Bishop George Berkeley
Bishop George Berkeley was an Irish Philosopher who lived between 1685
and 1753. He is probably one of the better known proponents of
Philosophical Idealism.
He postulated that there was no such thing as an unperceived material
reality. His world view was based on the marriage of two truths that he
considered were self evident:
that the things
which are immediately perceived are real things
and
that the things
that are immediately perceived are ideas which exist only in the mind.
His theory was dependent on a perception beyond that of the individual
perceiver
It is evident that
the things I perceive, are my own ideas, and that no idea can exist
unless it be in a mind. Nor is it less plain that these ideas or things
by me perceived, either themselves or their archetypes, exist
independently of my mind, since I know myself not to be their author,
it being out of my power to determine at pleasure, what particular
ideas I shall be affected with on openning my eyes or ears. They must
therefore exist in some other mind, whose will it is they should be
exhibited to me.
Before you dismiss Berkeley, be aware that its not that simple to
dismiss one paradigm by using
the tools and assumptions of an opposing paradigm
.
Its important to give his stuff some time
and space to allow your definition of the concept of idea
to open up.
His paradigm predicted problems with
calculus which were not picked up until 200 years later, and his
principal premis was respected by people like Erwin Schroedinger
George Berkeley's universe was a unity, and he
could easily show the difficulties experienced by philosophical dualism with its
two different and unreconciled types of stuff, mind and matter.
Western philosophy however instead of
proceeding down the non-dualistic path of perception and idea, opted
instead for an independent material reality,and the non-dualistic path
of materialism. One wonders how honest a unity this is. Can we really
live with necessary de-humanising consequences, and consign beauty and
joy (amongst other realities) to the realms of the meaningless?
I believe Berkeley's direction was right. I
also believe that some of the difficulties of his philospohy can be
resolved with scriptural Wisdom
enhancing Berkeley's central concept of Perception.
George Berkeley's cosmology basically consisted of
a reality comprised of Ideas, and the Perception of Ideas. He likened
these ideas to letters which could be combined by persons to build
words. The sources, manipulators, and perceivers of ideas are Person,
with a personal God as the primary Source and fundamental perception of
all created reality or idea.
I consider the perception Berkeley spoke of can be understood in
the context of hearing or perception of the Word of Creation.
Many of Bishop George Berkeley's works are available on
the internet:
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