The Bloomsbury Companion to Berkeley

537 Pages·2017·7.397 MB·English

by  Richard Brook (Editor), Bertil Belfrage (Editor)

Th e Bloomsbury Companion
to Berkeley
i
Other volumes in the series of Bloomsbury Companions:
Aesthetics , edited by Anna Christina Ribeiro
Analytic Philosophy, edited by Barry Dainton and Howard Robinson
Continental Philosophy, edited by John Ó Maoilearca and Beth Lord
Epistemology , edited by Andrew Cullison
Ethics , edited by Christian Miller
Existentialism , edited by Felicity Joseph, Jack Reynolds and Ashley Woodward
Hegel , edited by Allegra de Laurentiis and Jeff rey Edwards
Hume , edited by Alan Bailey and Dan O’Brien
Hobbes, edited by S.A. Lloyd
Kant , edited by Gary Banham, Dennis Schulting and Nigel Hems
Leibniz, edited by Brandan C. Look
Locke , edited by S.-J. Savonius-Wroth, Paul Schuurman and Jonathan Walmsley
Marx , edited by Jeff Diamanti, Andrew Pendakis and Imre Szeman
Metaphysics , edited by Robert W. Barnard and Neil A. Manson
Philosophical Logic, edited by Leon Horston and Richard Pettigrew
Philosophy of Language, edited by Manuel Garcia-Carpintero and Max Kolbel
Philosophy of Mind, edited by James Garvey
Philosophy of Science, edited by Steven French and Juha Saatsi
Plato , edited by Gerald A. Press
Political Philosophy, edited by Andrew Fiala
Pragmatism , edited by Sami Pihlström
Socrates , edited by John Bussanich and Nicholas D. Smith
Spinoza , edited by Wiep van Bunge, Henri Krop,
Piet Steenbakkers and Jeroen van de Ven
ii
Th e Bloomsbury Companion
to Berkeley
Edited by
Bertil Belfrage and Richard Brook
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
LONDON • OXFORD • NEW YORK • NEW DELHI • SYDNEY
iii
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iv
Contents
Abbreviations vii
List of Contributors viii
Introduction by Bertil Belfrage and Richard Brook 1
Part 1 Berkeley’s Life and Importance
1 George Berkeley’s Biography T om Jones 5
2 Berkeley’s Bermuda Project in Context N ancy Kendrick 21
3 Berkeley’s Correspondence M arc A. Hight 49
4 Berkeley and Twentieth-Century Realist-Anti-Realist
Controversies Howard Robinson 63
Part 2 Berkeley’s Major Works
5 Atomism in Berkeley’s Th eory of Vision Bertil Belfrage 85
6 Berkeley’s T reatise Concerning the Principles of Human
Knowledge Samuel C. Rickless 99
7 Th ree Dialogues between Hylas, Philonous and the Sceptic
Tom Stoneham 121
8 Th e Mystery of Goodness in Berkeley’s P assive Obedience
Bertil Belfrage 141
9 D e Motu : Berkeley’s Philosophy of Science R ichard Brook 158
10 A lciphron; or the Minute Philosopher : Berkeley’s Redefi nition
of Free-Th inking Adam Grzeliński 174
11 Berkeley’s Q uerist : ‘Hints . . . What Is to be Done in this Critical
State of Our Aff airs’ or Proposals for a Hyperborean Eutopia?
Patrick Kelly 196
12 Berkeley’s S iris , an Interpretation Timo Airaksinen 216
Part 3 Berkeley in Context
13 Berkeley and Descartes C harles J. McCracken 247
14 Berkeley and Leibniz L aurence Carlin 254
v
vi Contents
15 Berkeley’s Critique of Locke’s Th eory of Perception G eorges Dicker 268
16 Berkeley and Malebranche C harles J. McCracken 288
17 Reid’s Opposition to Berkeley J ames Van Cleve 299
18 Berkeley and Hume on the Imagination K eota Fields 314
19 Th e Reception of Berkeley in Eighteenth-Century France
Sébastien Charles 334
Part 4 Main Th emes in Berkeley’s Philosophy
20 Immaterialism and Common Sense S. Seth Bordner 343
21 Immediate and Mediate Perception in Berkeley Richard Glauser 355
22 Berkeley on Ordinary Objects J eff McDonough 385
23 Berkeley’s Philosophy of Mind T alia Mae Bettcher 397
24 Berkeley on the Philosophy of Language J ohn Russell Roberts 421
25 Berkeley’s Philosophy of Mathematics W olfgang Breidert 435
26 Berkeley’s Philosophy of Religion Kenneth L. Pearce 458
Bibliography 484
Index 514
Abbreviations
Alc A lciphron; or, the Minute Philosopher (1732)
Analyst Th e Analyst; or, a Discourse Addressed to an Infi del Mathematician
(1734)
DM De Motu; sive, De Motus Principio & Natura, & de Causa
Communicationis Motuum (1721)
NB Two notebooks (A and B) published as P hilosophical Commentaries .
P A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge . Part I
(1710)
PI Published Introduction to the P rinciples .
MI Manuscript Introduction to the Principles .
TV An Essay towards a New Th eory of Vision (1709)
TVV Th e Th eory of Vision . . . Vindicated and Explained (1732)
3D Th ree Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1712)
Siris S iris: A Chain of Philosophical Refl exions . . . (1744)
Q Th e Querist, Containing Several Queries, Proposed to the
Consideration of the Public (1735–1737, 1750)
Works Th e Works of George Berkeley , 9 Vols, A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop (eds),
London, Nelson (1948–1957).
vii
Contributors
Timo Airaksinen is Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Helsinki,
Finland.
Bertil Belfrage became Assistant Professor (universitetslektor) in Th eoretical
Philosophy at Lund University, Sweden in 1970, and Research Fellow in the
History of Ideas and Sciences in 1993. He was Senior Editor of Berkeley Studies
in 2005–2007, is editing a new scholarly edition of Berkeley's works and has
published numerous papers on diff erent aspects of Berkeley's philosophy.
Talia Bettcher is Professor and Department Chair of Philosophy, College of Arts
and Letters, California State University, USA .
Seth Bordner is Assistant Professor Philosophy at the University of Alabama,
USA .
Wolfgang Breidert was formerly professor of philosophy at the University of
Karlsruhe. He has translated most of Berkeley’s writings into German (1980–96).
He is the author of George Berkeley: 1685–1753 (1989); Philosophen im Gedicht
(2012); Philosophie in Gedichten (2013); and essays on history of mathematics,
among others on Berkeley and mathematics.
Richard Brook is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Bloomsburg University,
USA .
Laurence Carlin is Associate Professor of Philosophy and a member of the
University Honors Faculty at University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, USA .
Sébastien Charles is a Professor and Dean of Research at the University of
Quebec in Trois-Rivières, Canada.
James Van Cleve is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern
California, USA .
Georges Dicker is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the College of
Brockport, State University of New York, USA .
viii
Contributors ix
Keota Fields is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts,
USA .
Richard Glauser is a Professor at the Institute of Philosophy, University of
Neuchatel, Switzerland.
Adam Grzeliński is the Director of the Institute of Philosophy at Nicholas
Copernicus University, Poland.
Marc Hight is Eliot Professor of Philosophy at Hampden-Sydney College,
Australia.
Tom Jones is a Reader in English, University of St. Andrews, UK .
Patrick Kelly is Professor and Fellow Emeritus of History at Trinity College,
Dublin, Ireland.
Nancy Kendrick is a Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College, USA .
Charles McCracken is Professor Emeritus Philosophy at Michigan State
University, USA .
Jeff McDonough is Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University, USA .
Kenneth Pearce is Ussher Assistant Professor in Berkeley Studies in the
Department of Philosophy, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland and Lilly Postdoctoral
Fellow at Valparaiso University, USA .
Samuel Rickless is a Professor in the Philosophy Department of the University
of California, San Diego, USA .
John Roberts is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Florida
State University, USA .
Howard Robinson is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the Central
European University, Budapest, Hungary.
Tom Stoneham is a Graduate Research Professor of Philosophy at the University
of York, UK .