George Berkley :: essays research papers

â€Å"George Berkeley: Esse Est Percipi?† George Berkeley was an ordained Catholic priest who lived during the 17th century (Price, 206). He wrote some of the most profound works of this time period, which at best, is characterized by the Rationalist and British Empiricist movements. Berkeley was a member of the Empiricists. As a whole, the British Empiricists believed that knowledge is derived from the senses and â€Å"sense experience†(Price, 193). Therefore, they believed that no innate knowledge exists, only knowledge gained after the fact, or a posteriori (Price, 193). Berkeley, for the most part, focused on his ideas of reality and God. However interesting it may be, George Berkeley and his philosophy fail to establish concrete evidence to support his belief of immaterialism, drawing instead upon basic assumptions of God and his existence. im a tool bag. Immaterialism, as aforementioned, was the basis of all of Berkeley’s arguments. Immaterialists deny the actual existence of material objects (Dancy, 94). According to Berkeley, human knowledge is composed of ideas, that of which are formed by things: â€Å"imprints on the senses, the passions and operations of the mind, and composites of memory and imagination†(Berkeley). Basically broken down, this means that what man knows about objects and the material are what he perceives of it. The senses leave impressions which lead to ideas, the mind can come up with ideas of its own (perhaps what Berkeley means by the â€Å"passions and operations† is that the mind can come up with concepts by using reason), and composites, or rough sketches, of previous perceptions can lead to new ideas. â€Å"Thus, for example, a certain colour, taste, smell of a figure, and consistence of having been observed to go together, are accounted one distant thing, signified by the word apple†(Berkeley). Berkeley is saying that if it was not for the senses one could not perceive, and the object would cease to be. Therefore, the very existence of an idea depends upon if it can be perceived by something. An idea or object cannot exist outside of a mind. â€Å"The things that exist truly are those which can do the actual perceiving. Berkeley calls this the mind, soul, spirit, or self† (Dancy, 101). To show this is true, let us go back to the example of the apple. Berkeley points out the fact that it is impossible to think of an object without thinking of your perceptions of it (Price, 207).