanding the basic connection between Berkeley's philosophy requires that we develop a better understanding of the principle components of his positive metaphyics.
George Berkeley and Early Modern Philosophy
Author: Stephen H. Daniel
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192893890
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
Stephen Daniel presents a study of the philosophy of George Berkeley in the intellectual context of his times, focusing on how, for Berkeley, mind is related to its ideas. For Berkeley, mind neither precedes the existence of objects nor exists independently of them. Daniel shows how Berkeley transformed the issues with which he engaged.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192893890
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
Stephen Daniel presents a study of the philosophy of George Berkeley in the intellectual context of his times, focusing on how, for Berkeley, mind is related to its ideas. For Berkeley, mind neither precedes the existence of objects nor exists independently of them. Daniel shows how Berkeley transformed the issues with which he engaged.
Berkeley's Idealism
Author: Georges Dicker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195381467
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 325
Book Description
In George Berkeley's two most important works, the Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues Bewtween Hylas and Philonous, he argued that there is no such thing as matter: only minds and ideas exist, and physical things are nothing but collections of ideas. In defense of this idealism, he advanced a battery of challenging arguments purporting to show that the very notion of matter is self-contradictory or meaningless, and that even if it were possible for matter to exist, we could not know that it does; and he then put forward an alternative world-view that purported to refute both skepticism and atheism.Using the tools of contemporary analytic philosophy, Georges Dicker here examines both the destructive and the constructive sides of Berkeley's thought, against the background of the mainstream views that he rejected. Dicker's accessible and text-based analysis of Berkeley's arguments shows that the Priniciples and the Dialogues dovetail and complement each other in a seamless way, rather than being self-contained. Dicker's book avoids the incompleteness that results from studying just one of his two main works; instead, he treats the whole as a visionary response to the issues of modern philosophy- such as primary and secondary qualities, external-world skepticism, the substance-property relation, the causal roles of human agents and of God. In addition to relating Berkeley's work to his contemporaries, Dicker discusses work by today's top Berkeley scholars, and uses notions and distinctions forged by recent and contemporary analytic philosophers of perception. Berkeley's Idealism both advances Berkeley scholarship and serves as a useful guide for teachers and students.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195381467
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 325
Book Description
In George Berkeley's two most important works, the Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues Bewtween Hylas and Philonous, he argued that there is no such thing as matter: only minds and ideas exist, and physical things are nothing but collections of ideas. In defense of this idealism, he advanced a battery of challenging arguments purporting to show that the very notion of matter is self-contradictory or meaningless, and that even if it were possible for matter to exist, we could not know that it does; and he then put forward an alternative world-view that purported to refute both skepticism and atheism.Using the tools of contemporary analytic philosophy, Georges Dicker here examines both the destructive and the constructive sides of Berkeley's thought, against the background of the mainstream views that he rejected. Dicker's accessible and text-based analysis of Berkeley's arguments shows that the Priniciples and the Dialogues dovetail and complement each other in a seamless way, rather than being self-contained. Dicker's book avoids the incompleteness that results from studying just one of his two main works; instead, he treats the whole as a visionary response to the issues of modern philosophy- such as primary and secondary qualities, external-world skepticism, the substance-property relation, the causal roles of human agents and of God. In addition to relating Berkeley's work to his contemporaries, Dicker discusses work by today's top Berkeley scholars, and uses notions and distinctions forged by recent and contemporary analytic philosophers of perception. Berkeley's Idealism both advances Berkeley scholarship and serves as a useful guide for teachers and students.
Berkeley's Principles
Author: George Berkeley
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317389077
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
Berkeley's Principles: Expanded and Explained includes the entire classical text of the Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge in bold font, a running commentary blended seamlessly into the text in regular font and analytic summaries of each section. The commentary is like a professor on hand to guide the reader through every line of the daunting prose and every move in the intricate argumentation. The unique design helps today's students learn how to read and engage with one of modern philosophy's most important and exciting classics.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317389077
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
Berkeley's Principles: Expanded and Explained includes the entire classical text of the Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge in bold font, a running commentary blended seamlessly into the text in regular font and analytic summaries of each section. The commentary is like a professor on hand to guide the reader through every line of the daunting prose and every move in the intricate argumentation. The unique design helps today's students learn how to read and engage with one of modern philosophy's most important and exciting classics.
George Berkeley in America
Author: Edwin S. Gaustad
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300113440
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
George Berkeley, the Irish philosopher and Anglican priest, settled in Newport, Rhode Island, one of the few places in New England that was hospitable to Anglicans. There his lively mind and sympathetic spirit involved him in a variety of interests. This book is an account of an episode of his religious life of colonial New England.
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300113440
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
George Berkeley, the Irish philosopher and Anglican priest, settled in Newport, Rhode Island, one of the few places in New England that was hospitable to Anglicans. There his lively mind and sympathetic spirit involved him in a variety of interests. This book is an account of an episode of his religious life of colonial New England.