George Berkeley, the Irish philosopher and Anglican priest, settled in Newport, Rhode Island, one of the few places in New England that was hospitable to Anglicans. There his lively mind and sympathetic spirit involved him in a variety of interests. This book is an account of an episode of his religious life of colonial New England.

Irish philosopher George Bishop Berkeley was one of the greatest philosophers of the early modern period. Along with David Hume and John Locke he is considered one of the fathers of British Empiricism. Berkeley is a clear, concise, and sympathetic introduction to George Berkeley’s philosophy, and a thorough review of his most important texts. Daniel E. Flage explores his works on vision, metaphysics, morality, and economics in an attempt to develop a philosophically plausible interpretation of Berkeley’s oeuvre as whole. Many scholars blur the rejection of material substance (immaterialism) with the claim that only minds and things dependent upon minds exist (idealism). However Flage shows how, by distinguishing idealism from immaterialism and arguing that Berkeley’s account of what there is (metaphysics) is dependent upon what is known (epistemology), a careful and plausible philosophy emerges. The author sets out the implications of this valuable insight for Berkeley’s moral and economic works, showing how they are a natural outgrowth of his metaphysics, casting new light on the appreciation of these and other lesser-known areas of Berkeley’s thought. Daniel E. Flage’s Berkeley presents the student and general reader with a clear and eminently readable introduction to Berkeley’s works which also challenges standard interpretations of Berkeley’s philosophy.

This work traces the theory of Radical Dependence through its various forms in Berkeley’s philosophical works. It shows that a desire to establish a theory of Radical Dependence underlies all of these works and that this theory unifies Berkeley’s various phases of philosophical development. The work begins by establishing the meaning of “Radical Dependence” and examining the influence of Greek, Early Christian and Mediaeval philosophers and theologians on the development of the concept. Subsequently, the deism of the seventeenth-century philosophers is examined; the influence of science and rationalism on the development of deism is traced, with particular attention being given to Berkeley’s personal milieu. With a view to showing that Berkeley wishes to re-establish the waning Christian cosmology, his philosophical works are examined in chronological order, particular attention being paid to his final work Siris. It is shown that, although Berkeley moves from a philosophy based on the immaterialist hypothesis in his early works, to one based on the doctrine of participation in his last work, each phase is a variation of the doctrine of Radical Dependence. In the final chapter some of the shortcomings of Berkeley’s various philosophical systems are discussed and alternatives are examined. The direction of his thought is found to be guided more by piety than by common-sense and reason: he suffers from a pious pragmatism which leads him to hold doctrines as true on the grounds that they corroborate Christian doctrines. His firm belief in the providence of God leads him to affirm an almost pantheistic worldview which he never fully manages to reconcile with traditional Christian theology, and the doctrine of creation ex nihilo in particular.

Saunder's explores Smibert's early Scottish and London training as well as his travels in Italy; his portrait practice in London; his arrival in America and his stylistic development; the creation of "The Bermuda Group"; and the business of portrait painting in Boston.