Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $9.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
    A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
    A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
    Ebook152 pages2 hours

    A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge

    By George Berkeley

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview

    About this ebook

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateAug 3, 2012
    ISBN9780486149332
    Author

    George Berkeley

    George Berkeley wird 1685 in Südirland geboren. Nach dem Studium am Trinity College wird er 1707 Lehrer der Theologie. 1710 erscheint Eine Abhandlung über die Prinzipien der menschlichen Erkenntnis, das Hauptwerk, das ihn als einen der großen Vertreter des Empirismus, resp. der englischen Aufklärung zeigt. In dem Satz „Sein ist Wahrgenommenwerden“ zeigt sich das Axiom seiner Philosophie, demnach es eine von der menschlichen Wahrnehmung unabhängige Außenwelt nicht geben kann. Die Welt sei somit ein Phänomen ihres Beobachters, das seine alleinige Ursache in Gott habe. Diese Thesen werden in der populäreren Schrift Drei Dialoge zwischen Hylas und Philonous (1713) wiederaufgenommen und gegen die in der Zwischenzeit erhobenen Einwände verteidigt.Längere Aufenthalte in London und Italien lassen in Berkeley den Plan reifen, ein College auf den Bermudas zu gründen, um dort die Kinder der Eingeborenen zu missionieren. 1728 bricht er nach Rhode Island auf, wartet aber bis 1731 vergeblich auf die zugesagte staatliche Unterstützung für sein Projekt. In dieser Zeit entsteht Alciphron oder der kleine Philosoph, eine Streitschrift gegen Freidenkertum und Erscheinungen des Zeitgeistes, die er für verderblich hält. Zurückgekehrt nach Irland, wird er 1734 Bischof von Cloyne. Berkeley stirbt 1753 in Oxford.

    Read more from George Berkeley

    Related to A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge

    Related ebooks

    Philosophy For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      What’s Philosophy For?

      Aug 10, 2020

      What’s Philosophy For?
      4 min read

    • Article

      Wittgenstein Vs. The Woke

      May 20, 2021

      Wittgenstein Vs. The Woke
      9 min read

    • Article

      Intriguing And Diverse

      Jun 16, 2022

      Genius of the Fern Loved Gully Amy Hale Strange Attractor Press 2020 Pb, 336pp, £20, ISBN 9781907222863 Ithell Colquhoun’s star is in the ascendant. Born in India in 1906, she lived a life amongst the Surrealists in the Thirties and early Forties, ha

      9 min read

    • Article

      In Search of Fullness

      Nov 15, 2024

      In Search of Fullness
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Age Of Reason, Sliced And Diced

      Sep 26, 2024

      OCKHAM’S EPONYMOUS RAZOR IS STILL as incisive as it was when first wielded by the English friar and scholastic philosopher six centuries ago. William of Ockham (1287–1347, below) was a pioneer of the theory of knowledge and the great proponent of nom

      5 min read

    • Article

      Necrolog

      Mar 23, 2023

      Folklore and the world of forteana lost a rising star with the untimely death of Kai Roberts following a short illness. He was the son of my friend and long-time FT contributor Andy Roberts. I first met Kai when he was just four years old at his home

      4 min read

    • Article

      GALILEO vs The Inquisicion

      Jul 13, 2023

      GALILEO vs The Inquisicion
      8 min read

    • Article

      Top 10 Books About Online: An Excerpt from ‘Attention: Dispatches from a Land of Distraction’

      Aug 13, 2018

      1. The Catalog of Nibru (Various, circa 21st to 20th Centuries B.C.) I, the king, was a hero already in the womb I am a king treated with respect Not only did the lord make the world appear in its correct form Lady of all the divine powers These line

      8 min read

    • Article

      Ten Ways to Change Your God

      Jul 1, 2019

      Conversion narratives are the most human of tales, for the drama of redemption is an internal one, played out between the protagonist and his demons. The post Ten Ways to Change Your God appeared first on The Millions.

      28 min read

    • Article

      Henry Vaughan’s Eternal Alchemy

      Apr 16, 2021

      What faith teaches is that we're all exiles from that Zion that is eternity, to which we shall one day return. What Vaughan understands is that if we seek eternity, it is now. The post Henry Vaughan’s Eternal Alchemy appeared first on The Millions.

      9 min read

    • Article

      A Love Letter To Hard-won Wisdom

      Mar 30, 2023

      AT THE START OF MY SECONDyear studying PP (I had by then blessedly dropped the E) at Oxford, I remember a bright-eyed fresher approaching my philosophy tutor, a man by the name of Bob Hargrave, in the bar. Having successfully identified A Philosopher

      4 min read

    • Article

      Legends And Pseudonyms

      Feb 28, 2020

      One of the joys of being a writer is seeing your name in print (see my own humble byline above) yet in the past many authors of alchemical texts hid their identity behind pseudonyms. Were these noms de plume a method of concealment or conceit? As wit

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Known Unknowns

      Jun 15, 2023

      TO SEND REVIEW COPIES, CONTACT THE BOOK REVIEWS EDITOR AT [email protected] Peter Burke Yale University Press 2023 Hb, 256pp, £20, ISBN 9780300265958 With Ignorance: A Global History, Peter Burke, professor emeritus at Cambridge University a

      11 min read

    • Article

      Private Devotion

      Sep 1, 2018

      Greetings from Angelus by Gershom Scholem (translated by Richard Sieburth). Archipelago Books, 2018, $14.00 paper. IN 1648—the year, according to the Zohar, destined to usher in the messianic era—a Smyrnan Jew by the name of Shabbatai Tzvi received

      5 min read

    • Article

      Rebel Greek Philosophers

      Mar 23, 2023

      Rebel Greek Philosophers
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Dizzying Labyrinth Of Credulity

      Jan 27, 2022

      TO SEND REVIEW COPIES, CONTACT THE BOOK REVIEWS EDITOR AT [email protected] From Oracles at Delphi to Spiritualism in America Loren Pankratz Prometheus Books 2021 Hb, £25, 472pp, ISBN 9781633886681 If you have ever asked yourself “How can an

      11 min read

    • Article

      Trans: The Middle Ages Had Another Word For It

      Oct 29, 2020

      HISTORY ECHOES. Sometimes, it’s a place that echoes across time. Sometimes, it’s a turn of phrase. Consider these two statements. The first is by John Wycliffe, the fourteenth-century philosopher and heresiarch: So about this white and round priest-c

      4 min read

    • Article

      Five Non-Fiction Books for Writers in an Emergency

      Jul 14, 2017

      I read non-fiction books that I thought might indirectly tell me something about fiction, even though they were really about something else. The post Five Non-Fiction Books for Writers in an Emergency appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Building A fortean Library

      Nov 4, 2021

      It’s 50 years since Random House first published Colin Wilson’s The Occult: A History, and it’s still in print. Time for a re-assessment, then? Wilson believed himself to be a genius, and notoriously had no qualms about saying as much to all and sund

      9 min read

    • Article

      Teach What You Love

      Sep 1, 2020

      Teach What You Love
      17 min read

    • Article

      He Made The World A Better Place

      Jan 12, 2022

      THE name Dr John Coakley Lettsom will be familiar to historians of gardens and of medical practice in Britain, but this is the first major effort to place him in the wider context of enlightened middle-class men of taste and science in Georgian Engla

      5 min read

    • Article

      Found Mystic: Thomas Traherne

      Sep 25, 2019

      Found Mystic: Thomas Traherne
      3 min read

    • Article

      Standing Proud

      Nov 28, 2024

      Standing Proud
      8 min read

    • Article

      Poetry Is Prayer

      Feb 28, 2020

      Prayer and poetry are defined by being words that gesture beyond words themselves. The post Poetry Is Prayer appeared first on The Millions.

      13 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge

    4/5

    18 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge - George Berkeley

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1