Berkeley's Metaphysics

The seven essays in the first part, entitled “Idealism,” attempt to illuminate Berkeley’s notorious thesis that to be is to be perceived, that the esse of sensible things (trees, mountains, rivers, etc.) is percipi. Most of the essays in this first part are either direct or indirect responses to an influential interpretation of Berkeley’s idealism advanced thirty years ago by Edwin B. Allaire. The second part, “Volition, Action, and Causation,” contains four essays focusing on Berkeley’s volitionism, on his thesis that only the activities of minds (volitions) are causally efficacious. “Vision and the Perceptual Objects,” the third part of the volume, deals with Berkeley’s theory of vision and his doctrine that all of the objects of perception depend on God’s will for their existence.

Robert G. Muehlmann is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario. He is the author of Berkeley's Ontology (1992).

Contents

Preface

Bibliographical Note

Contributors

Introduction

Part I: Idealism

1. Berkeley's Idealism: Yet Another Visit/Edwin B. Allaire

2. On Allaire's "Another Visit"/Alan Hausman and David Hausman

3. A New Approach to Berkeley's Ideal Reality/ Alan Hausman and David Hausman

4. On the Hausmans's "A New Approach"/Fred Wilson

5. The Substance of Berkeley's Philosophy/Robert G. Muehlmann

6. Berkeley's Manifest Qualities Thesis/Phillip D. Cummins

7. Berkeleian Idealism and Impossible Performances/George Pappas

Part II: Volition, Action, and Causation

8. Berkeley's Problem of Sighted Agency/Robert G. Muehlmann

9. Berkeley and Action/Robert Imlay

10. On Imlay's "Berkeley and Action"/Catherine Wilson

11. Berkeley's Case Against Realism about Dynamics/Lisa Downing

Part III: Vision and Perceptual Objects

12. Seeing Distance from a Berkeleian Perspective/Robert Schwartz

13. Berkeley Without God/Margaret Atherton

14. Godless Immaterialism: On Atherton's Berkeley/Charles J. McCracken

Philosophy