Talk:George Berkeley

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This article incorporates public domain text from: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London, J.M. Dent & sons; New York, E.P. Dutton.
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Contents

[edit] Various

The university now called University of California, Berkeley was created (and named) before the city Berkeley; in fact, the presence of the university was originally the only reason for the existence of the town. I rewrote the "The city of Berkeley, California was named after him..." sentence to match this. —jtoomim

I'm somewhat confused here. The University of California was founded next to Oakland, California, and they named the town it was founded in (which did not really exist as much of a town for quite awhile) after Bishop Berkeley. However that location (much) later became only one site in a larger UC system, and hence became named University of California, Berkeley, while University of California now refers to the entire system. Which is to say, I think the current formulation is a little off but I'm not sure of a graceful way to correct it -- the city is named after him, the University is now named after the city, even though the University created the city. Which confuses me just to think about it, so maybe it is fine the way it is... --Fastfission 22:48, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
To attempt to clarify: the University of California, Berkeley was not directly named after George Berkeley. Founders of the University of California named the area in which it was located "Berkeley" and it was not until much later, when the University of California expanded into a multi-campus system, that the name of the original University of California was changed to the University of California, Berkeley to correspond with the new University of California naming system of placing the name of the city in which a campus is located after "University of California."


Hmm. Possible copyright violation from http://www.georgeberkeley.org/. See the "picture text" which appears to be a cut-and-paste from the web site.

OK, with the picture link removed, this pages passes the Google test. Copyright panic over.

Wouldn't it be that case that a painting of the man would be in the public domain, and hence any picture of such a painting would also be in the public domain? INALBIPOOTI and I can't see that there would be any problem in copying and using the picture at http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~dwilkins/Berkeley/ for example

hawthorn

Am I right in thinking he was a bishop? Shouldn't we mention this somewhere? (If he is that Bishop Berkeley, Boswell reports that when he admired Berkeley's "irrefutable" proof of the non-existence of matter, Samuel Johnson cried "I refute it thus!" and kicked a nearby rock very hard...)

He was a bishop. Unfortunately, the article seems to be almost entirely a desription of his philosophical ideas, and has very little about his life. I think it would be better to have a whole separate article about his philosophical ideas, and have the main article as a more biographical one, with brief summaries of his philosophical ideas as and when they crop up in his life. Unfortunately I don't know enough about the man to do this myself, so I'm not really being very helpful here! I might do some research later... maybe... -- Oliver P. 11:51 Feb 3, 2003 (UTC)
I don't think we should split the page, unless there's a recognized name for his theory of the nonexistence of matter, in which case we could have a page on that. A single page can easily contain biography and ideas: Immanuel Kant for instance. We do need more biographical information, though. Maybe I'll do some research too... maybe... Mswake 12:15 Feb 3, 2003 (UTC)
Okay, fair enough. I suppose there's no point in having a separate page on his ideas if they don't fit into some specifically named theory, so I hereby retract my proposal to split the page up! -- Oliver P. 12:21 Feb 3, 2003 (UTC)

Move to talk page from article by Evercat:

Discussion (to be rendered into tighter prose?):

You see a redwood tree. Ha! It's only there while you're looking at it. It was only an image in the mind of God, which the Almighty let you hallucinate on.

In response to the old riddle, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one heard it, did it make a sound?," Berkeley would reply that if no one were there, the tree wouldn't be there.

This is eerily similar to recent theoretical physics notion that mass does not exist.

As Bob Dylan sang about dreams, "It's all in your head."

Moved to talk page from article:

This is the essence and starting point of Berkeley's basic philosophy. Unfortunately, this doctrine is completely ignored by virtually all scholars today since there is not one who actually takes Berkeley seriously in the sense of approving of his precise philosophical principles as forming a legitimate method for pursuing scientific knowledge.
Yet without a firm grasp of these principles, it is impossible to render an accurate account of Berkeley's ideas or successfully apply them in any scientific enterprise.

I don't think this should be considered neutral or could be verified. Without further explanation it isn't very relevant either. DrZ 20:43 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)


From above: "In response to the old riddle, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one heard it, did it make a sound?," Berkeley would reply that if no one were there, the tree wouldn't be there."

Berkeley was not concerned with what effect, if any, our presence has on reality. He was concerned with whether our perception of what we take to be reality somehow creates or colors that reality. Whether anyone was around when the tree fell would be irrelevant to the question of whether anyone perceived the falling tree (i.e., one can imagine a person in the forest, yet asleep during the movement of the tree). The interesting fact, for the empiricist, is not that we can be around, but that we can be aware. C d h (talk) 04:29, 23 January 2008 (UTC)



Religion and mathematics

"Berkeley's intention seems to have been to defend religion by showing that the foundations of natural philosophy were equally weak"

There was certainly a relationship between BB's writings on the calculus and his views of religion, but this statement makes a hash of it. He thought the foundations of Christianity much stronger than those of Newtonian science, not "equal" to them in any way. I'll rewrite this passage. --Christofurio 18:35, May 8, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] First-Person

The article slips into the first-person at points. The article needs to be changed to be completely in the third-person.

[edit] Book ref

An anon recently added this book ref into the lead para

Study Guide: http://www.geocities.com/berkeley_principles

This looks like a Penguin study guide to the Principles and Three Dialogues, however it would be better in a 'further reading' section. Unfortunately I couldn't find the ISBN number to reference it properly. - Solipsist 08:07, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Contributions to Philosophy

(A side note, I think much of this section is completely incorrect.) -- User:165.123.152.192 23:25, 3 Apr 2005

Would you deign to enlighten everyone as to how it is completely incorrect?

205.188.116.67 14:01, 15 September 2005 (UTC)Bruce Partington

[edit] compare

Could someone talk about how his main philosophy compares with Descartes' "I think, therefore I am"? J. Crocker 19:09, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

You are in luck. Schopenhauer, in his "Sketch of a History of the Doctrine of the Ideal and the Real," wrote about Descartes. He said that he "...was the first to bring to our consciousness the problem whereon all philosophizing has mainly turned, namely that of the ideal and the real. This is the question concerning what in our knowledge is objective and what is subjective, and hence what eventually is to be ascribed by us to things different from us and what is to be attributed to ourselves. Thus in our head images arise not arbitrarily, as it were, from within, nor do they proceed from the connection of ideas; consequently, they arise from an external cause. But such images alone are what is immediately known to us, what is given. Now what relation may they have to things which exist quite separately from and independently of us and which somehow become the cause of those images? Are we certain that such things generally exist at all, and in this case do the images give us any information as to their nature?" "He was struck by the truth that we are above all restricted to our own consciousness and that the world is given to us only as representation or mental picture. Through his well known 'dubito, cogito, ergo sum' (I doubt, that is to say, I think, therefore I am), he tried to lay stress on the only certain thing of subjective consciousness in contrast to the problematical nature of everything else, and to express the great truth that self-consciousness is the only thing really and unconditionally given. "...Berkeley consistently went farther on this path of the Cartesians, and thus became the originator of the proper and true idealism, that is, of the knowledge that what is extended in and fills space, and thus the world of intuitive perception generally, can have its existence as such absolutely only in our representation, and that it is absurd and even contradictory to attribute to it, as such, another existence outside all representation and independently of the knowing subject, and accordingly to assume a matter existing in itself." 205.188.116.67 18:42, 7 September 2005 (UTC)Bruce Partington

Did Berkeley's addiction to tar water have anything to do with his being Irish? It is possible that a nutritional deficiency in the soil of Ireland has resulted in a need for the inhabitants to crave malt, barley, and hops. These are the ingredients of alcoholic drinks. There may also be a similar thirst for the components of tar water, just as deer need their salt lick. 64.12.116.65 01:56, 8 September 2005 (UTC)Bruce Partington

Many of the paradoxes of science, especially quantum theory, are the result of not understanding Berkeley. Are scientists directly experiencing objects? No. They are directly experiencing the sensations of electromagnetic radiation that reflect off of objects. Objects are then suggested to their minds by those sensations. Scientists spurn philosophy and, as a result, enjoy their paradoxes. 205.188.116.67 12:01, 8 September 2005 (UTC)Bruce Partington

[edit] Knowledge, not Existence

Berkeley's treatise concerned the principles of human knowledge, not the principles of absolute being. He asserted that we can directly know only our sensations and ideas, not abstractions such as matter and mind. Berkeley did not make claims about what exists external to the mind, as is commonly thought. He thought that whatever possibly exists other than our sensations and ideas is nothing to us. 64.12.116.65 13:15, 11 September 2005 (UTC)Bruce Partington

[edit] Original research

This article seems to contain a significant amount of original research. For example:

Immanuel Kant mischaracterized Berkeley as a radical idealist and falsely claimed that Berkeley's principles make objective knowledge impossible.

More later. --Ryan Delaney talk 11:25, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Philosophical Empiricism.

I changed "bills of slave" to "bills of sale." I've never heard of bills of slave and did a quick Google, and still didn't find anything, and bills of sale seems to fit far better. On the other hand, that's been there awhile, so maybe I'm just crazy. Apologies if this was incorrect.

I also rewrote the philosophical debate after the limerick somewhat. Johnson's position was somewhat straw manned in the original phrasing, I think, so I've tried to be a little fairer to both sides rather than simply blankly stating that Johnson was mistaken. (If it fit with the flow better, I'd have a counter-counter-response, where proponents of objective reality would point out that in an amazing coincidence, these collective hallucinations behave in extremely regular ways, also known as "science." But this is an article on Berkeley not why Berkeley is wrong, so I figured it'd be best to leave it out for now.) SnowFire 21:57, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ben Johnson and the kicking of the rock

I havn't ever edited a wikipedia page, so I am reluctant to do it myself, but perhaps someone would care to change this... The discussion of Johnson's rock kicking seems to exhibit a gross misunderstanding of Berkeley.

For Berkeley, there is no skepticism about whether the rock is there or whether the sensation of kicking was caused by some contrived situation of arthritis. Berkeley did belive the rock was real; it was real because it was an idea in the mind of God, who causes perceptions and ideas to come upon our conciousness in an orderly manner. See Principles of Human Knowledge, Part 1, section 32-33... it states "The ideas imprited on the sense by the author of nature are called real things, and those exicted in the imagination, being less regular, vivid and constant, are more propertly termed ideas, or images of things which they copy and present."

--Luke

Luke, It was Samuel Johnson, not Ben.

After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I shall never forget the alacrity with which [Samuel] Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, - "I refute it thus "

– James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, ÆTAT 54.

Of course, everything that Samuel Johnson's mind directly experienced was an idea (mental picture) or sensation in his mind. Whatever was outside of his mind had to be inferred. And he didn't experience any general sensation of idea of matter or substance.Lestrade 13:24, 4 May 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

[edit] The Pronounciation of Berkeley

Giving a single Irish pronounciation of 'Berkeley' obscures the fact that there are two distinct ways in which the word is pronounced. The IPA given for Irish English produces BARKley (as in 'woof woof'), a pronounciation associated with a certain genteel class in Ireland. Most Irish people say BERKley (as in 'a fool'). Does anyone have the skills to render that in IPA on the article page? Thanks.

Does "a certain genteel class in Ireland" mean gradtuates of Trinity College Dublin? And is the anonymous author a graduate of University College Dublin? MnJWalker 23:19, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Human, all-too human

Here we have a philosopher who presents us with one of the most startling thoughts to ever occur in a mind. This is the thought that everything can only be mere appearance to our minds. We don't know matter or substance. We only directly and immediately know mental images or the content of our mind. External objects appear to us, in the way that they appear, as a result of the way that our sense organs and nervous system are constituted. Berkeley's way of thinking can only be shared by deep reflection and by separating out or analyzing the way that we perceive objects. Instead of discussing this new, amazing, and very difficult thought, which is commonly misunderstood and ridiculed, Wikipedia typically concerns itself instead with the pronunciation of his name, where he was born, what was named after him, if he owned slaves, where he was raised, and what references are made to him in today's popular culture.Lestrade 13:16, 18 May 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

Exactly - I'm not for whitewashing anything, but is the emphasis on his views on slaves (presented completely outside their historical context - by the standards of his time, Berkeley was not necessarily an inhumane man) really proportionate? Thomas Ash 12:03, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Additions yesterday

I've moved Kingofthemorning's additions to a place in the article where they seemed to make more sense in context, and tidied up spelling, grammar and structure. I'm not vouching for their being an accurate summary of Berkeley's argument. --ajn (talk) 10:41, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


Is there any specific reason against having summaries of Berkely's arguments? Is there an different article devoted to his views that I haven't heard of/couldn't find?Kingofthemorning 04:11, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

There's no reason why Berkeley's arguments shouldn't be summarised. But I really would appreciate it if you'd run your prose through a spelling and grammar checker before inserting it anywhere - spelling the name of the philosopher incorrectly doesn't give a very good impression, nor does persistently confusing "their" and "there". I moved the two paragraphs because they had nothing to do with the text above them (which they purported to clarify). --ajn (talk) 08:57, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Relativity

The New Encyclopedia Britannica 2007 Micropædia article on Berkeley calls him "the precursor of Mach and Einstein." Berkeley's claim that objects exist as they are only in relation to an observing subject is the basis of relativity. With Berkeley's Idealism, no object exists as it is in itself, apart from an observing subject.Lestrade 18:10, 8 November 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

[edit] George Berkeley's Info Box

I noticed there was something lacking about George Berkeley’s info box, so I added a notable ideas section and changed his interests from idealism and empiricism to metaphysics, epistemology, language, mathematics and perception. Idealism and empiricism were his schools of thought, not his interests.

The reasons for why I listed what I did as his main interests are the following: in the Principles of Human Knowledge, George Berkeley expounds an ontology in which everything is either a subject or an idea within a subject: thus metaphysics; within the preface of the same treatise, Berkeley states that the objective of his work is to demonstrate that certain problems are caused by principles which are themselves caused by the misuse of human reason: thus epistemology; in the same preface, he analyses language and develops a nominalist theory of language which is important for his metaphysics and epistemology: thus language; Berkeley wrote a famous critique of calculus: thus mathematics; and finally, Berkeley also wrote a controversial book on vision: thus perception.

If any of my edits to the info box are misguided, feel free to point them out and edit them. I had considered putting nominalism in his notable ideas section, next to subjective idealism, but a type of nominalism had already been developed by William of Ockham. Should I have added it to the notable ideas section anyway? Le vin blanc 03:53, 1 October 2007 (UTC)