1.3: Glossary

accurate: In Berkeley’s day, ‘accurate’ could mean (as it does today) ‘correct’, ‘fitting the facts’, of the like. But it often—as in 130—meant something more like ‘detailed’ or ‘making fine distinctions’ or ‘precise’.

arbitrary: In early modern uses, this means ‘chosen’, resulting from someone’s decision, or the like. There’s no implication (as there is in today’s use of the term) that there weren’t good reasons for the choice.

condescend: These days condescension involves unpleasant patronising of someone whom one sees as lower on the social scale; but in early modern times it could be a praiseworthy way of not standing on one’s dignity.

deist: Someone who believes there is a god (opposite of ‘atheist’), but whose theology is thin compared with Christianity— e.g. the deist doesn’t think of God as intervening in the world. Berkeley see the deist as someone who rejects religious revelation, purports to believe in natural religion, but is actually a covert atheist.

erect: Berkeley uses this to mean the opposite of ‘inverted’ or ‘upside-down’.

feeling: In the main work this word occurs only in 93 and 145. Berkeley seems to mean ‘the sense of feeling’ to cover proprioception (your sensory awareness of how your body is moving) as well as the sense of touch.

minimum visibile: Latin for visible point.

minute philosopher: Cicero used this phrase to label philosophers who minimize things, regard as small things that most of us think are great. It is Berkeley’s favourite name for philosophers who, like Shaftesbury (he thought), reject revealed religion, deny that men have free-will, say that morality is based on feelings rather than insight into necessary moral truths, and so on.

paint: You’ll see for yourself how Berkeley uses this verb, namely in a way that doesn’t bring in the noun! This was one standard way of using it at his time.

prenotion: ‘A notion of something prior to actual knowledge of it; a preconceived idea’ (OED).

prejudice: This basically means ‘something judged or believed in advance’ (of the present investigation, of the evidence, or of etc.)—an old, firm opinion. These days ‘prejudice’ usually has the narrower meaning of ‘something pre-judged concerning race, sex, etc’., but Berkeley’s use of it is not like that.

regarded: When Berkeley says that x is more ‘regarded’ than y he means that x is given more weight, seen as more important, attended to more, than y.

shape: Wherever this word occurs here it is as a replacement for ‘figure’. In a few places, especially in 150–152 and 155–158 the word ‘figure’ is allowed stand, for obvious reasons.

situation: Sometimes Berkeley uses ‘situation’ to mean ‘location’. In 98, 101 and v60 the ‘situation’ of the eye is the direction in which it is pointed—it’s what changes if you keep your head still and roll your eyes. And Berkeley often, especially in 88–120, uses ‘situation’ to mean ‘orientation’. Where it’s quite clear that that is his meaning, ‘orientation’ will be substituted for ‘situation’.

speculation: Theorising. It doesn’t have to be ‘speculative’ in our sense, involving guess-work. The ‘practical and speculative parts of geometry’ are •applied geometry and •pure or theoretical geometry respectively.

sudden: By a ‘sudden’ judgment Berkeley means one that is made straight off, without a pause to calculate or consider.

visible point: The smallest amount of a visual image that can be noticed.

vulgar: Applied to people who have no social rank, are not much educated, and (the suggestion often is) not very intelligent.