Note | Berkeley’s Subjective Idealism

George Berkeley’s epistemology is monism of perception, immaterialism or subjective idealism. Berkeley criticized John Locke’s premise of objective existence of external things.

Human mind is a free and active thing can produce and erase ideas. But vivid ideas come to mind directly, a man can’t produce or erase them at will like imagination. Direct ideas should come from the other side. Berkeley thought that these direct ideas are produced by the God as the most free and active spirit than human spirits. First of all, ideas are created and sent by the God.

Berkeley thought, to investigate ideas in detail, we can certify the existence of the God.

But to think the cause of ideas is the external existence of the God must be an insufficient theory of epistemology equal to John Locke.

References

Jean-François Revel, Histoire de la philosophie occidentale (Nil Éditions, 1994)

Luc Ferry & Claude Capelier, La plus belle histoire de la philosophie (Éditions Points, 2014)

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Bertrand Russell, The History of Western Philosophy (Simon & Schuster, 1972)

Nigel Warburton, A Little History of Philosophy (Yale University Press, 2011)

Roger Scruton, A Short History of Modern Philosophy (Routledge, 2002)

Gen Kida, History of Anti-Philosophy (Kodansha Academic Library, 2000)

Seiji Takeda & Ken Nishi, The First Histoty of Philosophy: To Think Profoundly (Yuhikaku, 1998)

Shigeto Nuki, Illustrated & Standard History of Philosophy (Shinshokan, 2008)

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Sumihiko Kumano, The History of Western Philosophy: From The Modern Ages to The Present Day (Iwanami New Books, 2006)

Thierry Paquot & François Pépin, Dictionnaire Larousse de la Philosophie (Éditions Larousse, 2011)

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Related Posts and Pages

Note | Locke’s Empiricist Epistemology

Note | Hume’s Skeptical Empiricism

Note | Philosophy of René Descartes

Note | A Definition of Philosophy

Timeline of Philosophy

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