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Single Idea 6403

[filed under theme 11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / c. Empirical idealism ]

Full Idea

Berkeley's thesis is that reality ultimately consists of a community of minds and their ideas; one of the minds (God) is infinite, and causes most of the ideas.

Gist of Idea

For Berkelely, reality is ideas and a community of minds, including God's

Source

report of George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713]) by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.2

Book Ref

Grayling,A.C.: 'Russell' [OUP 1996], p.25

A Reaction

I think Russell nicely pinpoints what is wrong with Berekely, which is that he confuses ideas with their contents. If I think about my garden, the garden is real (probably), which is the content, and they idea is just a way of thinking.

The 15 ideas with the same theme [we are trapped inside our own experiences]:

1103 'To be is to be perceived' is a simple confusion of experience with its objects [Russell on Berkeley]
6403 For Berkelely, reality is ideas and a community of minds, including God's [Berkeley, by Grayling]
3930 There is no such thing as 'material substance' [Berkeley]
3936 Time is measured by the succession of ideas in our minds [Berkeley]
3939 I conceive a tree in my mind, but I cannot prove that its existence can be conceived outside a mind [Berkeley]
3945 There is nothing in nature which needs the concept of matter to explain it [Berkeley]
3947 Perceptions are ideas, and ideas exist in the mind, so objects only exist in the mind [Berkeley]
6723 The 'esse' of objects is 'percipi', and they can only exist in minds [Berkeley]
6724 The only substance is spirit, or that which perceives [Berkeley]
6732 When I shut my eyes, the things I saw may still exist, but in another mind [Berkeley]
2501 Berkeley seems to have mistakenly thought that chairs are the same as after-images [Fodor]
12404 Dear Sir, Your astonishment's odd.... [Sommers,W]
12403 There once was a man who said: 'God... [Sommers,W]
12402 ..But if he's a student of Berkeley... [Sommers,W]
12409 The philosopher Berkeley once said.. [Sommers,W]