Berkeley, Bishop

Berkeley, George. Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. In The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne. Ed. by A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop. London, 1948-1957. Vol. II. 163-263. 

Berkeley, George. Siris a chain of philosophical reflexions and inquiries concerning the virtues of tar water, and divers other subjects connected together and arising one from another. / By the Right Rev. Dr. George Berkeley, Lord Bishop of Cloyne, and author of The minute philosopher [1 line of biblical quotation and 1 line of Horace in Latin], The second edition, / improved and corrected by the author ed. [London] Dublin printed, London re- printed, for W. Innys, and C. Hitch,... and C. Davis..., 1754. [3], 4-174, [2] p. 

Scientific ideas compete in an open marketplace. Each offers the possibility of a plausible solution to what might be a potentially significant problem. In its promise, an idea will attract other scientists—fellow explorers who will articulate, criticize, and ultimately determine the idea s actuality. While these explorers can breathe life into an idea, their absence or defection leads to its death. Ideas without recruits become like Bishop Berkeley s proverbial unheard falling tree. 

Note that the limit in Eq. (6.12) involves the ratio of two quantities, both of which approach zero. It is an article of faith to accept that their ratio can still approach a finite limit while both numerator and denominator vanish. In the words of Bishop Berkeley, a contemporary of Newton, May we not call them ghosts of departed quantities ... 

The school of British Empiricism of John Locke (1632-1704), George Berkeley (1685-1753) and David Hume (1711-1776) continued on from the foundations laid by Bacon. It was perhaps no accident that Locke was a medical man, a practitioner. His empiricism was based upon a kind of sensory atomism. He distinguished between primary characteristics of objects such as solidity, figure, extension, motion, rest and secondary characteristics due to the way we perceive them, such as colour, taste and smell. Berkeley, a bishop, disagreed with this separation of existence from perception his famous dictum was to be is to be perceived , Hume anticipated the modern conclusion of the logical positivists... 

Celebrated historic figures like Plato, Aristotle and Bishop Berkeley, unfortunate enough never to attend Cambridge, whether before or after 1820, were granted honorary Apostolic status. So Leonard Woolf could begin another of his Saturday night papers to the Society ... 

The logical foundations of calculus were not established until well after the methods themselves had been employed. One of the critics who spurred this development was George Berkeley, a bishop of the Church of Ireland, who accused mathematicians of accepting calculus as a matter of faith, not of science. 

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