George Berkeley

George Berkeley (1685–1753) was an Irish philosopher and Anglican bishop who argued that sensible objects exist only as perceived by minds and that God sustains their existence.

Idealism: A family of philosophical views that give mind or ideas a fundamental role in reality. Berkeley’s immaterialism is a distinctive form of idealism.
Ideas in philosophy: Contents of awareness or thought, whose nature varies across philosophical theories. Berkeley distinguishes passive ideas from the active minds that perceive them.
John Locke: An English philosopher whose empiricism and theory of ideas shaped early modern philosophy. Berkeley develops his critique of abstract ideas and material qualities from debates prompted by Locke.
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge: Berkeley’s 1710 philosophical work presenting arguments against material substance and for immaterialism. It gives the fullest systematic statement of his central metaphysical position.
Samuel Johnson’s kicking a stone: A famous anecdote in which Samuel Johnson responded to immaterialism by kicking a stone. The gesture expresses a common resistance to Berkeley’s claim that matter is unnecessary.
Immaterialism: The view that material substance does not exist independently of perceiving minds. This is Berkeley’s central claim about ordinary objects.
Spirit (philosophy): An active, perceiving agent in Berkeley’s metaphysics, including finite minds and God. Spirits perceive ideas and cause actions; they are not themselves perceived as ideas.
Nicolas Malebranche: A French philosopher and priest who held that humans perceive ideas in God. Berkeley’s account of perception and divine activity responds to issues raised by Malebranche.
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous: Berkeley’s 1713 dialogue presenting arguments against matter through a debate between two fictional interlocutors. The dialogue stages his case for immaterialism in an accessible argumentative form.
David Hume: A Scottish philosopher whose empiricism and skepticism transformed debates about knowledge and causation. Hume shares Berkeley’s scrutiny of ideas while drawing more skeptical conclusions.

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