George Berkeley
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George Berkeley was an Irish philosopher and Anglican bishop who lived from 1685 to 1753 and developed a major philosophical position called idealism, which holds that reality consists of minds and their ideas rather than physical matter. His work fundamentally challenged how people think about the nature of existence and perception, making him one of the most influential thinkers in Western philosophy.
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George Berkeley (IPA: /ˈbɑː(ɹ).kli/, Bark-Lee) (12 March 1685 – 14 January 1753), also known as Bishop Berkeley, was an influential Irish philosopher whose primary philosophical achievement is the advancement of a theory he called "immaterialism" (later referred to as "subjective idealism" by others). This theory, summed up in his dictum, "Esse est percipi" ("To be is to be perceived"), contends that individuals can only directly know sensations and ideas of objects, not abstractions such as "ma
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George Berkeley (/ˈbɑːrkli/ BARK-lee; 12 March 1685 – 14 January 1753), known as Bishop Berkeley (Bishop of Cloyne of the Anglican Church of Ireland), was an Anglo-Irish philosopher, writer, and clergyman who is regarded as the founder of immaterialism, a philosophical theory he developed which later came to be known as subjective idealism. He has also been called "the father of idealism" by German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Berkeley played a leading role in the empiricism movement and was one of its pioneers. He was among the most cited philosophers of 18th-century Europe, and his works deeply influenced later thinkers such as Immanuel Kant and David Hume.
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 colour. This foreshadowed his most well-known philosophical work A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, published in 1710, which, after its poor reception, he rewrote in dialogue form and published under the title Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous in 1713. In this book, Berkeley's views were represented by Philonous (Greek: "lover of mind"), while Hylas ("hyle", Greek: "matter") embodies Berkeley's opponents, in particular John Locke.
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1685 births1753 deaths17th-century Anglican theologians17th-century Anglo-Irish people18th-century Anglican theologians18th-century Anglo-Irish people18th-century Irish bishops18th-century Irish male writers18th-century Irish philosophers18th-century Irish writersAcademics of Trinity College DublinAlumni of Trinity College Dublin