George Berkeley

Berkeley was born on March 12, 1685 in a rural gentleman's family in Kilkenny, Ireland. He was the eldest son of the family. He was born bright and precocious. He was admitted to Trinity College in Dublin at the age of 15. He received a bachelor's degree at the age of 19 and a master's degree at the age of 22. After that, he stayed at the school as a lecturer and a junior research institute. His earliest published book was on mathematics. Berkeley had a certain talent in mathematics. He once proposed a particularly contradictory theory to the discoverer of calculus called it "Berkeley's Paradox", which made it difficult for even the discoverer of calculus to justify himself. Caused a chaotic crisis in the mathematical community: of course, this is all later, and he did it in middle age. Berkeley drew attention to his "New Theory of Vision" published in 1710. This was a scientific paper on human vision, which mainly conducted an in-depth study of eyesight and vision, the size and distance of things seen. Although the publication of this work caused a great debate in the scientific community at that time, the in-depth research of later scientists proved the correctness of Berkeley's theory, which was an important part of the establishment of modern optical theory.

Next, Berkeley published a book on the sources and principles of knowledge, called "Principles of Human Knowledge", published in 1710. This book made him a great success and gained a lot of good reputation, which can be said to have gained both fame and wealth. Berkeley believed that the book's description of forms of perception other than thought needed to be elaborated, so he published "Three Dialogues between Hellas and Phronus" in 1713, from which. The main explorations of empiricism and subjective idealism proposed by him have been established. Among these idealistic and principled expositions is Berkeley's most famous saying,"Being is being perceived." This means that the existence of the world exists entirely through the existence of independent living beings who perceive the world. If there are no perceiving individuals, then the world would not exist.

Berkeley gave a detailed explanation and reasoning of this theory. Berkeley pointed out that there is no primary quality at all, because all knowledge is a function of man who is experiencing or perceiving. He pointed out that physical objects are nothing more than the accumulation of experienced senses, which are united within the mind by the force of habit. Otherwise it cannot exist. For example, a writing desk exists unless it is seen, touched, smelled, has its color, shape, smell: without feeling, or the combination of many senses, there is nothing. This is the basic principle of his famous saying, "To be is to be perceived." His theory is opposed to materialism. This theory was much ridiculed in the early days of its birth, but over time, as knowledge advanced, it was accepted by the vast majority of idealists.

Afterwards, Berkeley went to England and entered the Christian Church of England. Between 1714 and 1720, he traveled around Europe and spread his theories and ideas. His longest stay was in Italy, and he visited many Italian scenic spots. In 1721, the Irish Theological Church gave him a respectful invitation, and he received a doctorate in theology. After that, he chose to stay at Trinity College Dublin. He mainly taught theology and ancient Hebrew. In February 1721, he was appointed bishop of the Theological Church.

Berkeley married Anne Foster, daughter of Irish Grand Trial Judge John Ford in 1728, and then went to America. He landed near what is now Newport, Rhode Island, and purchased a manor in Middleton. He also brought with him a British painter he had discovered in Italy, named John Thabbrant, known as the founder of modern American portraits. While living on the estate, he planned to establish what he called a "utopia" and a university in Bermuda. In the end, they all failed due to lack of funds.

Berkeley left the United States in 1732 and returned to London, England.

After returning to London, Berkeley continued to devote himself to charity, and he planned to establish a "children's home" for homeless children in the city. In 1739, Berkeley founded the "Children's Home". Berkeley served as the first deacon of the "Children's Home". In 1734, Berkeley was appointed executive bishop of a region of England, a job he held until his death.

Berkeley is a particularly interesting person. Once, while giving a lecture in Berkeley, a student asked Berkeley: "Sir, who do you think is the most outstanding philosopher of our time?" Berkeley hesitated for a moment and replied with a troubled expression: "I am a particularly humble person, so it is difficult for me to name this philosopher, but as a seeker of truth, I cannot tell lies." You should know who it is this time, right? "When the person who originally didn't mean this, he didn't immediately react. After a while, his students all smiled knowing.

Berkeley was an absolute empiricist. He not only thought like this, but also acted like this. He wanted to try anything no matter what, and no matter what the consequences, he just wanted to try anything. Once, Berkeley had an idea and wanted to know what it would feel like to hang himself, and then he hanged himself. Fortunately, a friend arrived in time and saved his life.

In the 17th century, when the mathematical tool calculus came out, it showed its extremely sharp and extraordinary power, and many difficult problems became easy. However, the creation of the theory of calculus is lax, and the understanding and application of infinitesimal quantities as a basic concept are also confusing. Therefore, calculus has been opposed by some people since its birth, and Berkeley is one of the opponents.

Specific contradictory formula: If you want to calculate the derivative of x2, you must first take x an increment ¡÷x that is not 0, and get 2x¡÷x+(¡÷ x2) from (x+¡÷x)2-x2, and then divide it by ¡÷x to get 2x+¡÷x, and finally suddenly make ¡÷x equal to 0, so the derivative is found to be 2x. Berkeley said this was "relying on double mistakes to achieve unscientific but correct results." "Because the infinitesimal quantity was sometimes said to be 0 and sometimes not 0 in the original calculus theory, Berkeley ridiculed the infinitesimal quantity as a" ghost of a dead quantity." "This attack captures the flaws in the original calculus theory and is to the point. In the history of mathematics, it is called the "Berkeley Paradox"

In general terms, Berkeley's paradox can be expressed as a question of "whether infinitesimals are 0"; that is, infinitesimals must be both 0 and not 0 in terms of practical applications at that time. But from the perspective of formal logic, this is undoubtedly a contradiction, which caused chaos in the mathematical community at that time. In response to Berkeley's attack, mathematicians who discovered calculus tried to perfect their own theories to solve it, but they were unsuccessful. This put them in a very embarrassing situation; on the one hand, calculus has won a big victory in practical applications; on the other hand, there is a logical contradiction, that is, Berkeley's paradox.

In his "New Theory of Vision", he studied how people perceive the deep third dimension in the retina, which has only two dimensions. He believes that people perceive the deep third dimension as a result of experience, that is, the result of the combination of visual impressions with touch and motion. Kinesis is the movement that occurs due to adaptive movements when the eyes stare at an object at different distances, or due to body movement when walking towards or away from the object they see. In other words, the continuous sensory experience of walking towards an object or reaching for an object is associated with the sensory sensation of the eye, resulting in depth perception. Therefore, depth perception is not a simple sensory experience, but a combination of concepts that must be learned. This is the first time that a purely psychological process has been explained in terms of the combination of feelings. In this way Berkeley continued to develop the tradition of associationism among empiricism.

Subjective idealism is one of the basic forms of idealist philosophy. It fundamentally denies the objective existence of the material world and points out that all things in the external world are feelings or compounds of feelings, collections of concepts, etc. Feeling and self-consciousness are real existence and the origin of the world, that is, Berkeley pointed out that "things are a collection of ideas,""existence is being perceived,""objects and feelings are one thing," etc. Dialectical materialism believes that this view reverses the relationship between subject and object, and describes "objective things" as the source of feeling and thinking as derivatives of feeling and thinking.

Berkeley was skeptical of the idea that "the material world is real". He used empirical logic to question it, saying: "There are only things in the world that we feel. But we do not feel'matter 'or'matter'. We cannot perceive the existence of things we feel. He argued that if we believe that there are'entities' under the things we feel, we are jumping to conclusions. Because we have absolutely no experience to support such a statement.

He believes that man has a spirit. He believes that all our ideas have a cause that we are unaware of, but that cause is not material, but spiritual.

He also said that everything we see and perceive is "the effect of God's power" because God exists closely in our consciousness, creating the rich concepts and sensory experiences that we constantly experience." He believed that the world around us and our lives all exist in God. He is the cause of all things, and we exist only in the heart of God.

Berkeley not only questioned the reality of matter, but also raised the question of whether time or space "exists absolutely or independently. He argued that our knowledge of time and space may also be nothing more than a fictional product of our minds.

We cannot perceive the matter that makes up our reality, we cannot know what our outer world is, and the only thing we can know is that we are spirits.