The Works of George Berkeley. Volume 1

While working as a librarian, junior dean, and lecturer in theology, Greek, and Hebrew, this Irish-born Anglican bishop and philosopher managed to write An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision and a more well-known work, Principles of Knowledge. From the latter work came his famous empirical claim, "Esse est precipi" ("To be is to be perceived"), whose fundamental point was to deny the independent reality of material objects. Berkeley was educated at Trinity College (1700), married Anne Foster, and eventually sailed to Newport, Rhode Island, where he wrote Alciphron, defending the authority of theology.