George Berkeley 1685-1753 British philosopher

Berkeley is famous in philosophy for his position that the world of physical objects exists only in the mind of the perceiver. He supported his position with arguments such as this. Suppose we place one hand in a bowl of hot water and the other in a bowl of cold water. If we then put both hands in lukewarm water, the water feels hot to one hand and cold to the other. Thus, the temperature is not a property of the object but rather of our perception of the object. Berkeley makes similar arguments for all of the senses and concludes that all of the properties that we attribute to objects are really properties of our perception. To the objection that things would cease to exist if no one was present to perceive them, Berkeley replied that things continued to exist because God was always present.

These arguments are captured in the following famous limericks:

There was a young man who said, "God

Must think it exceedingly odd

If he finds that this tree

Continues to be

When there is no one about in the Quad."

REPLY

Dear Sir:

Your astonishment's odd:

I am always about in the Quad.

And that's why the tree

Will continue to be,

Since observed by

Yours faithfully,

God.

John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume are important members of the school of philosophy called British Empericism.

Berkeley was presented in court by Jonathan Swift. He spent three years (1728-1731) living in the American colonies.