Writing a philosopher’s life: The case of George Berkeley

Philosophy Open Lecture

This lecture will consider some of the challenges of writing the biography of a philosopher, focusing on George Berkeley (1685-1753). One such challenge is considering what philosophers do in relation to what they think– if, indeed, they do anything much other than think! Berkeley led an active and various life as a teacher, preacher, public reformer, aspiring colonist, churchman, family man and, not least, thinker. His philosophy, I suggest, encompasses practical activities in these spheres as well as the composition and publication of philosophical texts. The lecture will point to some of these connections between the practical and philosophical in Berkeley’s career. But it will begin with a challenge very specific to Berkeley: how to write the life of a thinker who argued that we have no direct knowledge of other people (or spirits, to use Berkeley’s term), and yet for whom there is only one substance in the universe, spiritual substance, or willing agents. In the course of this discussion the lecture will give an overview of the philosophical doctrine for which Berkeley remains chiefly known – immaterialism.