GEORGE BERKELEY: BIOGRAPHY, THOUGHTS, CONTRIBUTIONS AND WORKS - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

George Berkeley (1685–1753) was an Irish bishop, philosopher, and scientist, best known for his empiricist, idealistic philosophy, and as one of the greatest philosophers of the early modern period.

Furthermore, he was known as one of the brightest critics of his predecessors; especially from Descartes, Malebranche and Locke. He was a famous metaphysician for defending idealism; that is, everything (except the spiritual) exists to the extent that it can be perceived by the senses.

John Smybert, via Wikimedia Commons

His most studied works, the Treatise on the Principles of Human Knowledge and the Essay of the New Theory of Vision, as well as De Motu and Siris, were dense writings with arguments that delighted contemporary philosophers at the time.

On the other hand, he aroused great interest in various subjects such as religion, psychology of vision, mathematics, medicine, morals, economics and physics. Although his first readers failed to understand his works, years later he influenced the thinking of the Scotsman David Hume and the German Immanuel Kant.

Biography

Early years and publications

George Berkeley was born on March 12, 1685 in County Kilkenny, Ireland. He was the eldest son of William Berkeley, a cadet of the noble Berkeley family. There are no clear records of who his mother was.

After several years of study at Kilkenny College he attended Trinity College in Dublin at the age of 15. Later, in that same institution, he was elected academic in 1702; He earned his BA in 1704 and completed a Master's in 1707.

Berkeley entered the world of philosophy that same year, beginning to make philosophical annotations or also called "Philosophical Comments." These provided rich documentation on Berkeley's early evolution as a philosopher.

The Berkeley Philosophical Notebooks provided readers with the ability to trace the rise of idealistic philosophy back to the critical response of Descartes, Locke, Hobbes, and others.

In 1709, he published his first major work, related to mathematics, in which Berkeley examined visual distance, magnitude, position, and problems of sight and touch. Although this essay generated a number of controversies, its conclusions are now accepted as part of the theory of optics.

A year later, he published the Treatise on the Principles of Human Knowledge and in 1713 the Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous.

Tour Europe and return to Ireland

A year later, Berkeley visited England and was welcomed into the circle of Addison, Pope, and Steele. Between 1714 and 1720, he interposed his academic efforts by making extensive trips to Europe.

While completing his tour of the Old Continent as a tutor to a young man, Berkeley composed De Motu; a fragment in which he developed his views on the philosophy of science and articulated an instrumentalist approach to Newtonian dynamics.

After his tour, the Irishman returned to his homeland and resumed his position at Trinity College. Parallel to that, in 1721 he took Holy Orders in the Church of Ireland, obtaining his doctorate in divinity; in fact, he held several conferences on this topic.

In 1724, he retired from Trinity when he was appointed Dean of Derry. It was at this time that Berkeley began to think about his plan to found a university in Bermuda, so the following year he began his project of training ministers and missionaries in the colony.

Adventures in America

After obtaining a letter and funding promises from the British Parliament, Berkeley set sail for America in 1728 accompanied by his wife, Anne Forster, a talented and well-educated woman who upheld her husband's philosophy until the day of his death.

They spent three years in Newport, Rhode Island (United States) where they bought a plantation in Middletown. There are references that several American universities, especially Yale, benefited from the Berkeley visit.

While in America, Berkeley wrote the work entitled Alciphron; a work directed against "free thinkers" whom he considered enemies of established Anglicanism.

While in Newport, he drew up plans for the ideal city he planned to build in Bermuda. He stayed on the plantation waiting for the money he was promised; However, political support collapsed and they were forced to return to Britain in 1731.

George Berkeley and Anne had six children, of whom only four survived: Henry, George, William, and Julia; the other two children died in infancy.

Years as Bishop of Cloyne

In 1734, Berkeley was consecrated Bishop of Cloyne, Dublin, finally completing his new library. In addition, his episcopate passed without incident.

Then, in 1737, he took a seat in the Irish House of Lords and a year later published the work entitled A Speech to Magistrates and Men in Authority, which condemned the Blasters; a Hellfire Club in Dublin (currently in ruins).

Cloyne headquarters was a home of worship and a social center during the epidemics. In 1944 he published his work entitled Siris, a series of philosophical reflections and a treatise on the medicinal virtues of tar water.

In August 1752, George commissioned his brother, Robert Berkeley, as vicar general; later, he took a house in Holywell with his wife and two of their children (George and Julia) where he resided until his death.

Death

On January 14, 1753 he died and was buried in the chapel of the Church of Christ.

Thought

Empiricism

Empiricism explains that knowledge is derived from experience, that is, everything that the human being can know comes from a sensory experience. Berkeley maintains the same position of empiricism, only with certain differences in some arguments.

In this sense, the Irish philosopher denies the existence of material substances and says that the existence of substances depends on perception.

For Berkeley, anything that can be perceived through any sense (color, hardness, smell, etc.) is an "idea" or sensation that cannot exist without being perceived.

Berkeley in several of his works explained this argument with several examples: trees and books are simply collections of "ideas" and, as such, they cannot exist without having "the idea" in mind.

While some of the ideas of empiricism aligned with Berkeley's main idea in which he states that knowledge comes from a sensory experience, for him there is a separation between the physical world and the mental world.

Berkeley argued that the cause of sensations is not clearly caused by physical matter; otherwise, the existence of a tree is a collection of ideas attached to the human mind. If the mind is not there, the tree does not exist.

Immaterialism or idealism

Immaterialism, also called idealism (name that was assigned later), consists of a new metaphysical version that affirms that the reality that human beings can know is fundamentally mental, that is, immaterial.

Berkeley was the one who revived idealism in eighteenth-century Europe using skeptical arguments against materialism.

According to the idealistic view, consciousness exists before and is a prior condition of material existence; that is, consciousness creates and determines the material, not the other way around.

Idealism believes that consciousness and mind are the origin of the material world, and its main objective is to explain the existing world according to these principles.

For Berkeley, materialists are forced to accept that objects actually seen and touched have only an intermittent existence, that they arise when they are perceived and pass to nothing when they are no longer perceived. In this sense, Berkeley respected and understood the materialistic principles, but did not accept them.

Contributions

Arguments from relativity

Previous years, Locke had defined two fundamental pillars: the distinction between primary qualities and secondary qualities and the materialistic position. In this sense, Locke came to the conclusion that an object can be defined by its primary and secondary qualities.

Otherwise, George Berkeley claims, through an example, that size is not a quality of an object because it depends on the distance between the observer and the object, or the size of the observer.

Taking into account that the object has a different size in the eyes of the observers, then the size is not the quality of an object. Later he affirmed that neither the secondary nor the primary qualities are of the object.

The new theory of vision

Berkeley made several arguments against the classical scholars of optics, arguing that space cannot be seen directly, nor can its shape be deduced logically using the laws of optics.

Berkeley explains his theory by means of an example: distance is indirectly perceived in the same way that a person's shame is indirectly perceived. By looking at an embarrassed person, we infer that the person is embarrassed by looking at their flushed face.

In such a way it is known from experience that a red face indicates shame, since it has been learned to associate the two. Berkeley claims that visual cues from an object can only be used for indirect judgment because the viewer learns to associate visual cues with tactile sensations.

Philosophy of Physics

From Berkeley's earliest works to his last, he showed a great commitment to science. He argued that the forces of gravity, as defined by Isaac Newton, consisted of "hidden qualities" that did not express anything clearly.

Berkeley argued that those who postulated "something unknown in a body also unknown, which they call the" principle of motion, "is also unknown."

Berkeley comments that if physicists affirm a number of precepts that cannot be verified through experience; or for example, if they refer to "soul" or "incorporeal thing," then it does not belong to physics.

Therefore, he came to the conclusion that the forces were beyond any kind of empirical observation and could not be part of a proper science; hence, he proposed his theory of signs as a means of explaining motion and matter without making reference to the "hidden qualities" of force and gravity.

Plays

Essay of a new theory of vision

Berkeley published this essay in 1709, being one of his most relevant early works. In this essay towards a new theory of vision, he succeeded in examining, first, spatial perception, visual distance, magnitude, position, and problems of sight and touch.

After several analyzes embodied in the work, he concluded that the real objects of sight are not or exist without the mind, although the truth is that they are tangible.

Berkeley commented in his book that he wanted to account for the perception of distance, size and the situation of objects with the same principle of lines and angles, so that it can be used for calculation.

The role of God fulfills a great relevance for this work; for Berkeley, the theory was developed as a function of God, since sight, visible objects, as well as the argument from visual language depend on Him. Berkeley, from his beliefs, relied on Christian theism.

A Treatise on the Principles of Human Knowledge

This work, published in 1710, is considered one of the most important of George Berkeley; in it he shares Locke's essay on human understanding and Hume's treatise on nature.

Berkeley succeeded in introducing all sense objects, including tangible ones, into the mind; in this sense, he rejected material substance, material causes, and abstract ideas.

On the other hand, he identified the spiritual substance, explained the objections to his theory, and explained the theological and epistemological consequences.

From Motu

The principle and the cause of the communication of the movements or simply De Motu, is a critical essay by George Berkeley published in the year 1721.

Berkeley rejected the space, time and absolute movement of Isaac Newton's theories, this being an approach towards his immaterialism. Through this work, in the 20th century he earned the title of "forerunner of physicists Ernst Mach and Albert Einstein."

Siris

Siris was the title of the last work of the Irish philosopher George Berkeley, published in 1744. The term "Siris" comes from the Greek meaning "chain"; the book is full of a series of philosophical reflections in which it presents an ascending chain of thought that runs through the entire system of beings.

In addition, the work consists of a treatise on the medicinal virtues of tar water, the mystery of the Trinity and a recount of immaterialism.

Berkeley, being a bishop, used this book as a means of saying goodbye to his readers. That is why he wanted to reflect all his thoughts and beliefs, encompassing multiple issues that caught his attention throughout his life: charity, scientific research, ancient wisdom and Christianity.

References

1. George Berkeley and Empiricism Analysis Philosophy Essay, Portal Ukessays, (2016). Taken from ukessays.com
2. George Berkeley on Empiricism and Idealism, Christine Scarince, (nd). Taken from study.com
3. Essay of a new theory of vision, George Berkeley, (1980). Taken from schoolfilosofiaucsar.files.wordpress.com
4. George Berkeley, Wikipedia in English, (nd). Taken from Wikipedia.org
5. George Berkeley, Brian Duignan for Britannica, (nd). Taken from britannica.com
6. George Berkeley, Portal Stanford Encyclopedia of philosoply, (2011). Taken from plato.stanford.edu
7. George Berkeley, Famous Philosopher Editors, (nd). Taken from famousphilosophers.org