Berkeley's Principles of Idealism: Objectivity through Notions

Abstract

Some commentators believe Berkeley's Idealism is actually a reified dualism or skeptical subjectivism based upon the invalid implementation of Aristotelean metaphysics or antiabstractionism. I argue that these critics fail to recognize that perception is the foundation of both Berkeley's anti-abstraction and ontology. His philosophy is a precursor to Kant in its presumption of necessarily true knowledge of experience through a nominalistic relation of particulars via notional understanding.