On Berkeley’s Theory Of Ideas

Idea is one of two core categories in Berkeley’s philosophy, especially in the early stages. Berkeley’s center of gravity is tending to the idea rather than the mind. It is more important than the idea nominally. Berkeley’s theory of idea is based on Rocke, but is different from Rocke. The former is simpler than the later and for the Rocke’s abstract idea, Berkeley is spare no effort to criticism. Berkeley thought that the abstract idea was an obstacle, which people set themselves on the road of human knowledge, was the root, which people stalled and even fell into skepticism.The proposition that to be is to be perceived is the most critical in Berkeley’s philosophy. However, this proposition makes Berkeley to suffer numerous critical. The deviations are easy to be resulted for the understanding of the proposition, so there are various misunderstanding for Berkeley. The proposition of "to be" is the key to understanding and today’s academic circle is generally believed that "to be" refers to "existence of sensible ideas". But my opinion is that the understanding is so broad that not the original meaning of Berkeley. Firstly, I am try to analyze the writings of Berkeley. Besides, as the one can be determined through the mutual relationship between the idea, as perceived object and the mind, as perceptive subject.Compared with earlier works, there are many different formulations in Berkeley’s later work--Siris. He even gave up the idea and replaced it with appearence. For the idea or appearence, Berkeley’s thought was transited from praising to belittling. Due to those changes, Berkeley changed on the theory of knowledge. He denied the knowledge come from concepts, and he thought that it was no longer the real knowledge. The reasons why Berkeley has such changes are both of the influence by Plato and the result of theory development.