Today I eclipse the honor of regurgitating the proclamation of one of the most prominent, if not the most prominent philosophical figure of our time, George Berkley. This man not only managed to envelop his doctrine with due diligence, but utterly paved the way for a novel paradigm to seep through my once ignorant mind, igniting a potent flame within.
If some are unaware of the peripherals and fundamentals of Berkeley's doctrine, allow me to shed a light: Berkeley’s school of thought encompassed the field of epistemology which is essentially the study of how we come to know things. One may draw a few parallels to the work of John Locke which roughly states that there are indistinctive traits that people unite on such as size, length, and width of an object which are called primary traits, and there are unique traits that people diverge on such as taste, color, and smell which are often known as secondary traits. With that being said, our senses cannot thoroughly dictate what reality is in its essence, thus dubbing reality as objective and our attempt at perceiving it futile. Alas, herein dovetails Berkeley's doctrine which states that ‘To be is to be perceived’, meaning that one exists insofar as one is being perceived.
Berkeley's proclamation is controversial at best, due to the sheer fact that if one is not perceiving nor is being perceived, then one ceases to be of existence. But I for one find it absolutely astonishing, that thinking even if just for a mere second that things may not be as they seem or as we see them directly, opens the door for a myriad of unique perceptions that mitigate the many perplexities of life. His doctrine allows one to numb the pain of life's sorrows in a way the dubs life as fictitious. I for one do not see it as an escape, but rather, a breath of fresh air utilized for giving one a new perspective on what one sees as real.
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