A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (Dover Philosophical Classics)

Berkeley, George

ISBN 10: 048643253X / ISBN 13: 9780486432533

Published by Dover Publications, 2003

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 048643253X-3-36105873

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (Dover Philosophical Classics)
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 048643253X
• ISBN 13: 9780486432533
• Binding: paperback
• Condition: Good
• Weight: 10 ounces

About this title

Synopsis

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is present to hear it, does it make a sound? It does not, according to George Berkeley. Originally published in 1710, this landmark of Western philosophy introduced a revolutionary concept: immaterialism, which asserts that to be is to perceive or be perceived.
An Irish clergyman who spent his entire philosophical career as a churchman, Berkeley linked his investigations to his religious interests. A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge opens with an assault on Locke’s theory of abstract ideas and proceeds with arguments that sensible qualities exist only when perceived as ideas. Physical objects, he claims, are no more than collections of qualities, and these sensible objects, too, are merely ideas. Berkeley relates his position to the achievements of eighteenth-century science, and proclaims the compatibility of immaterialism with traditional religion.
The fullest expression of Berkeley’s doctrine of immaterialism, this classic work influenced British philosophers from David Hume to Bertrand Russell and the other logical positivists. It is essential reading for all students of philosophy.

About the Author

George Berkeley (1685–1753), also known as Bishop Berkeley (Bishop of Cloyne), was an Anglo-Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immaterialism" (later referred to as "subjective idealism" by others). This theory denies the existence of material substance and instead contends that familiar objects like tables and chairs are only ideas in the minds of perceivers, and as a result cannot exist without being perceived. Thus, as Berkeley famously put it, for physical objects "esse est percipi" ("to be is to be perceived"). Berkeley is also known for his critique of abstraction, an important premise in his argument for immaterialism.