George Berkeley 1685 – 1753
George Berkeley (1685 – 1753) was an Irish philosopher of the Modern era, associated with Empiricism.
George Berkeley was an Anglo-Irish philosopher and Anglican bishop best known for his theory of immaterialism, sometimes called subjective idealism. His Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues argue that material objects exist only as perceptions in minds, summarized in the formula esse est percipi: to be is to be perceived. Berkeley spent several years in Rhode Island promoting a planned college for the New World; the city of Berkeley, California, was later named after him. His thought significantly influenced both Hume and the development of British empiricism. He served as Bishop of Cloyne in Ireland from 1734 until his death.
George Berkeley (1685–1753) was an Irish philosopher and Anglican bishop whose immaterialism is one of the most distinctive philosophical positions of the modern era. Born in County Kilkenny, educated at Trinity College Dublin where he became a fellow, he traveled to America in the late 1720s in a quixotic project to establish a college in Bermuda, returned to Ireland, and served as Bishop of Cloyne from 1734 until shortly before his death.
Berkeley's mature philosophy is set out in three early works produced before he was thirty: An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision (1709), A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710), and Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (1713). The position is famously summarized as esse est percipi — to be is to be perceived. Material substance, Berkeley argues, is incoherent on Lockean empiricist principles, and the only sensible alternative is that what we call physical objects are bundles of perceptions sustained in the minds of perceivers and ultimately in the mind of God.
Berkeley's later works include Alciphron (1732), against the freethinkers; The Analyst (1734), a critique of the foundations of the Newtonian calculus; and Siris (1744), a curious philosophical-medical defense of the therapeutic virtues of tar-water. He died in Oxford in 1753. His immaterialism shaped Hume's empiricism and remains one of the most carefully developed idealist positions in early modern philosophy.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Irish
- Era
- Modern
- Movements
- Empiricism
Selected quotes
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“To be is to be perceived.”
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, §3 -
“Truth is the cry of all, but the game of few.”
Paragraph 368 -
“Few men think, yet all will have opinions.”
Philonous to Hylas. The Second Dialogue. This appears in a passage first added in the third edition, (1734) -
Attributed to George Berkeley:
“All the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word, all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence without a mind.”
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Attributed to George Berkeley:
“It is impossible that I should conceive in my thoughts any sensible thing or object distinct from the sensation or perception of it.”
George Berkeley by topic
George Berkeley vs other philosophers
Three-way comparisons including George Berkeley
Frequently asked about George Berkeley
- When did George Berkeley live?
- George Berkeley was born in 1685 and died in 1753.
- Where was George Berkeley from?
- George Berkeley was an Irish philosopher of the Modern era.
- What philosophical movements is George Berkeley associated with?
- George Berkeley was associated with Empiricism.
- What was George Berkeley known for?
- George Berkeley was an Anglo-Irish philosopher and Anglican bishop best known for his theory of immaterialism, sometimes called subjective idealism.
- How many quotes are attributed to George Berkeley?
- There are 21 attributed quotations from George Berkeley in the 1001Philosophers collection, organized by topic.