Abstract

In the early 1730s George Berkeley began to explore the conceptual field between ideas and spirits that he previously claimed to be empty. In this field he found a rich set of concepts including “notions,” “principles,” “beliefs,” “opinions,” and even “prejudices.” Elsewhere I have referred to this phase in Berkeley’s thought as his “second conceptual revolution.”2 I believe that it was motivated by his increasing need to develop a language to discuss the social, moral and theological concerns vital to him and his circle. This second conceptual revolution made possible two of his most important contributions to 18th century thought: The Analyst and The Querist. Even though they were written almost simultaneously, these texts are rarely discussed together, since the former is categorized as a critique of the foundations of the calculus, while the latter is taken a tract advocating the development of a specie-less economy in Ireland. Using new textual and contextual evidence, however, I will show with that these two texts have a common basis in Berkeley’s second conceptual revolution, in that the rejection of intrinsic values and the revaluation of notions, principles, and prejudices are crucial to the critique of both Newtonian mathematics in The Analystand Newtonian monetary theory and policy in The Querist. Specifically, I will argue that Berkeley’s famous demonstration of the absurdities of Newton’s method of fluxions devalued geometric reasoning and gave a new pride of place to algebraic reasoning. On the basis of this revaluation in mathematics, Berkeley more confidently undermined the concept of intrinsic monetary value and suggested the development of a monetary system based on “tickets, tokens and counters”. The issues posed by the transition from a specie-based to a specie-less currency were clearly some of the most important and controversial in the Age of Enlightenment. Berkeley’s contributions to understanding the significance and feasibility of such atransition and its benefits for Ireland certainly add support the claim that he was “the most engaging and useful man in Ireland in the eighteenth century.”