Christian Cyclopedia

(1685–1753). Irish philos.; lecturer at Dublin; dean at Derry 1724; lived in Am. 1728–31; bp. Cloyne, Ireland, 1734; spent last years in retirement at Oxford. The philos. of Berkeley champions idealism. Beginning with the observation that all knowledge comes through sense impressions, he sought to reduce matter to a complex of impressions and thus deny the existence of material substance. He believed, however, in the reality of spiritual being. Wrote Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision and A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. See also Commonsense Realism; Deism, IV; Protestant Episcopal Church, 1 c; Subjective Idealism.

J. D. Wild, George Berkeley (New York, 1962).