This collection of essays on themes in the work of John Locke , George Berkeley , and David Hume , provides a deepened understanding of major issues raised in the Empiricist tradition. In exploring their shared belief in the experiential nature of mental constructs, The Empiricists illuminates the different methodologies of these great Enlightenment philosophers and introduces students to important metaphysical and epistemological issues including the theory of ideas, personal identity, and skepticism. It will be especially useful in courses devoted (...) to the history of modern philosophy. (shrink)

This essay reinterprets Berkeley’s idealism as partially motivated by a need to overcome the Agrippan mode of relativity pressed by Pyrrhonists. It compares Berkeley’s solution to that of Protagoras as presented in Plato’s Theaetetus, and argues that Berkeley needed to depend on reason — intuition or demonstration — to avoid skepticism. In this interpretation, Berkeley is closer to the rationalist tradition than usually recognized.