george berkeley a treatise concerning the principles of human knowledge

> As for the characters of novelty and singularity which some of the following notions may seem to bear, it is, I hope, needless to make any apology on that account. For, as there are some passages that, taken by themselves, are very liable (nor could it be remedied) to gross misinterpretation, and to be charged with most absurd consequences, which, nevertheless, upon an entire perusal will appear not to follow from them so likewise, though the whole should be read over, yet, if this be done transiently, it is very probable my sense may be mistaken but to a thinking reader, I flatter myself it will be throughout clear and obvious. But, to the end this may not suffer, I make it my request that the reader suspend his judgment till he has once at least read the whole through with that degree of attention and thought which the subject-matter shall seem to deserve.

> Whether it be so or no I am content the reader should impartially examine since I do not think myself any farther concerned for the success of what I have written than as it is agreeable to truth.

This volume is the ideal introduction to Berkeley's Principles and will be of great interest to historians of philosophy in general.> WHAT I here make public has, after a long and scrupulous inquiry, seemed to me evidently true and not unuseful to be known- particularly to those who are tainted with Scepticism, or want a demonstration of the existence and immateriality of God, or the natural immortality of the soul.

The book then follows the order and substance of the Principles whilst drawing on materials from Berkeley's other writings. Berkeley's philosophy is, in part, a response to the deep tensions and problems in the new philosophy of the early modern period and the reader is offered an account of this intellectual milieu. The meaning of this claim, the powerful arguments in its favour, and the system in which it is embedded, are explained in a highly lucid and readable fashion and placed in their historical context. Its central and seemingly astonishing claim is that the physical world cannot exist independently of the perceiving mind. George Berkeley's Principles of Human Knowledge is a crucial text in the history of empiricism and in the history of philosophy more generally. Against the philosophers: the refutation of materialism Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 152-156) and index.

George berkeley a treatise concerning the principles of human knowledge