Enlightenment

George Berkeley

1685–1753

“Their esse is percipi, nor is it possible they should have any existence out of the minds or thinking things which perceive them.”

Principles of Human Knowledge, §3

George Berkeley was an Irish philosopher and Anglican bishop. In he takes Locke's empiricism to what he holds is its proper end. We know only ideas. Material substance as a support of qualities outside all minds is, he argues, a contradiction we never form. Esse est percipi: for sensible things, to be is to be perceived. The trees and houses remain. What drops out is the unknown layer of "matter" that no one has ever experienced. God grounds the order of nature when finite minds are not looking. Later idealism and every defense of independent matter still have to meet this challenge.

In the Conversation

6 of the Great Ideas

Theology & Metaphysics

Being

*Esse est percipi*: to be is to be perceived, and material substance as a being independent of all minds is a contradiction.

Metaphysics

Matter

There is no such thing as material substance: to be is to be perceived, and bodies are collections of ideas in minds.

Epistemology

Idea

To be is to be perceived: ideas are all that exist, and matter apart from perception is an unintelligible fiction.

Sense

All we ever perceive are our own sensations; matter apart from perception is an empty word.

Sign and Symbol

There are no abstract general ideas behind general words; a particular idea becomes general by being made to represent all of its kind.

Logic & Method

Universal and Particular

There are no abstract general ideas; all ideas are particular, and general terms work by standing for any particular idea of the relevant kind when we need it.