1. 1685-1753, Irish who was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and became a Bishop of the Church of Ireland (Anglican)

2. bibliography: Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) and Three Dialogues Between

Hylas and Philonous (1713)

1. he is classified as an empiricist--all knowledge starts and is shaped by experience

2. ideas are caused by experience in the way an imprint in wax is caused by a fist

3. an advocate for religious belief against an atheistic materialism

1. he rejected the distinction between primary and secondary qualities in experience; primary (e.g., size and shape) refers to qualities in the object, whereas secondary (e.g., color, sound, and order) refers to qualities in the mind; his reason--if secondary qualities are in the mind because that is how we experience objects, then primary qualities are also in the mind because that is how we experience them;

2. also if secondary qualities come from primary qualities and secondary are in the mind, the primary is also in the mind;

3. also, we have ideas of matter which are entirely mental; hence the concept of matter is not about "objective" reality and should be dropped from our philosophical vocabulary

1. is all knowledge is mental, then our knowledge of anything depends on our perception of it--Esse Est Percipi ("To Be is To Be Perceived")

a. it's contradictory to say that there is existence independent of the mind

b. all we know are ideas

2. but the world is not an illusion, nor am I the only existing thing

a. there are empirical experience of particular but not "matter" or "bodies"

3. science is thus not empirically demonstrable but the description with accuracy of the perceivable relations between signs and things signified;

a. a scientific law is a statement of the precise conditions under which some idea

or set of ideas is experienced

1. he starts with the question of what is the cause of the order and regularity of our experiences; to answer this he must disprove three answers:

a. it has a materialistic answer; but this is impossible because there is no matter

b. it's just an idea, but this is wrong because ideas from experience

c. it's just what we wish or will; but this is wrong because the mind is passive

as well as active

2. the only answer is God, who perceives all things and hence holds together all existence

1. 1632-1704; British who became a medical doctor and eventually personal physician and fried to the Earl of Shaftesbury (Lord Ashley); got involved in the political quarrel between James I and William and Mary of Orange; fled to Holland but returned in 1688 after the bloodless revolution, the Glorious Revolution

2. defender of religious and political toleration; in his last years primarily studied the Bible

3. bibliography--Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) and Two Treatises on Government (1690)

1. an empiricist; rejected substance philosophy and the demonstrable method to prove it

2. his philosophical method based more on physical science than math (ala Descartes)

3. not interested in proving certainty; world of full of complexities and uncertainties

4. idea come from experience and represent the world

1. wanted to base philosophy on common sense, not substance

2. the basic epistemological principle--all knowledge comes from experience

3. there are not innate ideas, no ideas before experience

a. the mind at birth is a tabula rasa (i.e., "blank tablet")

b. proof--children and idiots don't know math and logic; they are taught

4. philosophy becomes psychology:

a. sensation is sense data

b. ideas are the immediate object of perception

c. a quality (e.g., color) is a property of something or the knowing of it

5. the path of knowledge starts with the Historical Plain Method

a. the basic distinction--objects in the world and ideas about them

b. next distinction--primary qualities of the object, e.g., size and shape

secondary qualities of the knowing the object--e.g., color

c. the secondary qualities are properties of the object which are caused in us

6. the Causal Theory of Perception--explains how objects cause the idea of them

a. objects cause ideas by impulse

b. because we know primary qualities, we know there is an external world

c. we can trust our basic ideas about primary qualities because only the objects

could have caused them

7. what are ideas:

a. simple--from sensation or reflection

b. complex--abstract knowledge from reflection--synthesis of simple ideas

8. because of the above, we don't know how to answer the basic metaphysical question--what is the substance; "We know not what!"

9. do we know the self? it is our consciousness

a. personal identity is based on self-consciousness

b. we also have identity with a body, not a soul

1. something is good in reference to pleasure/human happiness

a. an ethical act--what produces the greatest possible positive good

2. pleasure and pain are simple ideas, which are obvious

3. the bad will--"foreshortening"

4. the highest ethical actions are those in conformity to Divine Law

a. in this conformity there is also the greatest pleasure

b. following the Divine Law is to our best interests--the law of pleasure and the

Divine Law meet

1. the basis of a just society is the moral law, which give everyone inalienable rights and duties--life liberty, and property

a. humanity's state of nature is moral and humanity first shares moral duties to

each other and then form political duties

b. the chief social duty--not to interfere with another's inalienable rights and duties

2. political equality follows from humanity's state of nature

a. the majority should not rule of the minority

b. the minorty should not be recalcitrant

3. the right to private property follows the right of life; everyone needs a place to live

4. the government's main role--implement the inalienable rights

5. the best government is laissez-faire democracy