Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Berkeley’s life and works
- 2 Was Berkeley an empiricist or a rationalist?
- 3 Berkeley’s notebooks
- 4 Berkeley’s theory of vision and its reception
- 5 Berkeley and the doctrine of signs
- 6 Berkeley’s argument for immaterialism
- 7 Berkeley on minds and agency
- 8 Berkeley’s natural philosophy and philosophy of science
- 9 Berkeley’s philosophy of mathematics
- 10 Berkeley’s moral and political philosophy
- 11 Berkeley’s economic writings
- 12 Berkeley on religion
- Appendix
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Berkeley’s theory of vision and its reception
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 August 2006
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Berkeley’s life and works
- 2 Was Berkeley an empiricist or a rationalist?
- 3 Berkeley’s notebooks
- 4 Berkeley’s theory of vision and its reception
- 5 Berkeley and the doctrine of signs
- 6 Berkeley’s argument for immaterialism
- 7 Berkeley on minds and agency
- 8 Berkeley’s natural philosophy and philosophy of science
- 9 Berkeley’s philosophy of mathematics
- 10 Berkeley’s moral and political philosophy
- 11 Berkeley’s economic writings
- 12 Berkeley on religion
- Appendix
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Berkeley's New Theory of Vision has had an excellent press. In the introduction to his edition, A. A. Luce presents it as a book that, from early on, received wide acclaim; a number of other authors have reinforced that impression. In the second part of his Dissertation (first published in 1821) Dugald Stewart makes this report: The solid additions, however, made by Berkeley to the stock of human knowledge were important and brilliant. Among these, the first place is unquestionably due to his New Theory of Vision; a work abounding with ideas so different from those commonly received, and, at the same time, so true, so profound and refined, that it was regarded by all but a few accustomed to deep metaphysical reflection, rather in the light of a philosophical romance than of a sober inquiry after truth. Such, however, has been since the progress and diffusion of this sort of knowledge, that the leading and most abstracted doctrines contained in it, form now an essential part of every elementary treatise of optics, and are adopted by the most superficial smatterers in science as fundamental articles of their faith.
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- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Berkeley , pp. 94 - 124Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005
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