Ã“scar Hammerstein II

Biography

Berkeley is born in Ireland, in the Comté of Kilkenny, and grows in Dysart Castle, close to Thomastown. He is the oldest son of William Berkeley, who belongs to the Anglo-Irish minor nobility, of confession Anglican, recently installed in Ireland. He begins his studies with the college from Kilkenny, which he leaves in 1700, to continue them with the Trinity College of Dublin, where he obtains the degree of Master off Arts in 1707. Elected official “fellow” of Trinity College, i.e. “part-time lecturer”, it remains there to carry out tutorat and to teach the Greek .

Its first publication, the arithmetic one shown without the help of the algebra and the geometry , probably written to support its candidature for the station of part-time lecturer, relates to the Mathématiques. But the first work which points out it is its Essay towards has New Theory off Vision ( Essai on a new theory of the vision ), published in 1709. Although it gives place at the time with many controversies, its conclusions make from now on left the classical theory of optics. It off publishes then Treatise concerning the Principles Human Knowledge ( Traité on the principles of human knowledge ) in 1710, and Three Dialogs between Hylas and Philonous ( Three Dialogs between Hylas and Philonous ), in which it develops its own philosophical system, whose guiding principle is that the world, represented by our directions, requires to be perceived to exist as tel. the Principes expose this theory, while the Dialogs defend it.

Its objective is mainly Apologétique: it is a question of fighting the Matérialisme and the Scepticisme which prevail then. Its theory is considered to be ridiculous by the greatest number, and even those which, like Samuel Clarke and William Whiston, recognize a “extraordinary genius to him”, nevertheless are convinced that its basic principles are false. A little later it goes in the England, and Addison, Pope, Steele and Arbuthnot accommodates it in their rows with a cordial eagerness. Swift presents it to Lord Peterborough, who brings it with him in Europe in the capacity of Secrétaire and Chapelain. Also between 1714 and 1720, it alternates academic work and long voyages, mainly in Italy which it almost entirely visits, but also in Spain and France, where it writes De Motu ( Traité movement ). In 1721, it enters the Ordres, obtains its Doctorat in Théologie, and, once again, chooses to remain in Trinity College, where it teaches the Hebrew and theology.

In 1724, it obtains the deanery Derry. The following year, it projects to found with the Bermuda a college, intended to train missionary and Anglicans ministers of religion for the colonists, for the Indiens. For that it gives up its deanery, which got an income of ₤1100 to him, and leaves for the America with wages ₤100. It unloads close to Newport, where it buys a plantation, famous “the Whitehall”. The British Museum preserves some receipts of purchase of slaves whom it made in 1730 and 1731. Berkeley, in its sermons, explains to the colonists why the Chrétienté supports the Esclavage, and thus why the slaves must be baptized.

“the Masters may find it beneficial to have slaves, whom in all things with their Masters according to the flesh, not only under their eyes, like liking the men obey, but with simplicity of heart, in fear of the Lord . The freedom of the Gospel is compatible with the terrestrial constraint, and the slaves will be able to only become better slaves while becoming Christian.”

He saw with the plantation while waiting for the arrival of a subsidy of ₤10 000, that the British government promised to him for its college. But the funds not coming, it turns over to London in 1732. In 1734, it is named bishop of Cloyne. Little time afterwards, it publishes Alciphron, gold The Minute To philosophize ( Alciphron or the small philosopher ), work written during its stay with Newport and directed at the same time against Shaftesbury and Bernard Mandeville. In 1734-1737, it publishes The Querist ( Questions about the interests of Ireland ), and its last publications will be Siris , a treaty on the medicinal virtues of the tar water, and Further Thoughts one Tar-toilets ( Nouvelles Réflexons on the tar water).

During its stay with Saville Street in London, it takes share with the efforts aiming at creating an asylum for the abandoned children. “Foundling Hospital” is founded by royal Charte in 1739, and Berkeley belongs to the list of the first members of its board of directors.

It remains in Cloyne until its retirement in 1752, year when it is withdrawn with Oxford in his son. He dies suddenly in January 1753, and he is buried with Christ Church Cathedral of Oxford. Its soft and affectionate manners made it much appreciate, and it was held in high regard per many of its contemporaries.

Theory of knowledge

Berkeley defines the Idée S in manner similar to Descartes and Locke: “all that is given immediately by the directions or the understanding. ” And it also takes again the thesis of Locke whereby the ideas of the direction and the ideas of the reflection are distinguished: It is visible with whoever carries its sight on the objects of the human knowledge, which they are or of the ideas truly printed on the directions, or of the perceived ideas when the attention applies to passions and the operations of the spirit, or finally of the ideas formed using the memory and imagination, by composing and dividing, or making simply only represent those which were perceived originally according to the manners that one comes from dire.

Berkeley from of deduced then what will be the principle of its Philosophie: the ideas do not exist apart from a Esprit which perceives them. It is a intuitive Vérité there: when I say that an object exists, I say that I feel it, that I see it, or that it is perceived by another spirit. But as for conceiving an absolute existence, it is impossible; the ess of the object consists in its percipi . “Esse is percipi” (to be, it is to be perceived). We thus do not speak about the things that as far as they have report/ratio with our spirit: let us consider significant qualities which are the color, the form, the movement, odor, taste, etc, i.e. ideas perceived by the directions. It is obviously contradictory that an idea can exist in a not-perceiving thing; because it is all one to have an idea or to perceive it. Consequently, to exist, a color, a form, etc must be perceived. It follows from there clearly that there cannot be not thought substance or of substrate of these idées.

(Ambiguous Translation, to refer to the original text).

There is thus no Matière: when it is said that the matter exists apart from oneself, one makes an abuse language. We perceive only ideas, and we can nothing conceive except them. With what, consequently, the matter could it resemble? It thus follows from there that the qualities first, held for objective by Descartes and Locke, are actually not it more than qualities second.

We thus can by no means of affirming the Existence outside world. The outside world is however not illusory: its existence, as a phenomenon is real, but it does not have substance, in the sense that there does not exist in oneself.

Berkeley approaches in that a passage the Discourse on Method where Rene Descartes also considers him that the real-world could not exist and to constitute only impressions sent by some misleading spirit.

It supported that we know only our clean ideas , that the external bodies do not exist, and that it is by an untrue illusion that we grant reality to them: it is in the Principes of human knowledge and in the Three dialogs between Hylas (the materialist) and Philonous (the spiritualistic ) that it exposed this system of idealism.

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