"To be is to be perceived"
Berkeley argued that "matter" perceived by no mind is unintelligible. Dr. Johnson kicked a stone and said "I refute it thus" — but never touched the core of Berkeley’s argument.
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Berkeley
Subjective idealist: "to be is to be perceived"
Those Who Ground an Idea Into a Whole System · Disciples & School-Builders
EmpiricismIdealismPerception
Who they are
Berkeley (1685–1753), the Irish bishop and empiricist, pushed empiricism to its limit with "to be is to be perceived": matter has no independent existence, things are only collections of ideas whose persistence is upheld by God’s eternal perception. His critique of abstraction and matter directly provoked Hume.
Primary sourcesBerkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
Key stories
Relationships
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Disciple
Echoes today
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.
Berkeley, CaliforniaThe city and the University of California, Berkeley are named after him.