George Berkeley and Jonathan Edwards on Idealism: Considering an Old Question in Light of New Evidence (2019)
Since 1829, it has been the received and accepted scholarly opinion that Jonathan Edwards did not read the writings of George Berkeley and thus was not influenced thereby in the development of his own Idealism. This essay contends otherwise. With new evidence available, it is shown to be highly probable that Edwards has a historical as well as conceptual connection to the Idealism of Berkeley. A historical connection is argued for by utilizing Edwards’s “Catalogue” to establish a timeline that illustrates when he penned his own Idealist writings in connection to when he read Berkeley. A conceptual connection is argued for by focusing upon both several idiosyncratic Berkeleyisms of style and two Berkeleyan theses also found in Edwards’s writings. Finally, the conceptual connection between the two are strengthened, after demonstrating how Berkeleyan Idealism singularly differs from other prominent Early Modern Idealisms. By examining what Edwards read, how he wrote, and how he thought, a reasonable case is set forth for affirming a historical and conceptual connection between Edwards and Berkeley. Thus, after two centuries of dispute, there is finally justified merit for labeling Edwards as a Berkeleyan Idealist.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Shannon Dea;
(2015)
A House at War Against Itself: Absolute Versus Pluralistic Idealism in Spinoza, Peirce, James and Royce
(/isis/citation/CBB655215457/)
Book
Düsing, Klaus;
(2002)
Subjektivität und Freiheit: Untersuchungen zum Idealismus von Kant bis Hegel
(/isis/citation/CBB000600346/)
Book
C. B. Bow;
(2018)
Common Sense in the Scottish Enlightenment
(/isis/citation/CBB560299497/)
Book
Dudley, Will;
(2008)
Understanding German Idealism
(/isis/citation/CBB000850360/)
Article
Liesbet De Kock;
(2020)
‘I think’ (the thoughts of others). The German tradition of apperceptionism and the intellectual history of schizophrenia
(/isis/citation/CBB651883356/)
Article
Storriea, Stefan;
(2012)
What Is It the Unbodied Spirit Cannot Do? Berkeley and Barrow on the Nature of Geometrical Construction
(/isis/citation/CBB001211013/)
Book
Jolley, Nicholas;
(2013)
Causality and Mind: Essays on Early Modern Philosophy
(/isis/citation/CBB001553076/)
Article
Peter Cheyne;
(2019)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge on Ideas Actualized in History
(/isis/citation/CBB515407793/)
Book
Nathaniel Wolloch;
(2016)
Nature in the History of Economic Thought: How Natural Resources Became an Economic Concept
(/isis/citation/CBB540959036/)
Book
Lucy Allais;
(2015)
Manifest Reality: Kant's Idealism and his Realism
(/isis/citation/CBB261573699/)
Article
Insole, Christopher;
(2011)
Kant's Transcendental Idealism and Newton's Divine Sensorium
(/isis/citation/CBB001230825/)
Article
Paul Franks;
(2015)
Peirce's ‘Schelling-Fashioned Idealism’ and ‘the Monstrous Mysticism of the East’
(/isis/citation/CBB223422904/)
Article
Park, Jeongwoo;
(2007)
Le Débat Wolffien Sur L'Idéalisme de Leibniz Lors de la Première Diffusion de la Monadologie Latine
(/isis/citation/CBB001252097/)
Article
Ivaldo, Marco;
(2007)
Cornelio Fabro lettore di Fichte
(/isis/citation/CBB000933329/)
Article
Acerbi, Ariberto;
(2010)
Jacobi e l'interpretazione fichtiana della lettera a Fitche (1799). Realismo, idealismo, nichilismo
(/isis/citation/CBB000933354/)
Article
Jeremy Dunham;
(2015)
Idealism, Pragmatism, and the Will to Believe: Charles Renouvier and William James
(/isis/citation/CBB687579261/)
Article
Paul Redding;
(2015)
An Hegelian Solution to a Tangle of Problems Facing Brandom's Analytic Pragmatism
(/isis/citation/CBB119442305/)
Book
Antonio Lombardi;
(2020)
David George Ritchie: Un darwinista hegeliano nell'Inghilterra vittoriana
(/isis/citation/CBB153224913/)
Article
Bougas, T.;
(2004)
Greek Motives in German Idealism: Hegel and Hölderlin
(/isis/citation/CBB000931334/)
Book
Karin de Boer;
Tinca Prunea-Bretonnet;
(2021)
The Experiential Turn in Eighteenth-Century German Philosophy
(/isis/citation/CBB594024759/)
Be the first to comment!