Berkeley's Philosophy of Religion
نویسنده
چکیده
Like most of the great early modern philosophers, George Berkeley was not a university professor. He pursued, instead, a career in the clergy of the Anglican Church of Ireland. Berkeley was ordained in 1710, the same year he published his Treatise on the Principles of Human Knowledge (Berman 1994, 17). His first clerical post was as chaplain to Lord Peterborough from 1713-1714 (80). From here, Berkeley climbed the ranks of Irish clergy to become Dean of the cathedral at Derry beginning in 1724 and Bishop of Cloyne beginning in 1734 (97). Berkeley’s concerns as a philosopher were closely tied to his concerns as a clergyman. The Principles bears the subtitle, “Wherein the Chief Causes of Error and Difficulty in the Sciences, with the grounds of Scepticism, Atheism, and Irreligion, are inquired into,” and the Dialogues were subtitled, “In opposition to sceptics and atheists.” To an even greater degree than the early works, late works such as Alciphron and The Analyst are explicitly framed as works of Christian apologetics. The defense of traditional, Christian religion was clearly one of Berkeley’s central philosophical concerns. However, the defense of religion, for Berkeley, does not consist solely in the defense of religious doctrine; Berkeley consistently insists that it is “no less than the design of nature and providence, that the end of speculation be practice, or the improvement and regulation of our lives and actions” (DHP, 167). For this reason, Berkeley is hopeful that his philosophy may not only promote religious belief, but also “have a gradual influence in
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