Berkeleys Theory Of Immaterialism

Berkeley's Theory of Immaterialism

As man progressed through the various stages of evolution, it

is assumed that at a certain point he began to ponder the world around

him. Of course, these first attempts fell short of being scholarly,

probably consisting of a few grunts and snorts at best. As time passed

on, though, these ideas persisted and were eventually tackled by the

more intellectual, so-called philosophers. Thus, excavation of "the

external world" began. As the authoritarinism of the ancients gave way

to the more liberal views of the modernists, two main positions

concerning epistemology and the nature of the world arose. The first

view was exemplified by the empiricists, who stated that all knowledge

comes from the senses. In opposition, the rationalists maintained that

knowledge comes purely from deduction, and that this knowledge is

processed by certain innate schema in the mind. Those that belonged to

the empiricist school of thought developed quite separate and distinct

ideas concerning the nature of the substratum of sensible objects.

John Locke and David Hume upheld the belief that sensible things were

composed of material subezce, the basic framework for the

materialist position. The main figure who believed that material

subezce did not exist is George Berkeley. In truth, it is the

immaterialist position that seems the most logical when placed under

close scrutiny.

The initial groundwork for B...

Berkeleys Theory Of Immaterialism

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