2. "Some truths there are so near and obvious to
the mind that a man need only opens his eyes to
see them. Such I take this important one to be, to
wit, that all the choir of heaven and the furniture
of earth, in a word all those bodies which
compose the mighty frame of the world, have not
any subsistence without a mind, that
their being is to be perceived..."
My purpose therefore is, to try if I can
discover what those principles are, which
have introduced all that doubtfulness and
uncertainty, those absurdities and
contradictions into the several sects of
philosophy; insomuch that the wisest men
have thought our ignorance
George incurable, conceiving it to arise from the
natural dullness and limitation of our
Berkeley faculties. ...
3. George Berkeley (1685-1753)
An Essay towards a New Theory of
Vision.
A Treatise concerning the Principles of
Human Knowledge
Three Dialogues between Hylas and
Philonous
De Motu
Alciphron or the Minute Philosopher.
The Theory of Vision, Vindicated and
Explained.
The Analyst
A Defense of Free-thinking in
Mathematics
The Querist
Siris: a chain of Philosophical Reflections and
Enquiries concerning the Virtues of Tar-water.
4. Ideals of George
Berkeley
Berkeley believed that, for an idea to exist, and for someone to
be aware of it, were essentially the same thing ("to be is to be
perceived"), and that it was only through experience that we can
know about these ideas.
Berkeley, however, declared unequivocally "Pure Intellect I
understand not", and maintained that the sensible qualities of
bodies and things are all that we can know of them. In that
respect, then, he was an Empiricist.
He differed from Locke or Hume in believing that what we
were "experiencing" were only ideas (or perceptions or qualities)
sent from God and not the things themselves, and he effectively
chose to make knowledge of self and knowledge of
God specific exceptions from the Empiricist mantra that
experience is the source of all knowledge.
5. “A wise man proportions his
belief to the evidence.”
“All sentiment is right; because
sentiment has a reference to nothing
beyond itself, and is always
real, wherever a man is conscious of it.
But all determinations of the
understanding are not right; because
they have a reference to something
beyond themselves, to wit, real matter
of fact; and are not always
conformable to that standard.”
“Liberty of any kind is never lost
all at once.”
David Hume
6. David Hume (1711 - 1776)
A Treatise of Human Nature Four Dissertations
An Attempt to Introduce the A Concise and Genuine
Experimental Method of Reasoning Account of the Dispute
into Moral Subjects Between Mr. Hume and Mr.
Rousseau
Essays, Moral and Political
My Own Life
Letter from a Gentlemen to His
friend in Edinburgh “Two Essays of Suicide” and
of “The Immortality of the
An Enquiry concerning Human Soul”
Understanding
An Enquiry Concerning the Dialogues Concerning
Principles of Morals Natural Religion
Political Discourses
The Historical of England
7. Ideals of David
by Francis Bacon, GalileoHume
Hume was a great believer in the scientific method championed
Galilee (1564 - 1642) and Sir Isaac
Newton (1643 - 1727).
Hume was always concerned with going back to experience and
observation, and this led him to touch on some difficult ideas in what
would later become known as the Philosophy of Language.
Hume sought to reconcile human freedom with the mechanist
(or determinist) belief that human beings are part of a deterministic
universe whose happenings are governed by the laws of physics.
Hume also developed many of the ideas that are still prevalent in
the field of economics, and Adam Smith, among
others, acknowledged Hume's influence on his own economics
and Political Philosophy. Hume believed in the need for an unequal
distribution of property, on the grounds that perfect equality would
destroy the ideas of thrift and industry, and thus ultimately lead to
impoverishment.
8. Main Focus
Subjective
Idealism (or Solipsism
or Subjectivism or Dog
matic
Idealism or Immaterial
ism) is the doctrine
that
the mind and ideas are
the only things that
can be
definitely known to
exist or have
any reality, and that
knowledge of
anything outside the
mind is unjustified.
Thus, objects exist by
virtue of
our perception of
them, as ideas residing
in our awareness and
in the consciousness of
the Divine Being, or
God.
