George Berkeley

Lore & Background

Berkeley visited England and was received into the circle of Addison, Pope, and Steele. Between 1714 and 1720, he traveled extensively in Europe, including one of the most extensive Grand Tours of Italy. In 1721 he took Holy orders in the Church of Ireland, earned his doctorate in divinity, and lectured at Trinity in Divinity and Hebrew. He was made Dean of Dromore in 1721/2 and Dean of Derry in 1724. In 1725 he began a project to found a college in Bermuda for training ministers and missionaries, giving up his deanery. He married Anne Forster on 1 August 1728 and went to America, buying a plantation in Middletown, Rhode Island, where he purchased enslaved Africans. He lived there while waiting for funds for his college, but the funds were not forthcoming, and he returned to London in 1732. He was nominated Bishop of Cloyne on 18 January 1734 and consecrated on 19 May 1734, serving until his death. He died in Oxford in 1753 and was buried in Christ Church Cathedral.

Reader's Guide

Berkeley's significance lies in his development of immaterialism, which denies the existence of material substance and contends that objects like tables and chairs are ideas perceived by the mind, unable to exist without being perceived. His arguments against Isaac Newton's absolute space, time, and motion in De Motu (1721) were a notable precursor to those of Ernst Mach and Albert Einstein. His critique of the foundations of calculus in The Analyst (1734) was influential in the development of mathematics. Berkeley was among the most cited philosophers of 18th-century Europe, and his works deeply influenced Immanuel Kant and David Hume. Interest in his ideas increased greatly after World War II because they tackled issues of perception, primary and secondary qualities, and the importance of language. Public interest in his views increased in the United States during the early 19th century, leading to the naming of the University of California, Berkeley, the city of Berkeley, California, and Berkeley College, Yale, after him. In 2023, Trinity College Dublin removed his name from one of its libraries due to his slave ownership and active defense of slavery.

Did You Know?

• Berkeley argued against Isaac Newton's doctrine of absolute space, time, and motion in De Motu (1721), a precursor to the work of Ernst Mach and Albert Einstein.
• He purchased several enslaved Africans to work on his plantation in Rhode Island, and in 2023 Trinity College Dublin removed his name from a library because of his slave ownership and active defense of slavery.
• Berkeley's first major work, An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision (1709), examined visual distance, magnitude, and problems of sight and touch, and its conclusions are now accepted as part of the theory of optics.
• He was named co-heir of Esther Vanhomrigh in 1723, following her violent quarrel with Jonathan Swift, though much of the inheritance vanished in a lawsuit.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"Westward the course of empire takes its way; The four first acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day: Time's noblest offspring is the last." — George Berkeley "Our youth we can have but to-day, We may always find time to grow old." — George Berkeley "Can Love be controlled by Advice?, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)." — George Berkeley "And what are these same evanescent Increments? They are neither finite Quantities nor Quantities infinitely small, nor yet nothing. May we not call them the Ghosts of departed Quantities?" — George Berkeley