George Berkeley facts for kids
Quick facts for kids George Berkeley |
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| Bishop of Cloyne | |
Portrait of Berkeley by John Smybert, 1727
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| Church | Church of Ireland |
| Diocese | Cloyne |
| In Office | 1734–1753 |
| Predecessor | Edward Synge |
| Successor | James Stopford |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | 1709 (deacon) 1710 (priest) |
| Consecration | 18 January 1734 |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 12 March 1685 Dysart Castle, near Thomastown, County Kilkenny, Ireland |
| Died | 14 January 1753 (aged 67) Oxford, England |
| Denomination | Anglican |
| Spouse | Anne Forster |
| Children | 6 |
| Sainthood | |
| Feast day | 16 June (commemoration)
Philosophy career |
| Education | Trinity College Dublin (B.A., 1704; M.A. 1707) |
| Era | 18th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Subjective idealism (phenomenalism) Empiricism Foundationalism Conceptualism Indirect realism |
| Institutions | Trinity College Dublin |
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Main interests
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Christianity, metaphysics, epistemology, language, mathematics, perception |
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Notable ideas
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Subjective idealism (esse est percipi), master argument, passive obedience |
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Influences
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| Signature | |
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George Berkeley (born March 12, 1685 – died January 14, 1753) was an important Anglo-Irish philosopher. He is often called Bishop Berkeley because he became a Bishop of Cloyne in the Church of Ireland. His most famous idea is called "immaterialism," which later became known as "subjective idealism."
This theory suggests that regular objects like tables and chairs are actually just ideas that exist in our minds. They cannot exist if no one is perceiving them. Berkeley also famously criticized the idea of "abstraction," which was a key part of his argument for immaterialism.
In 1709, Berkeley published his first major book, An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision. In it, he explored how human vision works and suggested that what we truly see are not physical objects themselves, but rather light and color. This book set the stage for his most important philosophical work, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, published in 1710. Because this book was not well-received at first, he rewrote it as a conversation and published it in 1713 as Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. In this book, Berkeley's ideas were presented by a character named Philonous (meaning "lover of mind"), while his opponents, like John Locke, were represented by Hylas (meaning "matter").
Berkeley also disagreed with Isaac Newton's ideas about absolute space, time, and motion. He wrote about this in his 1721 book De Motu (which means On Motion). His arguments were similar to ideas later developed by scientists like Ernst Mach and Albert Einstein. In 1732, he published Alciphron, which defended Christian beliefs against "free-thinkers." In 1734, he wrote The Analyst, which questioned the basic ideas of calculus and influenced how mathematics developed.
After World War II, people became more interested in Berkeley's work. This was because he explored many topics that were important to philosophers in the 20th century, such as how we perceive things, the difference between primary and secondary qualities, and the importance of language.
Contents
Biography
Early Life in Ireland
George Berkeley was born at his family's home, Dysart Castle, near Thomastown, in County Kilkenny, Ireland. He was the oldest son of William Berkeley. His family had a long history in England, going back to the Anglo-Saxon period. We don't know much about his mother.
He went to school at Kilkenny College. Later, he attended Trinity College Dublin. He became a Scholar there in 1702 and earned his Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1704. In 1707, he received his Master of Arts (MA) degree and became a Fellow, which meant he could teach at the college. He stayed at Trinity College as a tutor and taught Greek.
His first published work was about mathematics. However, his book An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision, published in 1709, was the first to get him noticed. In this essay, Berkeley looked at how we see distance, size, and position, and how sight and touch relate. Even though it caused a lot of debate at the time, his ideas are now a standard part of how we understand optics.
His next book was the Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge in 1710. This book was very successful and made him famous. However, not many people agreed with his main idea that nothing exists outside of our minds. In 1713, he followed this with Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. In this book, he explained his philosophy, which was based on the idea that the world we experience through our senses only exists because it is perceived.
The Principles explained his theory, and the Dialogues defended it. One of his main goals was to challenge the popular idea of materialism at the time. Many people made fun of his theory. Even those who admired his "extraordinary genius," like Samuel Clarke, still thought his basic ideas were wrong.
Travels in England and Europe
Soon after, Berkeley visited England. There, he became friends with famous writers like Addison, Pope, and Steele. Between 1714 and 1720, he traveled a lot around Europe. He even took one of the longest "Grand Tours" of Italy ever.
In 1721, he became a priest in the Church of Ireland and earned his doctorate in divinity. He decided to stay at Trinity College Dublin again, teaching Divinity and Hebrew. In 1721 or 1722, he became the Dean of Dromore, and in 1724, he became the Dean of Derry.
In 1725, Berkeley started a plan to create a college in Bermuda. The goal was to train ministers and missionaries for the colonies. To do this, he gave up his job as dean, which paid him £1100 a year.
Life in America
In 1728, George Berkeley married Anne Forster. She was the daughter of John Forster, who was the Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas. After their marriage, he traveled to America, earning £100 a year. He arrived near Newport, Rhode Island, and bought a plantation in Middletown. This plantation became known as "Whitehall." Berkeley bought several enslaved Africans to work on his plantation.
He also brought John Smibert, a Scottish artist, to New England. Smibert is often called the founder of American portrait painting. Berkeley lived at the plantation while he waited for money to arrive for his college. However, the funds never came. The Prime Minister, Walpole, became less interested in the project. Finally, it became clear that the necessary money from Parliament would not be given. So, in 1732, Berkeley left America and went back to London.
George and Anne had four children who lived past infancy: Henry, George, William, and Julia. They also had at least two other children who died very young. William's death in 1751 caused his father great sadness.
Becoming a Bishop in Ireland
Berkeley was chosen to be the Bishop of Cloyne in the Church of Ireland on January 18, 1734. He officially became a bishop on May 19, 1734. He served as the Bishop of Cloyne until his death on January 14, 1753. Although he was the Bishop of Cloyne, he died in Oxford, England.
Later Years and Works
While living in London, Berkeley helped create a home for abandoned children. This place, called the Foundling Hospital, was started in 1739. Berkeley was one of its first leaders.
His last two books were Siris: A Chain of Philosophical Reflexions and Inquiries Concerning the Virtues of Tarwater (1744) and Further Thoughts on Tar-water (1752). Berkeley believed that pine tar could cure many diseases. His 1744 book about tar-water sold more copies than any of his other books during his lifetime.
He stayed in Cloyne until 1752, when he retired. He moved to Oxford with his wife and daughter Julia to live with his son George and oversee his education. He died soon after and was buried in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. Many people loved and respected him because of his kind and friendly nature. Anne, his wife, lived many years longer and died in 1786.
Berkeley's Philosophy
What is Immaterialism?
At the heart of Berkeley's philosophy are the ideas of "spirit" and "idea." For him, "spirit" is like a "conscious mind" or "subject." An "idea" is similar to a "sensation" or a "conscious experience."
Berkeley argued that matter as a physical substance does not exist. However, he did not say that physical objects like apples or mountains don't exist. He famously wrote, "I do not argue against the existence of any one thing that we can apprehend, either by sense or reflection. That the things I see with mine eyes and touch with my hands do exist, really exist, I make not the least question. The only thing whose existence we deny, is that which philosophers call matter or corporeal substance."
This main idea of Berkeley's is called "idealism." Sometimes, it's also called "immaterialism" or "subjective idealism." In his book Principles, he used a famous Latin phrase: esse est percipi (to be is to be perceived). This means that for something to exist, it must be perceived.
So, for Berkeley, human knowledge is made of two parts: spirits and ideas. Unlike ideas, a spirit cannot be perceived. We understand our own spirit through our inner feelings or thoughts. Berkeley believed we have good reasons to think other spirits exist because their actions create the regular experiences we have. He also thought that the order and purpose we see in the world, especially in nature, make us believe in a very powerful and intelligent spirit that creates this order. Berkeley identified this external spirit with God. Therefore, a physical thing like an apple is a collection of ideas (like its shape, color, and taste) that God's spirit causes in human minds.
God's Role in Perception
As a strong Christian, Berkeley believed that God is directly involved in causing all our experiences. He thought that God is not like a distant engineer who set up the world and then left it alone, as some thinkers like Isaac Newton suggested. Instead, Berkeley believed that when we see a tree, the perception of that tree is an idea that God's mind has put into our minds. The tree continues to exist even when "nobody" is there to see it, simply because God is an infinite mind that perceives everything.
Relativity and Perception
John Locke, an earlier philosopher, said that objects have "primary qualities" (like shape and size) and "secondary qualities" (like color and heat). He used heat as an example of a secondary quality. If you put one hand in cold water and the other in warm water, then put both in lukewarm water, one hand will feel it as cold and the other as hot. Locke said that because two different hands perceive the water differently, heat is not a quality of the water itself.
Berkeley took this idea further. He argued that primary qualities are also not qualities of the object itself. For example, he said that the size of an object depends on how far away the observer is, or the size of the observer. Since an object appears to be a different size to different people, size is not a fixed quality of the object. Berkeley used similar arguments for shape. He then asked: if neither primary nor secondary qualities belong to the object, then how can we say that anything exists beyond the qualities we observe?
Berkeley believed that "we cannot separate the primary qualities (like shape) from secondary ones (like color)." He argued that what we perceive depends on our position. For example, the color red can be seen in apples, strawberries, and tomatoes. We wouldn't know what these things look like without their color. This shows that colors cannot exist on their own; they represent a group of perceived objects. Therefore, Berkeley concluded that both primary and secondary qualities depend on our minds: they cannot exist without us perceiving them.
Berkeley was against rationalism and traditional empiricism. He was a "subjective idealist" who believed that reality is made entirely of conscious minds and their ideas. Everything that exists depends on the mind perceiving it, except for the mind itself. He disagreed with the idea of "abstract objects," which many other philosophers, like Plato, believed in. Berkeley argued that an "abstract object does not exist in space or time and is therefore entirely non-physical and non-mental."
However, this idea seems to conflict with his relativity argument. If "esse est percipi" (to exist is to be perceived) is true, then objects in the relativity argument could either exist or not. Berkeley believed that only the mind's perceptions and the Spirit that perceives are real. What people perceive every day is just the idea of an object's existence, not the objects themselves. He also said that sometimes, materials cannot be perceived by us, and our minds cannot fully understand objects. But he also believed in an "omnipresent, eternal mind" which he identified with God and the Spirit, who are all-knowing and all-perceiving.
New Theory of Vision Explained
In his book Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision, Berkeley often criticized the ideas of other "Optic Writers" like Molyneux and Descartes. In the first part of his essay, Berkeley argued against these classical scholars. He stated that spatial depth, which is the distance between the observer and the object, is itself invisible. This means we don't see space directly or figure it out using optics. For Berkeley, space is simply our expectation that visual and touch sensations will follow each other in patterns we learn through habit.
Berkeley went on to say that visual clues, like how extended or "confused" an object appears, can only be used to guess distance indirectly. This is because we learn to connect visual clues with how things feel when we touch them. Berkeley gave an example: we perceive distance indirectly, just as we perceive someone's embarrassment indirectly. When we see an embarrassed person, we guess they are embarrassed by seeing their red face. We've learned from experience that a red face often means embarrassment.
Berkeley also wrote about how we perceive size. He argued that the same clues that tell us about distance also tell us about size. He believed we don't first see the size of something and then calculate its distance.
Berkeley claimed that his visual theories were proven correct by a report from 1728. This report was about a 13-year-old boy named Daniel Dolins who gained some vision after surgery for cataracts. Berkeley knew the Dolins family and had connections to the surgeon, William Cheselden. Sadly, Dolins was never able to see well enough to read, and there's no clear proof that the surgery improved his vision before he died at age 30.
Philosophy of Physics
Berkeley was very interested in natural philosophy, which is like early science. He showed this interest from his first writings in 1707 to his last in 1744. His philosophy was deeply shaped by the science of his time.
Berkeley argued that forces and gravity, as defined by Isaac Newton, were "hidden qualities" that didn't explain anything clearly. He believed that those who said there was "something unknown in a body" that caused motion were just saying that the cause of motion was unknown. He concluded that forces and gravity couldn't be observed directly and therefore shouldn't be part of proper science. He suggested his own theory of signs to explain motion and matter without using these "hidden qualities."
Berkeley's Razor
Berkeley's razor is a rule of thinking suggested by philosopher Karl Popper. It is similar to Ockham's razor but considered "more powerful." It's an extreme view of scientific observation. It says that science doesn't give us true insight into the real nature of the world. Instead, science gives us partial explanations about patterns we find through experiments. According to Berkeley, the true nature of the world can only be understood through deep philosophical thought and reasoning.
Popper also saw Berkeley as an "instrumentalist" philosopher. This means that scientific theories are seen as useful fictions or tools that help explain facts, but they don't claim to be absolutely true.
Mathematics and Calculus
Berkeley also had a big impact on the development of mathematics, though in an indirect way. He was interested in mathematics and its philosophical meaning from early in his life.
In 1707, Berkeley published two books on mathematics. In 1734, he published The Analyst, which was a criticism of calculus. This book was a direct challenge to the basic ideas of calculus, especially the concept of "fluxion" or tiny, changing amounts, which Newton and Leibniz used to create calculus. In his criticism, Berkeley famously called these tiny amounts "ghosts of departed quantities."
Berkeley saw his criticism of calculus as part of his larger effort to defend traditional Christianity against deism, which suggests God is distant from people. He pointed out that both Newton's and Leibniz's calculus sometimes treated infinitesimals as small, non-zero amounts and other times as exactly zero. Berkeley's main point in "The Analyst" was that Newton's calculus lacked strong theoretical foundations.
Berkeley didn't doubt that calculus worked in the real world; simple physics experiments showed that Newton's method got correct results. However, Berkeley found it strange that "Mathematicians should deduce true Propositions from false Principles, be right in Conclusion, and yet err in the Premises." He tried to show "how Error may bring forth Truth, though it cannot bring forth Science." This meant that Newton's science couldn't fully justify its conclusions based on pure scientific reasoning alone.
The problems Berkeley pointed out were still present in the work of later mathematicians like Cauchy. Eventually, Weierstrass solved these problems by removing infinitesimals entirely from calculus. More recently, Abraham Robinson brought back infinitesimal methods in his 1966 book Non-standard analysis, showing they could be used in a strict way.
Moral Philosophy
Berkeley's most important contribution to moral and political philosophy is his book A Discourse on Passive Obedience (1712).
In this book, Berkeley argues that people have a "moral duty to follow the negative rules (prohibitions) of the law, including the duty not to resist punishment." However, he did make some exceptions. He said we don't have to obey "usurpers or even madmen." He also said people can obey different supreme authorities if there is more than one claiming the highest power.
Berkeley supported this idea with a logical proof based on the laws of nature. First, he stated that because God is perfectly good, the goal God commands humans to achieve must also be good. This goal should benefit not just one person, but all of humankind. Since these commands, or laws, would lead to the general well-being of humanity if followed, it means they can be discovered through right reason. For example, the law to never resist supreme power can be understood through reason because this law is "the only thing that stands between us and total disorder." Therefore, these laws can be called the laws of nature, because they come from God, who created nature. These laws include duties like never resisting the supreme power, lying under oath, or doing evil to achieve good.
Berkeley's idea of Passive Obedience can be seen as a type of "Theological Utilitarianism." This is because it says we have a duty to follow a moral code that aims to promote the good of humanity. However, it's different from regular Utilitarianism. Regular Utilitarianism focuses on whether specific actions are morally right in certain situations. Berkeley's idea focuses on whether we should follow moral rules in all situations. While Act Utilitarianism might allow breaking a moral rule in a specific case to achieve the best outcome, Berkeley's Passive Obedience says it's never morally right to break a moral rule, even if it seems like it would lead to the happiest results. Berkeley believed that even if the consequences of an action are bad in one situation, the general tendency of that action benefits humanity.
Other important sources for Berkeley's moral ideas are Alciphron (1732) and the Discourse to Magistrates (1738). Passive Obedience is notable because it contains one of the earliest statements of rule utilitarianism.
Influence and Legacy
Berkeley's Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge was published shortly before Arthur Collier's Clavis Universalis, which had similar ideas. However, it seems they didn't influence each other.
The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once wrote about Berkeley: "Berkeley was, therefore, the first to treat the subjective starting-point really seriously and to demonstrate irrefutably its absolute necessity. He is the father of idealism ...".
Berkeley is considered one of the founders of British empiricism. A clear line of development is often seen from three great "British Empiricists": John Locke, then Berkeley, and finally David Hume.
Berkeley influenced many modern philosophers, especially David Hume. Thomas Reid admitted that he strongly criticized Berkeley's philosophy after admiring it for a long time. Alfred North Whitehead noted that Berkeley's "thought made possible the work of Hume and thus Kant."
When Berkeley visited America, the American educator Samuel Johnson met him. They later wrote letters to each other. Johnson convinced Berkeley to create a scholarship program at Yale University. Berkeley also donated many books and his plantation to the college when he returned to England. This was one of Yale's largest and most important donations. It doubled the library's books, improved the college's finances, and brought Anglican religious ideas and English culture to New England. Johnson also used parts of Berkeley's philosophy to create his own American Practical Idealism school of philosophy. Since Johnson's philosophy was taught to about half of American college graduates between 1743 and 1776, Berkeley's ideas indirectly helped shape the American way of thinking.
During Berkeley's lifetime, his philosophical ideas were not very influential outside of America. But interest in his ideas grew from the 1870s when Alexander Campbell Fraser, a leading Berkeley scholar, published The Works of George Berkeley. Serious studies of Berkeley's philosophy gained a strong boost from A. A. Luce and Thomas Edmund Jessop, two important Berkeley scholars of the 20th century. Thanks to them, studying Berkeley's work became a special area of historical-philosophical science. Also, the philosopher Colin Murray Turbayne wrote a lot about Berkeley's use of language as a way to understand visual, physical, natural, and philosophical relationships.
The amount of research and writing about Berkeley's philosophy is growing. This can be seen from the detailed lists of writings about him. Between 1709 and 1932, about 300 works were published about Berkeley, which is about 1.5 publications per year. From 1932 to 1979, over a thousand works were published, which is 20 works per year. Since then, the number of publications has reached 30 per year. In 1977, a special journal about Berkeley's life and ideas, called Berkeley Studies, began publication in Ireland. In 1988, the Australian philosopher Colin Murray Turbayne started the International Berkeley Essay Prize Competition at the University of Rochester to encourage more study and research on Berkeley's works.
Besides philosophy, Berkeley also influenced modern psychology. His work on John Locke's theory of association helped explain how humans gain knowledge about the physical world. He also used this theory to explain perception, saying that all qualities were "secondary qualities" (as Locke called them). This meant that perception was entirely in the mind of the person perceiving, not in the object itself. These are both topics still studied in psychology today.
Commemoration
Both the University of California, Berkeley, and the city of Berkeley, California, were named after him. The pronunciation has changed a bit in American English. The naming was suggested in 1866 by Frederick H. Billings, a trustee of the then College of California. Billings was inspired by Berkeley's poem Verses on the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America, especially the last part: "Westward the course of empire takes its way; The first four Acts already past, A fifth shall close the Drama with the day; Time's noblest offspring is the last."
The Town of Berkley, in Bristol County, Massachusetts, was founded on April 18, 1735, and named after the famous philosopher. It is located about 40 miles south of Boston.
A residential college and an Episcopal seminary at Yale University are also named after Berkeley. So is the Berkeley Library at Trinity College Dublin.
Berkeley Preparatory School in Tampa, Florida, a private school connected to the Episcopal Church, is also named for him.
"Bishop Berkeley's Gold Medals" are two awards given every year at Trinity College Dublin. They are given to students who show outstanding merit in a special Greek examination. Berkeley himself started these awards in 1752.
An Ulster History Circle blue plaque honoring him is located in Bishop Street Within, in the city of Derry.
Berkeley's farmhouse in Middletown, Rhode Island, is preserved as Whitehall Museum House, also known as Berkeley House. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. St. Columba's Chapel, in the same town, was once called "The Berkeley Memorial Chapel," and that name is still part of the parish's formal name today.
Writings
Original publications
- Arithmetica (1707)
- Miscellanea Mathematica (1707)
- Philosophical Commentaries or Common-Place Book (1707–08, notebooks)
- An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision (1709)
- A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Part I (1710)
- Passive Obedience, or the Christian doctrine of not resisting the Supreme Power (1712)
- Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713)
- An Essay Towards Preventing the Ruin of Great Britain (1721)
- De Motu (1721)
- A Proposal for Better Supplying Churches in our Foreign Plantations, and for converting the Savage Americans to Christianity by a College to be erected in the Summer Islands (1725)
- A Sermon preached before the incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (1732)
- Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher (1732)
- (in it) Essays toward a new theory of vision. Venezia: Francesco Storti (2.). 1732. https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=11810614.
- The Theory of Vision, or Visual Language, shewing the immediate presence and providence of a Deity, vindicated and explained (1733)
- The Analyst: a Discourse addressed to an Infidel Mathematician (1734)
- A Defence of Free-thinking in Mathematics, with Appendix concerning Mr. Walton's vindication of Sir Isaac Newton's Principle of Fluxions (1735)
- Reasons for not replying to Mr. Walton's Full Answer (1735)
- The Querist, containing several queries proposed to the consideration of the public (three parts, 1735–37).
- A Discourse addressed to Magistrates and Men of Authority (1736)
- Siris, a chain of philosophical reflections and inquiries, concerning the virtues of tar-water (1744).
- A Letter to the Roman Catholics of the Diocese of Cloyne (1745)
- A Word to the Wise, or an exhortation to the Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland (1749)
- Maxims concerning Patriotism (1750)
- Farther Thoughts on Tar-water (1752)
- Miscellany (1752)
Collections
- The Works of George Berkeley, D.D. Late Bishop of Cloyne in Ireland. To which is added, an account of his life, and several of his letters to Thomas Prior, Esq. Dean Gervais, and Mr. Pope, &c. &c. Printed for George Robinson, Pater Noster Row, 1784. Two volumes.
- The Works of George Berkeley, D.D., formerly Bishop of Cloyne: Including Many of His Writings Hitherto Unpublished; With Prefaces, Annotations, His Life and Letters, and an Account of His Philosophy. Ed. by Alexander Campbell Fraser. In 4 Volumes. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901.
- Vol. 1
- Vol. 2
- Vol. 3
- Vol. 4
- The Works of George Berkeley. Ed. by A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop. Nine volumes. Edinburgh and London, 1948–1957.
- Ewald, William B., ed., 1996. From Kant to Hilbert: A Source Book in the Foundations of Mathematics, 2 vols. Oxford Uni. Press.
- 1707. Of Infinites, 16–19.
- 1709. Letter to Samuel Molyneaux, 19–21.
- 1721. De Motu, 37–54.
- 1734. The Analyst, 60–92.
Images for kids
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Berkeley's signature
See also
In Spanish: George Berkeley para niños
- List of people on stamps of Ireland
- Solipsism
- "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"
- Yogacara and consciousness-only schools of thought
