George Berkeley
George Berkeley
George Berkeley— known as Bishop Berkeley— was an Anglo-Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immaterialism". This theory denies the existence of material substance and instead contends that familiar objects like tables and chairs are only ideas in the minds of perceivers, and as a result cannot exist without being perceived. Berkeley is also known for his critique of abstraction, an important premise in his argument for immaterialism...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth12 March 1685
CountryIreland
That food nourishes, sleep refreshes, and fire warms us; that to sow in the seed-time is the way to reap in the harvest, and, in general, that to obtain such or such ends, such or such means are conducive, all this we know, not by discovering any necessary connexion between our ideas, but only by the observation of the settled laws of nature, without which we should be all in uncertainty and confusion, and a grown man no more know how to manage himself in the affairs of life than an infant just born.
To be a good patriot, a man must consider his countrymen as God's creatures, and himself as accountable for his acting towards them.
That thing of hell and eternal punishment is the most absurd, as well as the most disagreeable thought that ever entered into the head of mortal man.
The world is like a board with holes in it, and the square men have got into the round holes, and the round into the square.
It would much conduce to the public benefit, if, instead of discouraging free-thinking, there was erected in the midst of this free country a dianoetic academy, or seminary for free-thinkers, provided with retired chambers, and galleries, and shady walks and groves, where, after seven years spent in silence and meditation, a man might commence a genuine free-thinker, and from that time forward, have license to think what he pleased, and a badge to distinguish him from counterfeits.
It is a mistake, to think the same thing affects both sight and touch. If the same angle or square, which is the object of touch,be also the object of vision, what should hinder the blind man, at first sight, from knowing it?
Make a point never go clear, it is great odds that a man whose habits and the bent of whose mind lie a contrary way, shall be unable to comprehend it. So weak a thing is reason in competition with inclination.
Of all men living [priests] are our greatest enemies. If it were possible, they would extinguish the very light of nature, turn the world into a dungeon, and keep mankind for ever in chains and darkness.
To me it seems that liberty and virtue were made for each other. If any man wish to enslave his country, nothing is a fitter preparative than vice; and nothing leads to vice so surely as irreligion.
All those who write either explicitly or by insinuation against the dignity, freedom, and immortality of the human soul, may so far forth be justly said to unhinge the principles of morality, and destroy the means of making men reasonably virtuous.
The most ingenious men are now agreed, that [universities] are only nurseries of prejudice, corruption, barbarism, and pedantry.
The same principles which at first view lead to skepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to common sense.
He who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave.
Many things, for aught I know, may exist, whereof neither I nor any other man hath or can have any idea or notion whatsoever.