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Berkeley's Life and Writings

George Berkeley (pronounced Bark-lee) was the second head of the eighteenth-century philosophical trinity known as the British Empiricists.1 As the middle figure in time, Berkeley is often treated as the least significant of the three. He could not claim the great philosophical insight of John Locke (1632–1704), who argued that experience and reasoning based upon experience were sufficient to justify the new sciences of Galileo and Isaac Newton. Nor, we are told, could he claim the rigid consistency of David Hume (1711–1776), who argued that our claims to knowledge based on experience alone lead to skepticism and that there are no better grounds for claiming the existence of immaterial substance than there are for claiming the existence of material substance. One of the purposes of this book is to show that, even if taken as a halfway point in the development of British Empiricism, Berkeley's philosophy is interesting and significant in its own right.

Why Study Berkeley Today?

“But,” you might say, “Berkeley died in 1753. That's more than 260 years ago. Why read him today?”

Historical texts—anything written before you write—are the data that philosophers use to develop their own positions. Philosophers examine these texts carefully and critically. They mine these texts for arguments and develop their own positions either by developing the arguments further or showing that the arguments fail. For example, if you wanted to defend the claim that everything that exists either is a mind or depends for its existence upon a mind—idealism—you would want to read the great idealists of the past. If their arguments are successful, you might incorporate similar arguments into your defense of idealism. If those arguments fail, you'll want to show why they fail and show why your arguments are stronger. Berkeley was an idealist. The only way to discover what arguments he presented is by carefully reading his texts.

Idealism is not popular in the twenty-first century. Materialism—the philosophical theory that everything that exists is material or depends upon matter for its existence2—is more often proposed now. Berkeley provided criticisms of the doctrine of material substance. So, if you want to defend philosophical materialism, it is incumbent upon you to show that Berkeley's arguments fail.

Historians of philosophy and historians of ideas read Berkeley for different reasons. Historians might be fascinated by a particular issue, or a particular period, or a particular figure. Just as a military historian might find the development and use of particular weapons fascinating, a historian of ideas might be interested in the development of utilitarian theories in ethics. Such a one might read Berkeley to see whether he is part of that tradition, and if he is not, how the natural law tradition of Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) and Aquinas (1225–1274) evolved into the utilitarian tradition of Jeremy Bentham (1748–1821) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873).

Some people find Berkeley or his era fascinating in the same way that they may be fascinated by the Battle of Hastings or the First World War.

Some of us are intrigued by conceptual puzzles. As we shall see, many scholars believe Berkeley's arguments are weak or inconsistent. Assuming Berkeley was a serious philosopher, the challenge is to tease out a consistent and philosophically plausible reading of his writings.

And some people like to read great literature. Berkeley's Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous are generally recognized for their literary quality.

Those are among the reasons people still read Berkeley. But who was he?

Early Life

Berkeley was born on March 12, 1685 in the townland of Kilcrene, about a mile outside the city of Kilkenny, Ireland. He was raised on the grounds of Dysart Castle near Thomastown.

While the young Berkeley considered himself Irish (N 392–394), his ancestors were English. His father, William Berkeley, was a tax collector, landlord, and a military officer. Berkeley's mother hailed from Dublin and was related to the Wolfes of British military fame.

Berkeley entered Kilkenny College on July 17, 1696. This school was established in 1666 by James, the First Duke of Ormonde, as a Church of Ireland (Anglican) secondary school. When Berkeley entered, it already listed Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) among its illustrious alumni. Six months later Berkeley was joined by Thomas Prior, who was one of Berkeley's lifelong friends and correspondents. It is from Berkeley's letters to Prior and John Percival, who he met and befriended in 1708, that we know many facts about Berkeley's life.

Berkeley entered Trinity College, Dublin on March 21, 1700. This was the beginning of a twenty-four-year association with the College, first as a student and then as a fellow. Trinity was established in 1592 by a charter from Queen Elizabeth as part of the English attempt to establish Protestantism (Anglicanism) in Ireland. Due in part to the influence of William Molyneux (1656–1698), the Trinity College philosophy curriculum included the study of such recent philosophers as René Descartes (1596–1651), Nicholas Malebranche (1638–1715), and John Locke. In philosophical circles, Molyneux is best known for a question he posed to Locke (Locke, Essay 2.9.8).

Berkeley received his B.A. in the spring of 1704. He remained at Trinity and prepared for a competitive fellowship that became open in 1706. He became a junior fellow of Trinity College on June 9, 1707. Fellows were not allowed to marry and were required to take holy orders; this was common practice at many universities at the time. Berkeley was ordained as a deacon of the Church of Ireland in the college chapel on February 19, 1709, by St. George Ashe, Bishop of Clogher and ex-Provost of Trinity College. In the spring of 1710, Bishop Ashe, then Vice-Chancellor of the university, ordained Berkeley a priest. This act drew the ire of William King, Archbishop of Dublin, who deemed the ordination irregular: the Bishop of Clogher, King claimed, did not have ordination rights within the diocese of Dublin. Berkeley wrote an apologetic letter to Archbishop King, explaining his need to fulfill the terms of his fellowship and his lack of knowledge that the Bishop of Clogher had no right to ordain within the diocese of Dublin (Works 8:33; Cor. 37–38). The complaint was dropped.

The years between 1707 and 1713 are sometimes called Berkeley's “heroic period,” since it was during this time that he wrote the philosophical works for which he is best known. In 1709 he published An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision. The work challenged the received views on how distance is perceived by sight (see Chapter 2). In 1710 he published the A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Part I, which presents Berkeley's principal case for immaterialism, the thesis that matter does not exist (see Chapters 3–4). In 1712, he published Passive Obedience, which contains moral and political theory (see Chapter 7). In 1713, he published Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, which is generally seen as a popular reworking of the arguments in the Principles (see Chapter 5). In addition to this, we have a set of private notebooks Berkeley kept between 1707 and 1708, in which he worked through some of the arguments he developed in the New Theory of Vision and the Principles.

In January 1713 Berkeley traveled to London. His objective was to publish the Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, which was accomplished in May of that year (Works 8:65 and 67; Cor. 88 and 95). He originally intended to spend a relatively short time in England, but in fact he was absent from his position at Trinity College for almost eight years. He even obtained a license from Queen Anne to extend his absence from the College (Works 8:72 and 90; Cor. 104 and 127). While in London he became good friends with some of the major literary lights of the time, including Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison, and Richard Steele. His association with Steele led to several articles in Steele's Guardian, a daily essay paper published between March and October 1713. None of the essays is signed, and there is some dispute regarding which essays Berkeley contributed. Several years after Berkeley's death, Berkeley's son George attributed numbers 3, 27, 35, 39, 49, 55, 62, 70, 77, and 126 to his father, although scholars have challenged some of the numbers the younger Berkeley included and have argued that other numbers were authored by Berkeley.3 The principal topic of Berkeley's essays was “free-thinking,” a philosophical and popular movement that challenged religious orthodoxy. It was a topic to which Berkeley returned in his Alciphron (1732). He also edited the three-volume Ladies Library—primarily a collection of religious writings—for Steele.

In October 1713, Berkeley was named chaplain to Lord Peterborough, who had been made ambassador extraordinary to attend the coronation of the king of Sicily. This allowed him to tour continental Europe. He traveled through France and, during the winter, crossed the Alps into Italy (see Works 8:77–78; Cor. 109). While in Paris, he is believed to have talked with the philosopher...