Berkeley's Idealism

A Critical Examination
1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-0-19-538145-0
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 328 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 557 g

Written in an accessible style and assuming no previous knowledge of Berkeley, this book can be read as a companion to Berekeley's Principles and Dialogues.
Dicker provides an in-depth analysis of the mainstream views against which Berkeley was reacting.
Demonstrates the ways in which Berkeley's arguments in the Principles and Dialogues dovetail with one another.
Makes new criticisms of Berkeley's positive metaphysics.
Relates Berkeley's work both to current Berkeley scholarship and to live issues in contemporary analytic philosophy.

In George Berkeley's two most important works, the Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, he argued that there is no such thing as matter: only minds and ideas exist, and physical things are nothing but collections of ideas. In defense of this idealism, he advanced a battery of challenging arguments purporting to show that the very notion of matter is self-contradictory or meaningless, and that even if it were possible for matter to exist, we could not know that it does; and he then put forward an alternative world-view that purported to refute both skepticism and atheism.

Using the tools of contemporary analytic philosophy, Georges Dicker here examines both the destructive and the constructive sides of Berkeley's thought, against the background of the mainstream views that he rejected. Dicker's accessible and text-based analysis of Berkeley's arguments shows that the Principles and the Dialogues dovetail and complement each other in a seamless way, rather than being self-contained. Dicker's book avoids the incompleteness that results from studying just one of his two main works; instead, he treats the whole as a visionary response to the issues of modern philosophy- such as primary and secondary qualities, external-world skepticism, the substance-property relation, the causal roles of human agents and of God. In addition to relating Berkeley's work to his contemporaries, Dicker discusses work by today's top Berkeley scholars, and uses notions and distinctions forged by recent and contemporary analytic philosophers of perception. Berkeley's Idealism both advances Berkeley scholarship and serves as a useful guide for teachers and students.

Zielgruppe

Professors, graduate students, and undergraduate students studying Berkeley's philosophy.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Dicker, Georges

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Moderne Philosophische Disziplinen Analytische Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Metaphysik, Ontologie

Über Autor(innen)

Dicker, Georges
Georges Dicker is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Philosophic Exchange at The College at Brockport, State University of New York. He is the author of Dewey's Theory of Knowing, Perceptual Knowledge: An Analytical and Historical Study, Descartes: An Analytical and Historical Introduction, Hume's Epistemology and Metaphysics: An Introduction, Kant's Theory of Knowledge: An Analytical Introduction, and of numerous journal articles.