Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Theology and Philosophy: Theory of Vision and Other Writings
George berkeley was born near Thomastown, in County Kilkenny, on the 12th of March 1685. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, at the age of fifteen, and was elected to a Fellowship there in 1707. Trinity at the time was feeling the influence of the discoveries of Newton and Boyle, and Locke's Essay on Me Human Understanding, the philo sophical exposition of the new empiricism, was already well known. In 1705, Berkeley had formed a society to discuss the New Philosophy, as it was called. The Essay had more influence upon his thought than any other philosophical writing. Berkeley is Locke's direct successor, and his main philosophical doctrines are suggested by problems which Locke had left unsolved or had solved unsatisfactorily. His one great philosophical principle - the impossibility of any thing existing independently of perception - occurred'to his mind during this early study of Locke. We know from his Commonplace Book that already in 1706 he was convinced that he had found here the key to the difficulties and incon sistencies which he found in the Essay. However much in later works he enlarges his exposition of this principle and defends it against new objections, there are certain assump tions of Locke's philosophy which he never questions, and which essentially determine his statement of philosophical problems. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.