Online research in philosophy

Does George Berkeley provide an argument for the existence of the Judeo-Christian God at Principles of Human Knowledge, part I, section 29? The standard answer is that he does. In this paper, we challenge that interpretation. First, we look at section 29 in the context of its preceding sections and argue that the most the argument establishes is that there are at least two minds, that is, that the thesis of solipsism is false. Next, we examine the argument in section (...) 29 in light of the conclusions Berkeley draws in sections 30–33. There Berkeley concludes that there is one cause of the ordered world of ideas, a cause he calls the "Author of Nature." We argue that Berkeley's Author of Nature is conceptually distinct from, although numerically identical with, the Judeo-Christian God, for whose existence Berkeley argues in section 146. Finally, we ask whether, if our conclusion is correct, it is significant that Berkeley drew a conceptual distinction between the Author of Nature and the Judeo-Christian God. (shrink)

The paper provides an account of necessary truths in Berkeley based upon his divine language model. If the thesis of the paper is correct, not all Berkeleian necessary truths can be known a priori.

This note is a reply to some of Giovanni Grandi’s comments on my paper “Berkeley’s Contingent Necessities.”.

Rene Descartes credited his success in philosophy, mathematics, and physics to the discovery of a universal method of inquiry, but he provided no systematic description of his method. Descartes and Method carefully examines Descartes's scattered remarks on his application and puts forward a systematic account of his method with particular attention to the role it plays in the Meditations . The authors boldly and convincingly argue against the orthodox conception that Descartes had no method. Through a rigirous and thorough examination, (...) Daniel E. Flage and Clarence A. Bonnen unearth and explain the role of the method of analysis in the Meditations . This is a genuinly ground-breaking book that is sure to make a considerable impact on the philosophy community. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION Anyone who reads David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature cannot but be struck by the diversity of philosophical issues Hume addresses, ...