Berkeley Berkeley George

George Berkeley biography. George Berkeley was born on March 12 in the south of Ireland in Kilken. He was the eldest of the seven children in the family of a small nobleman William Berkeley. In the city of George he began his studies at Kilkenny, and five years later he continued her in the college of Trinity in Dublin. Berkeley received the first degree of bachelor of the arts, in the same year his first scientific works were published anonymously - two treatises in mathematics.

Two years later, Berkeley received the first dignity of the clergyman. The first work of Berkeley was published, foreshadowing his philosophical teaching - "New theory of vision." Next year, Berkeley publishes a "treatise on the principles of human knowledge", where he expresses his philosophical views, a new philosophical concept. Berkeley, as a chaplain, Lord Peterborough, an emergency ambassador at the court of the Sicilian king, goes to Italy.

Then he writes one of his most important works - "Three dialogues between Gilas and Philoinus." The next year, Berkeley returned to his homeland, and in September in September, Berkeley, for the purpose of missionary activity, goes to Rhizhnod. Shortly before his departure, forty -year -old Berkeley married Anna Forster. Their family life was happy. As in the family of his father, Berkeley had seven children, whom he treated with great love.

Without waiting for the promised allocations to build a college, Berkeley returns to London in the fall of the year. Immediately after the arrival, Berley publishes his work - "Alsifron", where he defends Christian creed and religious morality. The "Alsifron" was followed by the philosophical and mathematical work "Analyst". In May, Berkeley was dedicated to the spiritual rank of Bishop of Klayonsky, after which he returned to Ireland and settled in the town of Klake, where he spent almost the rest of his life.

The last work of Berkeley was the Seiris published in the year, in which therapy, philosophy and mysticism were bizarrely intertwined. In August, George Berkeley left his diocese and moved to Oxford, where on January 14, the philosophical teachings of George Berkeley. Starting positions. The philosophical teachings of George Berkeley are aimed at refuting materialism and justification of religion.

For these purposes, he used the nominalist principles established by William Occam. This nominalist foundation serves as the starting point for Berkeley, from which it follows that nothing corresponding to reality can be uneatable and abstract concepts are false concepts. But they, according to Berkeley, are not only false, but also impossible, these are philosophical phantoms. And if you can’t, then on your part it would be unreasonable to insist longer on the existence of what you have no idea.

”Berkeley distinguishes between general and abstract ideas. The first are those that can be perceived as visual representations. Berkeley distinguishes between two types of distraction. At the first of them, individual parts or properties of an object that can exist in reality with the second form of dispersion. which are actually inseparable from each other, and they rejects Berkeley as illusory, as empty words that no perception corresponds to such an examples of such abstract concepts: extension, movement, number, space, time, happiness, goodness.

It is impossible, Berkeley, it is impossible to form a distinct abstract idea of ​​movement or without specific sensual qualities, as a quick and slow, large and small, round and quadrangular, etc. You cannot form an abstract idea of ​​a circle, four or a triangle, "which will not be equilateral, nor unequillard." In contrast to the fiction of abstract concepts, common concepts are single images that differ in our minds, as it were, representatives of homogeneous things, examples of many private ideas: “Since there are no visual images behind such words as“ this ”, or“ number ”,“ infinity ”, these are no more than empty words issued for ideas.

But what means: common ideas. Private ideas of the same kind ”for nominalism is not something common to the presence of an objective identity in them.

Hence the denial of Berkeley the role of abstract thinking in the knowledge of the world. Yes, because "we will find an exact study, maybe we are not able to imagine the most inch consisting of thousands of parts." There is no such thing, since we are “not able to imagine”: the possibility of representing determines the possibility of being. The whole theory of Berkeley’s abstraction is aimed to prove that only what is perceived or represented, but not what is conceivable.

The concept is reduced to the representation, rational to empirical; General to the individual.The second, of which Berkeley relied on when building his philosophical concept, was the Lokkovsky sensualism. Locke divided the qualities into two kinds, one of which is recognized as primary, inherent in things by itself, and the second is considered as secondary, derivative, inadequate.

The primary qualities, objective and objectively reflected in perception, include, in Locke, length, density, tract interpreted only as a mechanical figure and number. Everything else sensual diversity gives inadequate reproduction in the minds of the listed primary forms of the existence of matter. The method by which people come to ideas about matter and space, according to Locke, is an abstraction.

Distributing from all the special features and signs of things, our mind, Locke thought, distinguishes those features and signs that remain common to all objects, and thus comes to the general abstract idea of ​​matter, as such, space as such, etc. Berkeley tries to prove that our mind is not capable of abstraction described by Locke. At the first of them, individual parts or properties of an object are represented, which in reality can exist separately; In the second form of distraction - those that are actually inseparable from each other.

Berkeley rejects them as illusory, as empty words, which does not correspond to any perception. It is impossible, Berkeley, it is impossible to form a distinct abstract idea of ​​movement or without specific sensory qualities, as a quick or slow, large or small, round or quadrangular, etc. You can not form an abstract idea of ​​a circle, four or three -agent, "which will be neither equilateral, nor unequivocal." The general abstract idea of ​​the "extension", or "space" is impossible.

She is absurd, outwardly contradictory. We can neither perceive nor imagine such an idea. The situation is the same with the abstraction of matter. Berkeley devoted evidence of this thought “a treatise on the principles of human knowledge” and the dialogue “Three conversations between Gilas and Philonius” in these works of Berkeley does not hide that his main goal is the struggle against materialism and all its manifestations in science.

Further, Berkeley subjectivist interprets sensualism, taking advantage of the inability of Locke and other 17th -century materialists to reveal the dialectical unity in the knowledge of the subjective and objective sides. Before Locke, the subjective side in cognition was reduced to the distorted influence of the subject, which, in principle, could be eliminated.

Locke actually discovered that knowledge is always subjective in its form, and this was expressed in his understanding of secondary qualities. Locke divided the qualities into two kinds, one of which is recognized as primary, inherent in things by itself, and the second is considered as a secondary, derivative, inadequate. The primary qualities, objective and objectively reflected in perception, include Locke, length, density, tract interpreted only as a mechanical, figure and number.

These are the qualities of matter as color, smell, taste, sound. Berkeley builds his theory of idealistic sensualism, taking as a basis the Lokkov concept of secondary qualities. Berkeley denies the division of qualities into primary and secondary, reducing the first to the second. At the same time, it absolutizes the Lockovo contrast of secondary qualities primary. Berkeley completely torn off secondary qualities from their objective basis, gives them a complete-subjective interpretation.

Then he tries to prove that the subjectivity characterizing the secondary qualities is equally inherent in primary, and thus all qualities are equally secondary, i.e. anti -mechanicism directly develops here into antimatterism. All the qualities of Berkeley are essentially not secondary, since primary qualities are canceled, they are no more as an objective reality.

Subjective qualities do not act as different from objective, are not opposed to them, due to the annihilation of the latter. The sphere of qualities becomes an unambiguous sphere of subjectivity. Based on Locke, he breaks with the Locke division of qualities, using the relativity of perception of any qualities. All Berkeley’s plans were directed to end not with mechanism, as such, but with mechanism as the only form of materialism at that time.

What exists, according to the mechanicists, outside and regardless of consciousness? Matter reduced to the extension. That is why the assumption of the length of thinking is attacked by Berkeley. He absolutizes the Lockovsky confrontation of secondary qualities primary. Then Berkeley tries to prove that subjectivity characterizing secondary qualities is equally inherent in primary, and thus, all qualities are equally secondary, that is, subjective.This is how Berkeley tries to prove the secondaryness of the color in his essay “Three conversations between Gilas and Philonius”: “...

If the colors were valid properties or states inherent in external bodies, they would not have changed without any change in the bodies themselves; but it is not obvious ... that when using a microscope, when changing in the eye fluid, or without a change of distance, without any distance, without any distance, without any distance Actual change in the thing itself, the colors of the object either change or completely disappear?

Moreover, let all other circumstances remain the same, change only the position of some objects - and they will appear to the eye in various colors. The same thing happens when we consider the object with different power of light. And is it not well known that the same bodies seem differently painted in the light of a candle compared to what they seem in the light of day? Add to this experience with a prism, which, sharing the heterogeneous rays of light, changes the color of the object and makes the lightest light seem to the naked eye with dark blue or red.

And now tell me whether you are still holding the opinions that any body is inherent in its true real color ... ". In the same way, Berkeley proves the secondaryness of all sensually perceived qualities of objects. Subjective qualities do not act as excellent from objective, are not opposed to them, due to the destruction of the latter.