In his two most important works, the Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, Berkeley argues, against the prevailing Cartesian-Lockean worldview, that there is no such thing as matter, that only minds and ideas exist, and that physical things are nothing but collections of ideas. In defense of this idealism, he advances a battery of challenging arguments, and he puts forward an alternative world‐view that purports to refute both skepticism and atheism. This book expounds and critically examines both the destructive and the constructive sides of Berkeley's ... More

In his two most important works, the Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, Berkeley argues, against the prevailing Cartesian-Lockean worldview, that there is no such thing as matter, that only minds and ideas exist, and that physical things are nothing but collections of ideas. In defense of this idealism, he advances a battery of challenging arguments, and he puts forward an alternative world‐view that purports to refute both skepticism and atheism. This book expounds and critically examines both the destructive and the constructive sides of Berkeley's thought, against the background of key elements of the mainstream views that he rejected. Its analysis of Berkeley's arguments is text‐based, accessible, and rigorous, and it shows that the Principles and the Dialogues dovetail and complement each other in a seamless way, rather than being two self‐contained defenses of idealism. In addition to relating Berkeley's work to the main thinkers that he reacted against, the book discusses work by several contemporary Berkeley scholars, and uses notions and distinctions forged by recent and contemporary analytic philosophers.