Overview

A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge is a 1710 work by the Irish Empiricist philosopher George Berkeley. In this exceptional work George Berkeley makes the striking claim that physical things consist of nothing but ideas and therefore do not exist outside the mind. This claim establishes him as the founder of the idealist tradition in philosophy. A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge largely seeks to refute the claims made by his contemporary John Locke about the nature of human perception. Whilst, like all the Empiricist philosophers, both Locke and George Berkeley agreed that there was an outside world, and it was this world which caused the ideas one has within one's mind; George Berkeley sought to prove that outside world was also composed solely of ideas. George Berkeley did this by suggesting that Ideas can only resemble Ideas - the mental ideas that we possessed could only resemble other ideas (not physical objects) and thus the external world consisted not of physical form, but rather ideas. This world was given logic and regularity by some other force, which Berkeley did his best to conclude was a God. Long refuted by most philosophers, Berkeley's claims in A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge are often felt to have been a form of rationalization. In spite of this George Berkeley was a capable, respected and entertaining thinker. Some doubt exists as to whether he truly believed his conclusion that the world at large was composed of ideas; with modern thinking tending towards him indeed having thought this to be the case.

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9781611043174

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Forming a triangle of British empiricism with Locke and Hume, George Berkeley's direct influence on modern thought cannot be overstated. From the American Founding Fathers, who looked to him as the pioneer of their idealism, to the reality-questioning motives of quantum physics, Berkeley's odd, profound view of the nature of human perception, a sense he trusted implicitly, has in turn shaped our perception of the universe at large. Dismissed as an impractical dreamer, a disaffected anti-authoritarian, even a madman in his time, Berkeley here shifts the ground under the feet of humanity, questioning everything and finding fundamental freedom in human will and action. His conclusions remain as wise and inspiring as they were almost three hundred years ago, when he first shared them with the world in 1710.

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