Was Gregory of Nyssa a Berkeleyan Idealist?

Author(s)

Darren Hibbs, Nova Southeastern UniversityFollow

Publication Title

British Journal for the History of Philosophy

ISSN

0960-8788

Publication Date

8-2005

Abstract

Excerpt

In ‘Idealism and Greek Philosophy: What Descartes Saw and Berkeley Missed’,¹ Miles Burnyeat defends the following theses:

1. Idealism, whether we mean by that Berkeley's own doctrine that esse est percipi or a more vaguely conceived thesis to the effect that everything is in some substantial sense mental or spiritual, is one of the very few major philosophical positions that did not receive its first formulation in antiquity.²
   Descartes had achieved a decisive shift of perspective without which no one, not even Berkeley, could have entertained the thought that esse est percipi.³

DOI

10.1080/09608780500157155

Volume

13

Issue

3

First Page

425

Last Page

435

NSUWorks Citation

Hibbs, D. (2005). Was Gregory of Nyssa a Berkeleyan Idealist?. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 13 (3), 425-435. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608780500157155