It does seem that in the concluding remarks that Berkeley supports some kind of pantheism at least, some of his statements appear to strongly support that reading. It seems that there may be very current scientific support for Berkeley's supposition on some level. It is an interesting theory when one notes that quantum mechanics supports the notion that reality at the particle level does seem to presuppose an observer. Like other Idealists going back to Plato, Berkeley believed in a universal Spirit or Mind that necessitates that all reality is perceived and cannot exist apart from this perception. Some of his statements are ambiguous and can be wrenched from context and made to look like he supported the non-reality of the outside physical world, but, really, he denied the existence of matter in the philosophical sense of a substrate made up of abstracted accidents and qualities. I might, if I were to expand philosophy to include quasi-mystical writers of the same era, include Swedenborg, Hutchinson, Boehme and Sterry.īerkeley has often been misrepresented as being a philosopher that denied the existence of matter in the sense of real external objects. Out of 17th-early 18th century philosophers, Berkeley intrigues me as much as Leibniz does. Out of Spinoza, Locke, Descartes, Hume and Berkeley, I certainly found Berkeley the most interesting but, then, I am into Idealism, so it is to some degree understandable and indicates my bias really.
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