Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher (1732) is Berkeley's main work of philosophical theology and a crucial source of his views on meaning and language. This edition contains the four most important dialogues and a selection of critical essays and commentaries reflecting the response of such writers as Hutcheson, Mill and Antony Flew. The only single edition currently in print, it argues that Alciphron has a more important place both in the Berkeley canon and in early modern philosophy than is generally thought.
According to George Berkeley (1685-1753), there is fundamentally nothing in the world but minds and their ideas. Ideas are understood as pure phenomenal 'feels' which are momentarily had by a single perceiver, then vanish. Surprisingly, Berkeley tries to sell this idealistic philosophical system as a defense of common-sense and an aid to science. However, both common-sense and Newtonian science take the perceived world to be highly structured in a way that Berkeley's system does not appear to allow. Kenneth L. Pearce argues that Berkeley's solution to this problem lies in his innovative philosophy of language. The solution works at two levels. At the first level, it is by means of our conventions for the use of physical object talk that we impose structure on the world. At a deeper level, the orderliness of the world is explained by the fact that, according to Berkeley, the world itself is a discourse 'spoken' by God - the world is literally an object of linguistic interpretation. The structure that our physical object talk - in common-sense and in Newtonian physics - aims to capture is the grammatical structure of this divine discourse. This approach yields surprising consequences for some of the most discussed issues in Berkeley's metaphysics. Most notably, it is argued that, in Berkeley's view, physical objects are neither ideas nor collections of ideas. Rather, physical objects, like forces, are mere quasi-entities brought into being by our linguistic practices.
Stephen Daniel presents a study of the philosophy of George Berkeley in the intellectual context of his times, with a particular focus on how, for Berkeley, mind is related to its ideas. Daniel does not assume that thinkers like Descartes, Malebranche, or Locke define for Berkeley the context in which he develops his own thought. Instead, he indicates how Berkeley draws on a tradition that informed his early training and that challenges much of the early modern thought with which he is often associated. Specifically, this book indicates how Berkeley's distinctive treatment of mind (as the activity whereby objects are differentiated and related to one another) highlights how mind neither precedes the existence of objects nor exists independently of them. This distinctive way of understanding the relation of mind and objects allows Berkeley to appropriate ideas from his contemporaries in ways that transform the issues with which he is engaged. The resulting insights--for example, about how God creates the minds that perceive objects--are only now starting to be fully appreciated.
Volume five of a ten volume set which provides full and detailed coverage of all aspects of philosophy, including information on how philosophy is practiced in different countries, who the most influential philosophers were, and what the basic concepts are.
A comprehensive intellectual biography of the Enlightenment philosopher In George Berkeley: A Philosophical Life, Tom Jones provides a comprehensive account of the life and work of the preeminent Irish philosopher of the Enlightenment. From his early brilliance as a student and fellow at Trinity College Dublin to his later years as Bishop of Cloyne, Berkeley brought his searching and powerful intellect to bear on the full range of eighteenth-century thought and experience. Jones brings vividly to life the complexities and contradictions of Berkeley’s life and ideas. He advanced a radical immaterialism, holding that the only reality was minds, their thoughts, and their perceptions, without any physical substance underlying them. But he put forward this counterintuitive philosophy in support of the existence and ultimate sovereignty of God. Berkeley was an energetic social reformer, deeply interested in educational and economic improvement, including for the indigenous peoples of North America, yet he believed strongly in obedience to hierarchy and defended slavery. And although he spent much of his life in Ireland, he followed his time at Trinity with years of travel that took him to London, Italy, and New England, where he spent two years trying to establish a university for Bermuda, before returning to Ireland to take up an Anglican bishopric in a predominantly Catholic country. Jones draws on the full range of Berkeley’s writings, from philosophical treatises to personal letters and journals, to probe the deep connections between his life and work. The result is a richly detailed and rounded portrait of a major Enlightenment thinker and the world in which he lived.
Berkeley's philosophy has been much studied and discussed over the years, and a growing number of scholars have come to the realization that scientific and mathematical writings are an essential part of his philosophical enterprise. The aim of this volume is to present Berkeley's two most important scientific texts in a form which meets contemporary standards of scholarship while rendering them accessible to the modern reader. Although editions of both are contained in the fourth volume of the Works, these lack adequate introductions and do not provide com plete and corrected texts. The present edition contains a complete and critically established text of both De Motu and The Analyst, in addi tion to a new translation of De Motu. The introductions and notes are designed to provide the background necessary for a full understanding of Berkeley's account of science and mathematics. Although these two texts are very different, they are united by a shared a concern with the work of Newton and Leibniz. Berkeley's De Motu deals extensively with Newton's Principia and Leibniz's Specimen Dynamicum, while The Analyst critiques both Leibnizian and Newto nian mathematics. Berkeley is commonly thought of as a successor to Locke or Malebranche, but as these works show he is also a successor to Newton and Leibniz.
The eighteenth century Irish philosopher George Berkeley is best known for his empiricist and idealist philosophy, which argues that reality consists only of minds and their ideas. He is also known for his critique of abstraction, an important premise in his argument for immaterialism. His chief philosophical work, ‘A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge’ (1710), largely seeks to refute the claims made by Berkeley's contemporary John Locke about the nature of human perception. This eBook presents Berkeley’s complete works, with numerous illustrations, rare texts appearing in digital print for the first time, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1) * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Berkeley’s life and works * Concise introductions to the major works * All of the treatises, with individual contents tables * Features rare works appearing for the first time in digital publishing, including ‘Siris’ and ‘The Theory of Vision’ * Rare translations of Berkeley’s two Latin works: ‘Arithmetica’ and ‘Miscellanea Mathematica’, available for the first time in digital print * Images of how the books were first published, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts * Excellent formatting of the texts * Special criticism section, with essays evaluating Berkeley’s contribution to philosophy * Features two bonus biographies – discover Berkeley’s intriguing life * Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and genres Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles CONTENTS: The Books Arithmetica (1707) Miscellanea Mathematica (1707) Common-Place Book (1709) An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision (1709) A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) A Discourse on Passive Obedience (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 (1725) A Sermon Preached before the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (1732) Alciphron (1732) The Theory of Vision (1733) The Analyst (1734) A Defence of Free-thinking in Mathematics (1735) Reasons for Not Replying to Mr. Walton’s Full Answer (1735) The Querist (1737) A Discourse addressed to Magistrates and Men of Authority (1736) Siris (1744) A Word to the Wise (1749) Farther Thoughts on Tar-Water (1752) Miscellaneous Works The Criticism Extract from ‘A Treatise of Human Nature’ by David Hume Berkeley by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Extract from ‘The World as Will and Idea’ by Arthur Schopenhauer Extract from ‘The Principles of Psychology’ by William James The Biographies George Berkeley by A. Campbell Fraser George Berkeley by Robert Adamson Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles or to purchase this eBook as a Parts Edition of individual eBooks
Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot expresses the hopes, dogmas, assumptions, and prejudices that have come to characterize the French Enlightenment. In this preface to the Encyclopedia, d'Alembert traces the history of intellectual progress from the Renaissance to 1751. Including a revision of Diderot's Prospectus and a list of contributors to the Encyclopedia, this edition, elegantly translated and introduced by Professor Richard Schwab, is one of the great works of the Enlightenment and an outstanding introduction to the philosophes.
