BISHOP BERKELEY – (1685-1753)

     George Berkeley was born in Ireland and he became a Fellow of Trinity College in Dublin. Ordained into the Anglican Church in 1709, he was made a bishop in 1734.

• Berkeley agrees with Locke that the mind is a blank slate to be filled by experience. But he disagrees with Locke about universals and all the extended consequences of the concept. Berkeley’s conclusion is to deny the existence of matter.
• We can’t experience the tangible world as such, Berkeley said. Matter exists only as idea in our minds. Thus he is undermining the metaphysical basis for the Enlightment to protect religious belief.
• This analysis becomes the philosophy of “ Idealism” led by Kant, Hegel, and Marx.
• It is also a formula for modern subjectivism in Kierkegaard, Nietzche, etc.