First published in 1713, this work was designed as a vivid and persuasive presentation of the remarkable picture of reality that Berkeley had first presented two years earlier in his Principles. His central claim there, as here, was that the world is not material but mental. Berkeley uses this thesis as the ground for a new argument for the existence of God, and the dialogue form enables him to raise and respond to many of the natural objections to his position. This volume uses the 1734 edition of the text, supplemented by an analysis of the Dialogues and a glossary.

In this exceptional work 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. The text printed in this volume is the 1734 edition of the Principles, which represents Berkeley's mature thought. Also included are four important letters between George Berkeley and Samuel Johnson, written between 1729 and 1730, an analysis of the Principles, and a glossary.

Part of the Longman Library of Primary Sources in Philosophy, this edition of Berkeley's Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous is framed by a pedagogical structure designed to make this important work of philosophy more accessible and meaningful for readers. A General Introduction includes biographical information on Berkeley, the work's historical context, and a discussion of historical influences, and a conclusion discusses how the work has influenced other philosophers and why it is important today. Annotations and notes from the editor clarify difficult passages for greater...

Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher (1732) is Berkeley's main work of philosophical theology and a crucial source of his views on meaning and language. This edition contains the four most important dialogues and a selection of critical essays and commentaries reflecting the response of such writers as Hutcheson, Mill and Antony Flew. The only single edition currently in print, it argues that Alciphron has a more important place both in the Berkeley canon and in early modern philosophy than is generally thought.

This volume sets Berkeley's philosophy in its historical context by providing selections from works that deeply influenced Berkeley as he formed his main doctrines; works that illuminate the philosophical climate in which those doctrines were formed; and works that display Berkeley's subsequent philosophical influence. The first category is represented by selections from Descartes, Malebranche, Bayle, and Locke; the second category includes extracts from such thinkers as Regius, Lanion, Arnauld, Lee, and Norris; while reactions to Berkeley, both positive and negative, are drawn from a wide...

Berkeley's philosophy has been much studied and discussed over the years, and a growing number of scholars have come to the realization that scientific and mathematical writings are an essential part of his philosophical enterprise. The aim of this volume is to present Berkeley's two most important scientific texts in a form which meets contemporary standards of scholarship while rendering them accessible to the modern reader. Although editions of both are contained in the fourth volume of the Works, these lack adequate introductions and do not provide com plete and corrected texts. The...

Throughout history, but most especially during the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, great minds of philosophy grappled with two thorny questions: What are the objects of knowledge? and How do we come to know them? Using the revealing dialogue technique, Berkeley shakes the very ground of those who believe that something called matter exists to support the sensible qualities we perceive. In his critique of this view, Berkeley argues for ideas in the mind as the only true reality about which one can have knowledge. His arguments for these conclusions, and for the ultimate foundation of all...

Contents Include: A New Theory Of Vision A Treatise Concerning Human Knowledge The Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists Keywords: Three Dialogues Between Hylas And Philonous Human Knowledge Atheists Dialogues Treatise Opposition

The Principles, published when the author was only twenty-six, is the most systematic of all of Berkeley's expositions of his theory of knowledge: it was the direct outgrowth of the Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision (1709), which sought to ban-ish the metaphysical abstractions of Absolute Space and Extension from philosophy, and was itself mainly concerned with the aboli-tion of Abstract Matter and of the ontological and theological corollaries of that concept. The Dialogues treat of substantially the same subjects but are more familiar and elegant in form and are devoted in the main to...