Talk:George Berkeley

message: IMO, this section is really bad. I'm not sure why there is a section like this at all, and none of the things included in it are things Berkeley himself lists as his main principles. Anyway, I'm just deleting it, but here's the text of it in case anyone feels the need to put it back. 98.154.98.204 (talk) 01:11, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: "Theoretical Starting Principles"

message: I don't have the text cited in connection with this in the intro, but Leibniz was dead by 1721 when De Motu was published, so it can't very well have been a 'precursor' to his views. (Quite the reverse: some of Berkeley's thoughts are probably based on the Leibniz-Clarke correspondence.) For now, I will just remove Leibniz from that list.
kpearce (talk) 00:11, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Precursor of Leibniz?

message: An anon recently added this book ref into the lead para
:Study Guide: http://www.geocities.com/berkeley_principles
This looks like a Penguin study guide to the Principles and Three Dialogues, however it would be better in a 'further reading' section. Unfortunately I couldn't find the ISBN number  to reference it properly. - Solipsist 08:07, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Book ref 

message: (A side note, I think much of this section is completely incorrect.) -- User:165.123.152.192 23:25, 3 Apr 2005
::Would you deign to enlighten everyone as to how it is completely incorrect?
205.188.116.67 14:01, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Contributions to Philosophy

message: Could someone talk about how his main philosophy compares with Descartes' "I think, therefore I am"?
J. Crocker 19:09, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
You are in luck. Schopenhauer, in his "Sketch of a History of the Doctrine of the Ideal and the Real," wrote about Descartes. He said that he "...was the first to bring to our consciousness the problem whereon all philosophizing has mainly turned, namely that of the ideal and the real. This is the question concerning what in our knowledge is objective and what is subjective, and hence what eventually is to be ascribed by us to things different from us and what is to be attributed to ourselves. Thus in our head images arise not arbitrarily, as it were, from within, nor do they proceed from the connection of ideas; consequently, they arise from an external cause. But such images alone are what is immediately known to us, what is given. Now what relation may they have to things which exist quite separately from and independently of us and which somehow become the cause of those images? Are we certain that such things generally exist at all, and in this case do the images give us any information as to their nature?" 
"He was struck by the truth that we are above all restricted to our own consciousness and that the world is given to us only as representation or mental picture. Through his well known 'dubito, cogito, ergo sum' (I doubt, that is to say, I think, therefore I am), he tried to lay stress on the only certain thing of subjective consciousness in contrast to the problematical nature of everything else, and to express the great truth that self-consciousness is the only thing really and unconditionally given.
"...Berkeley consistently went farther on this path of the Cartesians, and thus became the originator of the proper and true idealism, that is, of the knowledge that what is extended in and fills space, and thus the world of intuitive perception generally, can have its existence as such absolutely only in our representation, and that it is absurd and even contradictory to attribute to it, as such, another existence outside all representation and independently of the knowing subject, and accordingly to assume a matter existing in itself."
205.188.116.67 18:42, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Compare 

message: Berkeley's treatise concerned the principles of human knowledge, not the principles of absolute being. He asserted that we can directly know only our sensations and ideas, not abstractions such as matter and mind. Berkeley did not make claims about what exists external to the mind, as is commonly thought. He thought that whatever possibly exists other than our sensations and ideas is nothing to us.
64.12.116.65 13:15, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Knowledge, not Existence 

message: This article seems to contain a significant amount of original research. For example:
:Immanuel Kant mischaracterized Berkeley as a radical idealist and falsely claimed that Berkeley's principles make objective knowledge impossible.
More later. --causa sui talk 11:25, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original research 

message: I changed "bills of slave" to "bills of sale."  I've never heard of bills of slave and did a quick Google, and still didn't find anything, and bills of sale seems to fit far better.  On the other hand, that's been there awhile, so maybe I'm just crazy.  Apologies if this was incorrect.
I also rewrote the philosophical debate after the limerick somewhat.  Johnson's position was somewhat straw manned in the original phrasing, I think, so I've tried to be a little fairer to both sides rather than simply blankly stating that Johnson was mistaken.  (If it fit with the flow better, I'd have a counter-counter-response, where proponents of objective reality would point out that in an amazing coincidence, these collective hallucinations behave in extremely regular ways, also known as "science."  But this is an article on Berkeley not why Berkeley is wrong, so I figured it'd be best to leave it out for now.) SnowFire 21:57, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Philosophical Empiricism. 

message: I havn't ever edited a wikipedia page, so I am reluctant to do it myself, but perhaps someone would care to change this... The discussion of Johnson's rock kicking seems to exhibit a gross misunderstanding of Berkeley. 
For Berkeley, there is no skepticism about whether the rock is there or whether the sensation of kicking was caused by some contrived situation of arthritis. Berkeley did belive the rock was real; it was real because it was an idea in the mind of God, who causes perceptions and ideas to come upon our conciousness in an orderly manner. See Principles of Human Knowledge, Part 1, section 32-33... it states "The ideas imprited on the sense by the author of nature are called real things, and those exicted in the imagination, being less regular, vivid and constant, are more propertly termed ideas, or images of things which they copy and present."
--Luke
::Luke, It was Samuel Johnson, not Ben. 
Of course, everything that Samuel Johnson's mind directly experienced was an idea (mental picture) or sensation in his mind. Whatever was outside of his mind had to be inferred. And he didn't experience any general sensation of idea of matter or substance.Lestrade 13:24, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ben Johnson and the kicking of the rock 

message: Giving a single Irish pronunciation of 'Berkeley' obscures the fact that there are two distinct ways in which the word is pronounced. The IPA given for Irish English produces BARKley (as in 'woof woof'), a pronunciation associated with a certain genteel class in Ireland. Most Irish people say BERKley (as in 'a fool'). Does anyone have the skills to render that in IPA on the article page? Thanks.
: Does "a certain genteel class in Ireland" mean gradtuates of Trinity College Dublin? And is the anonymous author a graduate of University College Dublin? MnJWalker 23:19, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Pronunciation of Berkeley 

message: Here we have a philosopher who presents us with one of the most startling thoughts to ever occur in a mind. This is the thought that everything can only be mere appearance to our minds. We don't know matter or substance. We only directly and immediately know mental images or the content of our mind. External objects appear to us, in the way that they appear, as a result of the way that our sense organs and nervous system are constituted. Berkeley's way of thinking can only be shared by deep reflection and by separating out or analyzing the way that we perceive objects. Instead of discussing this new, amazing, and very difficult thought, which is commonly misunderstood and ridiculed, Wikipedia typically concerns itself instead with the pronunciation of his name, where he was born, what was named after him, if he owned slaves, where he was raised, and what references are made to him in today's popular culture.Lestrade 13:16, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly - I'm not for whitewashing anything, but is the emphasis on his views on slaves (presented completely outside their historical context - by the standards of his time, Berkeley was not necessarily an inhumane man) really proportionate? Thomas Ash 12:03, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Human, all-too human

message: I've moved Kingofthemorning's additions to a place in the article where they seemed to make more sense in context, and tidied up spelling, grammar and structure.  I'm not vouching for their being an accurate summary of Berkeley's argument.  --ajn (talk) 10:41, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There's no reason why Berkeley's arguments shouldn't be summarised.  But I really would appreciate it if you'd run your prose through a spelling and grammar checker before inserting it anywhere - spelling the name of the philosopher incorrectly doesn't give a very good impression, nor does persistently confusing "their" and "there".  I moved the two paragraphs because they had nothing to do with the text above them (which they purported to clarify).  --ajn (talk) 08:57, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Additions yesterday 

message: The New Encyclopedia Britannica 2007 Micropædia article on Berkeley calls him "the precursor of Mach and Einstein." Berkeley's claim that objects exist as they are only in relation to an observing subject is the basis of relativity. With Berkeley's Idealism, no object exists as it is in itself, apart from an observing subject.Lestrade 18:10, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Relativity

message: I noticed there was something lacking about George Berkeley’s info box, so I added a notable ideas section and changed his interests from idealism and empiricism to metaphysics, epistemology, language, mathematics and perception. Idealism and empiricism were his schools of thought, not his interests.
The reasons for why I listed what I did as his main interests are the following: in the Principles of Human Knowledge, George Berkeley expounds an ontology in which everything is either a subject or an idea within a subject: thus metaphysics; within the preface of the same treatise, Berkeley states that the objective of his work is to demonstrate that certain problems are caused by principles which are themselves caused by the misuse of human reason: thus epistemology; in the same preface, he analyses language and develops a nominalist theory of language which is important for his metaphysics and epistemology: thus language; Berkeley wrote a famous critique of calculus: thus mathematics; and finally, Berkeley also wrote a controversial book on vision: thus perception.
If any of my edits to the info box are misguided, feel free to point them out and edit them. I had considered putting nominalism in his notable ideas section, next to subjective idealism, but a type of nominalism had already been developed by William of Ockham. Should I have added it to the notable ideas section anyway? Le vin blanc 03:53, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  George Berkeley's Info Box 

message: What I recall from my calculus days is that Bishop Berkeley criticized the founders of infinitesimal calculus in the colorful terms mentioned in the subject headline.  Perhaps this could be mentioned in the article.  He was of course referring to the impossibility of division by zero.  Katzmik (talk) 12:13, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[ghosts of departed quantities]] 

message: This section discusses Berkeley's critique of the infinitesimal calculus and then jumps right to A. Robinson's development of non-standard analysis, with 
no mention whatsoever, even in passing, of the rigorous development of calculus by Cauchy with the epsilon-delta definition;  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.139.41.131 (talk) 06:07, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: The Analyst controversy

message: Hi, I recently created George Berkley (engineer).  Ideally this article would be located at George Berkley so that people typing in his name will get the article.  This is currently a redirect to George Berkeley.  There are currently no links to this redirect and I have placed a hatnote at Berkley to provide a link to Berkeley for anyone who misspells the name.  With that in mind does anybody object to me requesting a move  for this purpose?  Cheers - Dumelow (talk) 16:16, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think your plan is the appropriate solution. ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 14:19, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I have requested a move.  Procedure says that anyone with any objections should discuss it at Talk:George Berkley (engineer).  Cheers - Dumelow (talk) 09:16, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Discussion is at Talk:George Berkley (engineer)#Requested move. --Una Smith (talk) 16:39, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  George Berkley (engineer) 

message: It was an idea of mine to add this template to the article just because I myself contributed to the latter. Being quite aware of my Broken English, I considered tagging to be my duty. While developing the article, other Wikipedists corrected my grammar errors. Hence tagging seems to be needless now. But I mayn’t remove the template myself because I don’t know English so well as to evaluate the article’s English. So I’d like to apply to native speakers of English who develop this article. If its English is correct now, then the template can make a false impression on the readers.--Solus ipse Inc. (talk) 10:42, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Copyedit done. --Greenmaven (talk) 03:20, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does the article need tagging? 

message: the first paragraph of this article tell the reader that, "Thus, as Berkeley famously put it, for physical objects "esse est percipi" ("to be is to be perceived")."
the section headed "Contributions to Philosophy" reads "Incidentally, this claim is fundamentally different from the claim, sometimes inaccurately attributed to Berkeley, that to be is to be perceived (esse est percipi)."
i don't know whether or not berkeley said/wrote this and even if i did, i haven't ever edited in wikipedia before and am not sure how to even begin.
this is my first time participating in wikipedia, with an attempt to bring this to the attention of someone who can find the accurate information and delete that which is inaccurate.
i hope i'm doing this correctly and, if not, i ask pardon. thank you. Wlczmwpjr (talk) 22:57, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Your comment is perfectly correct.  It could be that both pages are fine.  If the attribution of "esse est precipi" to Berkeley as common, we are justified in citing it here without being overly worried about its correctness (the goal of wiki is verifiability, not truth).  If the other claim is sourced at "contributions to philosophy", that's also appropriate.  Tkuvho (talk) 13:37, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  contradiction is fine in the real, but not on wikipedia... 

message: There is something seriously wrong with Wikipedia's system of indexing [even aside from the fact that you can't search for "surname, first name"] that you cannot go directly to this page without knowing Berkeley's first name was George, but have to search through a list of relatively obscure persons named Berkeley and then the only way to spot is if you know he was a bishop.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.132.220.112 (talk) 19:10, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Indexing 

message: In the intro, it sounds like Three Dialogues was a rewrite of the poorly-received Treatise, whereas in the Ireland section, it sounds like they're two completely different works, the one named Treatise having been well-received. Someone with more knowledge of the two works, please clarify.
Mrgate3 (talk) 16:28, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Treatise and Three Dialogues 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The article I believe is missing a big issue, which is GB's opposition to other philosophers' use of abstract ideas and how it informed his own major ideas.
The article as currently written only has a single introductory reference to it. Doing a "Control F" for "abstract" returns just one hit in the article now. By contrast, in this encyclopedia article there are 9 hits. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/berkeley/
In another example, in this article, there are 48 hits for "abstract*" versus just the 1 here, and the third of the seven headers is "Against Abstraction."
https://www.iep.utm.edu/berkeley/
I like the general ordering used in the IEP article too, as the opposition to abstraction as a basis for philosophical argument is a good introduction to GB's most famous ideas about immaterialism. It also corresponds to how GB himself ordered his arguments in Principles of Human Knowledge. Declanscottp (talk) 23:03, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Opposition to Abstract Ideas is an Important Missing Topic 

message: @User:Alfie23 Just a point of clarification: official records in Britain & Ireland at this time used the English civil, legal and ecclesiastical calendar, where a year starts on March 25 (rather than January 1).  So events happening between January 1 and March 25 are officially recorded as being part of the previous year.   That means someone born on March 12, 1685 in historical year, would be listed in official records as being born March 12, 1684.  This confusing calendar mismatch was fixed in 1752 (see Calendar (New Style) Act 1750), but not retroactively. So, birth or baptism certificates from pre-1752 will still be using the old calendar. Normally this disjuncture is dealt with by historians in either double-barreled format ("March 12, 1684-85", the first being the legal year, the latter the historical year) or simply ignored and the historical year (1685) used alone. While it is true Rev. Joseph Stock gives his birth-year as 1684, he is probably citing directly from official parish records; all modern books give his birth-year as 1685.  Walrasiad (talk) 11:44, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Birth year 1684 vs. 1685 

message: Berkeley's razor is included among Berkeley's main contributions, but most of the writing under this heading is about Karl Popper. True, Popper is plausibly attributing a kind of instrumentalism to Berkeley (a reading you can find in D.M. Armstrong's intro to his Berkeley volume), but I'm not sure this sort of interpretative work should be counted as a contribution to philosophy by Berkeley himself.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.45.138.97 (talk) 19:14, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Berkeley's razor? 

message: This is a transient news item that doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. The article never mentioned the naming of the library in the first place. It has little to do with Berkeley and much to do with academic politics. The citation is a press release. The whole section should be deleted.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Harrycroswell (talk • contribs) 07:40, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Denaming of Trinity College Library