ABSTRACT
George Berkeley, an Irishman of English descent, was born on March 12, 1685 near Kilkenny, Ireland.1 At the age of ten, he entered Kilkenny College, and at fifteen, Trinity College, Dublin. He received his B.A. there at nineteen, and then stayed on to prepare for a fellowship examination. In 1707 he was made a fellow of the college, and, as the appointment required, took Holy Orders. At about that time, he began the notebooks that we know today as the Philosophical Commentaries; they were finished a little over a year later. An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision appeared in 1709, A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge in 1710, and the Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in 1713. By the age of twenty-eight, then, Berkeley had completed the great works that give him a secure place in the history of philosophy.
