George Berkeley biography

The doctor of philosophical sciences, the associate professor of the history of the philosophy of St. Petersburg State University, A. Muravyov begins to enter George Berkeley with this lecture, begins the section of his course in the history of philosophy, dedicated to the philosophy of the Enlightenment. In this century, philosophy gained unprecedented popularity and gained widespread in many countries - from North America to Russia.

British thought continued to move in the line of classical empiricism. French philosophers witty combined empiricism and metaphysics. German thinkers relied mainly on the metaphysical positions of Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz. Russian enlighteners followed in many respects their Western European contemporaries. But, despite the significant difference between worldviews and conclusions, all the philosophers of that time were united by a general form of thinking - that is the usual rational thinking, converted to a variety of objects, became the basis for the formation of a kind of culture of the Enlightenment.

As once the Sophists, the thinkers of this era were the first to dare to independently talk about all the phenomena of reality and put it as a universal demand for the word Horace: sapere aude lat. From the point of view of common sense, enlighteners were subjected to consideration and public criticism of various kinds of superstitions and prejudices, rooted in the minds of people. And although philosophy was not advanced far ahead, thanks to the widespread dissemination of philosophical and scientific knowledge, the hour of adulthood of educated mankind has broken off.

It ceased to need guardians not only in everyday life, but also in solving the main moral, political, aesthetic and religious problems. Thus, the activities of the enlighteners ideologically prepared the most important historical event of the 18th century - the Great French Revolution.

On British soil, the first significant thinker of this century was George Berkeley, he proceeded from the point of view of Locke, agreeing with him that the only source of all our knowledge is experience, that is, our perception and observation. However, unlike Locke, who considered the ideas of length, form, movement, peace and primary magnitude, that is, belonging to things themselves, and the ideas of color, smell, taste, sound, etc.

According to Berkeley, despite the fact that almost all people admit that houses, mountains, rivers and other long things exist on their own, regardless of their consciousness and cause their sensations, everyone who dares to explore this prejudice will be convinced of its falsity. After all, he points out all these objects, we perceive through feelings, and some of the complexes that people call things cannot exist without anyone who has perceived them.

But if the perceived object and its perception are identical, then everything perceived as such exists exclusively in the perceiving subject. It is impossible for extended things to exist outside the spirit, that is, the thinking subject perceiving them. On this basis, Berkeley argues that matter, that is, there is no extended and incompetent substance of things. The idea of ​​matter, he says, contains a clear contradiction.

As an inert substance, it cannot be the source of the movement of things. Since matter does not feel and does not think, it cannot be the cause of any ideas, even as simple as sensations. According to Berkeley, human knowledge was extremely confused by the hypothesis of the double existence of sensory objects - in the mind and outside of it, in the material world. Their second, supposedly material existence is not only unnecessary, but cannot be proved based on what we feel.

After all, those who recognize the existence of matter, in their sensual experience, are dealing with only many single things. On what basis do they argue that there is a single material substance that is not perceived by feelings, which is the original of these things, their necessary relations and even our ideas? But if there is no matter, then who perceives extended things when not a single human soul perceives them?

To explain this Berkeley, he resorts to God, whom he interprets as a single omnipotent spirit, who produces everything that is perceived by us as real things with his eternal activity. However, to prove that the nature that has an impact from the outside is precisely the spirit, and not matter or something third, Berkeley does not consider it possible. Ultimately, he believes, the definition of this nature is a matter of faith.

Berkeley is only convinced that his idealism, combining empiricism and metaphysics, avoids those philosophical, physical, mathematical and moral contradictions, in which those who believe in matter as an independent reality are confused.