Berkeley and Malebranche (Oxford Reprints S)

This book tries to show that Berkeley, when he was preparing to write his early books, made a thorough study of the Recherche , that the Berkeleian philosophy still bears the specific impress of that study, and, in particular, that the conception of seeing all things in God is at the back of the Berkeleian idea. The questions of literary dependence and of doctrinal affinity are closely knit. The case rests on evidence drawn from several sources, and the evidence, naturally, is not all on the same level of importance or cogency. There are elements in the philosophy of Malebranche that were repugnant to Berkeley and are alien to Berkeleianism. The Malebranchian factor may help to correct one-sided interpretations which portray Berkeley as a subjective idealist or a solipsist, and to check the habit of treating this distinctive philosophy as a mere link between Locke and Hume.