Abstract
In the last two chapters, I have tried to show as much as I could about Berkeley’s theory by describing the theories of two of his rivals, and then discussing Berkeley’s criticisms of them. Now I am going to consider a group of philosophers and theological critics known collectively as the Deists. Berkeley criticized the Deists on several fronts relevant to morals and theology, and most of these criticisms are based firmly in his ontology and epistemology. One of my claims in this book has been that Berkeley’s moral philosophy is systematically related to these other two branches of his philosophy, and by showing how he criticizes the Deists, I hope to adduce further evidence for this thesis. We shall also see that there are several critical issues on which Berkeley is in agreement with the Deists. In this chapter, I shall discuss what deism is, and I shall present some summaries of the views of some of the more prominent Deists. Berkeley’s criticisms are presented in the next chapter.
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References
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© 1969 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Olscamp, P.J. (1969). The Deists. In: The Moral Philosophy of George Berkeley. Archives Internationales D’histoire Des Idées / International Archives of the History of Ideas, vol 33. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-3199-8_9
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