Berkeley, Misc

Berkeley’s social and political writings play an important role in his philosophy although, surprisingly, has been little studied by scholars. This lack of scholarly attention is a deficiency because such writings are not only interesting, but even more essential for understanding Berkeley’s philosophy as a whole, since point toward the same goal that his epistemological and metaphysical writings serves, namely, consolidate his apologetic and humanist project. This paper focuses on that forgotten part of Berkeley’s philosophy and aims to explore a (...) little researched topic but recurrent in his social and political writings, namely, that of the Civil Authority and the Secular State. (shrink)

En este trabajo realizo un examen crítico del reciente libro de Silvana Gabriela Di Camillo sobre la crítica de Aristóteles a la teoría platónica de las Ideas. El libro de Di Camillo es un trabajo muy serio cuya lectura recomiendo ampliamente. Sin embargo, considero que cuatro de las principales tesis que la autora defiende tienen varias dificultades y mi objetivo aquí es presentar argumentos detallados en contra de ellas: la interpretación de la distinción entre argumentos más y menos rigurosos del (...) tratado Sobre las Ideas; la tesis de que la separación es el blanco esencial de las críticas aristotélicas a las Ideas; la interpretación de las opciones que Platón tiene para responder al argumento del tercer hombre, y la tesis de que la separación de las Ideas debe entenderse como homonimia. In this paper I examine Silvana Gabriela Di Camillo's recent book on Aristotle's criticisms of Plato's theory of Ideas. Di Camillo's book is a very serious work that I highly recommend. Nevertheless, I consider that four of the main theses that the author defends face several difficulties and my aim here is to offer detailed arguments against them: the interpretation of the distinction between more and less accurate arguments of the treatise On Ideas; the thesis that separation is the essential target of Aristotle's criticisms against Plato's Ideas; the interpretation of the options available to Plato to reply to the third man argument; and the thesis that the separation of Ideas should be understood as homonymy. (shrink)

Review of Flage's book "Berkeley".

In this essay, the author analyses Berkeley’s conformity and inference argument against Locke’s theory of percep tion. Both arguments are not as decisive as traditionally has been perceived and fail to engage in Locke’s actual position. The main reason for this is that Berkeley does not see that Locke’s position is compatible with the non-inferential nature of perceptual knowledge.

In the early 1730s George Berkeley began to explore the conceptual field between ideas and spirits that he previously claimed to be empty. In this field he found a rich set of concepts including “notions,” “principles,” “beliefs,” “opinions,” and even “prejudices.” Elsewhere I have referred to this phase in Berkeley’s thought as his “second conceptual revolution.”2 I believe that it was motivated by his increasing need to develop a language to discuss the social, moral and theological concerns vital to him (...) and his circle. This second conceptual revolution made possible two of his most important contributions to 18th century thought: The Analyst and The Querist . Even though they were written almost simultaneously, these texts are rarely discussed together, since the former is categorized as a critique of the foundations of the calculus, while the latter is taken a tract advocating the development of a specie-less economy in Ireland. Using new textual and contextual evidence, however, I will show with that these two texts have a common basis in Berkeley’s second conceptual revolution, in that the rejection of intrinsic values and the revaluation of notions, principles, and prejudices are crucial to the critique of both Newtonian mathematics in The Analystand Newtonian monetary theory and policy in The Querist. Specifically, I will argue that Berkeley’s famous demonstration of the absurdities of Newton’s method of fluxions devalued geometric reasoning and gave a new pride of place to algebraic reasoning. On the basis of this revaluation in mathematics, Berkeley more confidently undermined the concept of intrinsic monetary value and suggested the development of a monetary system based on “tickets, tokens and counters” . The issues posed by the transition from a specie-based to a specie-less currency were clearly some of the most important and controversial in the Age of Enlightenment. Berkeley’s contributions to understanding the significance and feasibility of such atransition and its benefits for Ireland certainly add support the claim that he was “the most engaging and useful man in Ireland in the eighteenth century.”. (shrink)

A reavaliação das contribuições de Berkeley à história do pensamento econômico tem-se concentrado em três questões: sua discordância com as idéias mercantilistas, as precoces contribuições à teoria do desenvolvimento e as posições de vanguarda em economia monetária. Neste último campo, Berkeley é tanto visto como o sucessor de Locke quanto como um pioneiro defensor de um padrão monetário não metálico. O artigo revisa as principais idéias econômicas de Berkeley e busca efetuar um balanço de suas contribuições aos diversos campos da (...) economia, em particular à economia monetária. Por meio de comparações com Locke e Hume, dá-se ênfase ao papel do moralista e ao peso dos argumentos morais na visão econômica de Berkeley. (shrink)

Well chosen selections from the works of idealists from Berkeley to Blanshard. Four critical articles--including Moore's "refutation of Idealism"--give the other side of the story. Ewing contributes a balanced and illuminating introduction.--A. C. P.

Sir Thomas Berkeley has scarcely more than a liminal status among literary scholars and historians, even those who study fourteenth-century England. We may rather dimly remember him as an aristocratic spear carrier in Shakespeare's Richard II, a reflection of real activities known to historians. Or we may recall that he sponsored an extraordinarily prolific and important translator, the Cornishman John Trevisa.

Idealism, which gradually dominated nineteenth century philosophy through its insistence upon the superiority of spiritual values above material forces and its sophisticated objections against the immediate instinct of common-sense realism in knowledge, is moribund to-day and difficult to render intelligible to to-day’s down-to-earth student. Yet its problems still constitute a capital part of epistemology, in whose courses it is often presented in a summary and harsh light. Histories of philosophy are not large enough normally to follow systematically one line of (...) development of thought without distraction and tend naturally, like textbooks of epistemology, to aim at topical discussion. Hence a systematic presentation of texts illustrating the movement of Idealist thought from Bishop Berkeley to the contemporary Professor Brand Blanshard is a very practical aid to the epistemological novice, ordering the confusion of his scattered ideas and clarifying a set of influential principles, which have still an important, if indirect influence upon professional philosophizing. Dr. Ewing states its relation to the current English scene thus. (shrink)

No Tratado, Hume procura investigar as causas da crença nos objetos exteriores, admitindo ser impossível provar se os mesmos existem ou náo. Sua análise consistirá na investigaçáo da origem da inteligibilidade das noções de continuidade e distinçáo dos objetos sensíveis, em última instância, a crença do senso comum na continuidade e distinçáo das próprias percepções. Este texto pretende mostrar como essa discussáo humeana é um diálogo direto com a filosofia berkeleyana, a defesa humeana da crença na matéria implicando inicialmente uma (...) certa aceitaçáo da filosofia de Berkeley, para, na seqüência, representar uma dissensáo direta com o seu princípio fundamental: ser é ser percebido . Tais colocações têm, entre outras, a finalidade de argumentar que Berkeley exerce um papel central na filosofia humeana, nesse caso como seu interlocutor direto, e que a compreensáo desse papel é parte obrigatória de um melhor esclarecimento do problema da objetividade em Hume. (shrink)

This has been a great century for logic and the foundations of mathematics. Ewald's excellent sourcebook is a welcome addition to the literature on the exciting developments of this and the past two centuries. The richness of the material on which Ewald is drawing is shown by the fact that he has assembled a broad and representative selection without once duplicating anything to be found in the famous sourcebooks of van Heijenoort and Benacerraf/Putnam.

Samuel Johnson claimed to have refuted Berkeley by kicking a stone. It is generally thought that Johnson misses the point of Berkeley's immaterialism for a rather obvious reason: Berkeley never denied that the stone feels solid, but only that the stone could exist independently of any mind. I argue that Johnson was on the right track. On my interpretation, Johnson’s idea is that because the stone feels to resist our effort, the stone seems to have causal powers. But if appearances (...) are to be taken at face value, as Berkeley insists, then the stone has causal powers. I argue that such causal powers threaten not only Berkeley’s view that only minds are active, but also, and more fundamentally, his central claim that sensible things depend on perception. (shrink)

Berkeley’s criticism of Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities is a challenge to epistemologists. Do we experience a mind-independent reality, even though we do it with the help of senses bound to give us subjective experiences? Berkeley – or a straw man by that name – played an important part as sparring partner for an influential development of Danish theoretical philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. The protagonists here are Peter Zinkernagel and David Favrholdt. Zinkernagel held (...) an extraordinary appointment as research fellow at the University of Copenhagen. Favrholdt was the founding father of the Philosophical Institute at Odense University. This essay focuses on the constructive moments in Zinkernagel’s alternative to immaterialism, being based on a distinction between perception and action, and on Favrholdt’s development of a reconstruction of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the reception of George Berkeley in a particular corner of 20th-century Danish psychology and philosophy. In contrast to philosophers, such as Peter Zinkernagel and David Favrholdt, Danish experimental psychologists, including Edgar Rubin and Edgar Tranekjær Rasmussen, made highly appreciative reference to the methodology and experimental observations of Berkeley and David Hume. This paper focuses on these psychologists’ interest in Berkeley’s ideas. I will first present Rubin’s path from a mosaic-like understanding of psychological (...) phenomena to a holistic view, detailing what he termed adspective psychology and its method. I then turn to Rubin’s embrace of certain experimental observations made by Berkeley and, in particular, by Hume concerning the minima visibilia. The second part of the paper deals with Tranekjær Rasmussen’s interpretation of Berkeley’s work, and in particular of his immaterialism, his notion of God, and his critique of abstract ideas. (shrink)

The paper focuses on Schopenhauer’s idealism and investigates how its elaboration was related not only to Kant but also to Berkeley – a theme generally overlooked by scholars. Schopenhauer viewed B...

In this paper, I raise and analyze two rarely discussed stories about the development of idealism in early modernity. I seek to show that Arthur Collier reaches the conclusion that the mind-indepen...

In this paper, I attempt to clarify the nature and purpose of Berkeley's criticisms of Shaftesbury's and Hutcheson's ethical systems in the third chapter ofAlciphron, explaining the extent to which those criticisms rely on the truth of idealism and considering whether Berkeley or his philosophical opponents have the better of the arguments. In the end, I conclude that some of Berkeley's criticisms are based on confusion and misunderstanding, others are likely contradicted by the empirical evidence, and yet others are unconvincing. (...) At the same time, the criticisms reveal that Berkeley's metaphysical and ethical views are, perhaps surprisingly, significantly intertwined. (shrink)

This paper argues that a debate between Toland and Clarke is the intellectual context to help understand the motive behind the critic and the significance of Berkeley's response to the critic in PHK 60-66. These, in turn, are responding to Boyle's adaptation of a neglected design argument by Cicero. The paper shows that there is an intimate connection between these claims of natural science and a once famous design argument. In particular, that in the early modern period the connection between (...) the scientific revolution and a certain commitment to final causes, and god's design, is more than merely contingent. The details of PHK 60-66 support the idea that the critic is responding to concerns that by echoing features of Toland's argument Berkeley undermines the Newtonian edifice Clarke has constructed. (shrink)