This is Philosophy Bites with me Nigel Warburton and me David Edmonds.

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Two US universities have a particular connection to Bishop Berkeley, the Irish philosopher born in 1685.

The first is Yale.

Berkeley had brought a plantation during his years in the New World 1728 to 1731 and later donated the land to Yale providing funding for its first

scholarships. The second is named after him, an honour somewhat devalued by a mispronunciation, the University of California, Berkeley.

As Berkeley scholar Tom Stoneham explains, the Bishop insisted on the distinction between

mind and body and became most famous for promoting a theory of immaterialism.

Tom Stoneham, welcome to Philosophy Bites.

Hello, Nigel. Thanks for having me.

The topic we're going to focus on is George Barclay's immaterialism.

What is it immaterialism?

Well, it's the denial of any matter.

It's the view that there is a world, but it's not made of matter. It's the view that there is a world but it's not made of matter.

Okay we'll come back to that. Let's get to the other bit. Who was George Barclay?

Well he was an Irish philosopher born in the late 17th century, mainly active in the early 18th century and he was

a fellow of Trinity College Dublin and eventually went on to be a bishop in later life.

He's usually called Bishop Barclay isn't he? Yes he is I don't like

that myself he didn't become a bishop until he was 49 and he'd written all his

major philosophical works. He had been ordained in 1709, so he'd been a clergyman for a long time,

...