George Berkeley (1685–1753)

Have you ever been to one of those parties where, at about 1.30 a.m., some want-to-be intellectual who, like yourself, has imbibed too frequently and slept too infrequently, insinuates himself next to you and asks, "If a tree falls in the forest, when nobody is there to hear; does it make a sound?"

I must have something about me that draws these pseudo philosophers into my orbit because it has happened sufficiently often for me to develop a means of dealing with the situation. I simply reply, show more "Yes." and move in the opposite direction as fast as my booze befuddled legs will take me. Not elegant, not witty, but effective.

Why do I bring this up now? Because, this book is the written version of how that stupid question develops, if one doesn't deal with the inquisitor promptly, and firmly.

It is pleasing to note that three hundred years ago some twonk could seriously propose, as an antidote to the flawed argument of Locke, that material objects do not exist. All that exists is our perception of them, given by God. What is less pleasing is the thought of another drunken know-it-all reworking the thesis at the next party that I attend: perhaps I'll take this book, sit him (why is it always a 'him'?) down in a corner and delight for the rest of the night/morning in wicked thoughts of what the next poor sap to be cornered by him will get.

You will notice that I gave this book one and a half stars; this was for the excellent introduction by G.J. Warnock: were I to possess the intelligence to have taken his excellent précis of the thoughts of Berkeley and Locke and deduced that all further effort would be waste, I might have at least doubled the star content of the review. So, who's the fool? show less

Três diálogos muito bem escritos, em um embate divertido entre um imaterialista (idealista), defendendo a bizarra posição do autor (ser é ser percebido, tudo que existe, existe dentro de mentes), contra um curioso e incomodado materialista recalcitrante. Philonous emprega todas as variações da pentelhação "tudo é correlacionado", "tudo é para nós", "não há como pensar algo fora do pensamento, porque ao fazê-lo, estamos pensando o fora para nós, dentro do pensamento", enquanto show more mostra que um empirismo radical leva a negar a matéria, a existência exterior à mente, e afirmar Deus, a mente que a tudo percebe. (o que para os padrões atuais, soa, é claro, como "negar o pensamento científico") show less

Out of Spinoza, Locke, Descartes, Hume and Berkeley, I certainly found Berkeley the most interesting; but, then, I am into Idealism, so it is to some degree understandable and indicates my bias really. Out of 17th-early 18th century philosophers, Berkeley intrigues me as much as Leibniz does. I might, if I were to expand philosophy to include quasi-mystical writers of the same era, include Swedenborg, Hutchinson, Boehme and Sterry.
Berkeley has often been misrepresented as being a show more philosopher that denied the existence of matter in the sense of real external objects. This is definitely not accurate. Some of his statements are ambiguous and can be wrenched from context and made to look like he supported the non-reality of the outside physical world, but, really, he denied the existence of matter in the philosophical sense of a substrate made up of abstracted accidents and qualities. Like other Idealists going back to Plato, Berkeley believed in a universal Spirit or Mind that necessitates that all reality is perceived and cannot exist apart from this perception. It is an interesting theory when one notes that quantum mechanics supports the notion that reality at the particle level does seem to presuppose an observer. It seems that there may be very current scientific support for Berkeley's supposition on some level.
It does seem that in the concluding remarks that Berkeley supports some kind of pantheism; at least, some of his statements appear to strongly support that reading. Pantheism I do not support, so I have some reservations about Berkeley's philosophy, but it is well worth studying at least. It is also interesting that Berkeley appears to have anticipated the pseudo-spiritual abstract philosophy of German Idealists like Hegel; of course, while anticipating it he was also against any such marriage of spirituality with abstract knowledge systems.
As it stands, Berkeley was a worth while read and I may revisit this work in the future. show less

Skip it and read Hume, who says the same stuff more quickly, takes it further, and doesn't go god-mad. Or if you must have a taste, only suffer the first dialogue - it's downhill from there.

This doesn't feel like a dialogue: Berkeley has given his man Phil all the words and prepared thoughts he needs, and left his opponent only breath enough to ask the right questions, and say variations of "Oh gee Phil, I guess you're right! I must admit I have no thoughts really on that!". The first show more dialogue does present the strong argument for Idealism, and some very nice reasonable advice of trying to stay skeptical, not taking inferences too far, and not introducing superflous ideas where things can be given simpler explanations. He then forgets all that and brings his god into it; he believes all reality is only in our minds (could be!), and that things continue to exist when there are no people about, because everything is in the mind of god. show less