Margaret Atherton

Berkeley has made the bold claim on behalf of his theory that it is uniquely able to justify the claim that snow is white. But this claim, made most strikingly in the Third of his Three Dialogues, has been held, most forcefully by Margaret Wilson, to conflict with Berkeley's argument in the First Dialogue that, because of various facts to do with perceptual variation, colors are merely apparent and hence, mind‐dependent. This paper develops an alternative reading of the First Dialogue arguments, in which their project is not to establish the mind‐dependence of colors but instead to undermine the position that colors are also mind‐independent. Under these circumstances, the coherence of the First and the Third Dialogue arguments is assured, just so long as the Third Dialogue claim to have established that snow is really white is not taken to mean that snow is mind‐independently white, but instead, something like that our experiences of snow are stably and regularly white.

Not long ago, historians of philosophy realized with some excitement the canonical texts of the early modern period could be rendered increasingly intelligible if they were read not as discussing a series of atemporal “purely philosophical” questions, but as embedded in the issues raised by contemporaneous events such as the scientific revolution. To take an often-discussed example, it was hoped that, so contextualized, Locke’s notoriously puzzling distinction between primary and secondary qualities would fall into place as an expression of his colleague Boyle’s corpuscularianism. But even so contextualized, Locke’s texts and many others remained puzzling. Part of the problem, we are now learning, is that the very concept of the scientific revolution itself needs to be contextualized. Historians of philosophy relied too heavily on an understanding of the scientific revolution constructed with an eye to our present-day understanding of science which overprivileges the physical sciences and papers over differences flourishing in the early modern period. In The Invisible World, Catherine Wilson, a philosopher, takes matters into her own hands and, through an examination of the history of the microscope, contributes important evidence for the need to enrich our understanding of the nature of science in the period from 1620 to 1720.

Margaret Atherton asks the provocative question whether Berkeley has a theory of meaning. Commentators have defended the notion that Berkeley adopts a Lockean ‘ideational’ theory of meaning, whereby a word is meaningful if and only if it signifies an idea in the mind of the speaker, and various ‘non-ideational’ readings of his theories of meaning, including precursors to the ‘use’ theory of meaning made famous by Wittgenstein. Against this trend in recent scholarship, Atherton argues that attention to the context in which Berkeley was writing, along with close textual analysis of the places where Berkeley is said to develop his theory of meaning (especially the draft introduction to the Principles and Alciphron) reveal that, strictly speaking, it is not right to attribute a ‘theory’ of meaning to him at all.

Presents a concise and comprehensive analysis of George Berkeley’s thought and the impact of his intellectual contributions to philosophy In this latest addition to the Blackwell Great Minds series, noted scholar of early modern philosophy Margaret Atherton examines Berkeley’s most influential work and demonstrates the significant conceptual impact of his ideas in metaphysics and the philosophy of religion. A concise and rigorous primer on Berkeley’s essential writings and contributions to modern philosophy Written by a leading scholar of early modern philosophy Offers insight into the foundations of modern metaphysical and religious philosophy Equips readers to find firm footing in Berkeley’s wider body of published work in the canon of Western philosophy.

This book, a collection of articles on women's contributions to the history of philosophy, can accurately be described as long-awaited. Originally conceived in, I gather, roughly its present form in 2006, it is now finally in 2019 reaching the light of day. Although unavoidable delays are always a pity, in this case the result is certainly worth the wait, and the significantly high quality of the volume has not been undercut by its belated appearance. In 2006, the editors secured contributions from most of the leading contributors to the field of women in the history of philosophy, and since twelve years is not all that long a time, they remain leading contributors. Anyone interested in teaching, writing about, or...

This book is, as the editor claims, the first collection of essays dedicated to Berkeley’s Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. It also derives largely from a conference held at Trinity College, Dublin in 2014. The editor, therefore, was somewhat at the mercy of those who submitted papers to the conference to determine the contents of the volume. In pointing this out, I do not intend to be casting aspersions on the quality of the papers included. By and large, the contributors are among the most prominent Berkeley scholars working today and the quality is high. I will want, however, to think about the extent to which this collection provides materials for an overall understanding and assessment of Three...

Deux innovations caractérisent la philosophie de Berkeley : il met la perception au centre de sa théorie de l'être (esse est percipi out percipere) et il lie étroitement vision et langage, en affirmant que les idées de la vue constituent un " langage universel de l'Auteur de la nature ". Ces deux innovations continuent à nourrir la philosophie contemporaine, en particulier certains aspects de la philosophie analytique. C'est pourquoi, il est essentiel d'examiner à nouveaux frais les questions concernant l'hétérogénéité des champs sensoriels, la nature de la suggestion, le rôle de l'imagination et celui de l'idée médiate dans la construction de l'objet. Le présent ouvrage vise donc à éclairer le tournant philosophique et sémantique instauré par Berkeley dans l'étude de la perception et de la vision. Une comparaison avec Locke met en valeur la spécificité des thèses du philosophe irlandais. Un examen précis des textes concernés permet de réévaluer la place et le rôle des thèses sur la vision dans l'économie générale de l'œuvre. Textes de Margaret Atherton, Bertil Belfrage, Geneviève Brykman, Richard Glauser, Philippe Hamou, Jean-Michel Vienne.