George Berkeley

1685–1753

George Berkeley, known as Bishop Berkeley, was an Anglo-Irish philosopher, writer, and clergyman who is regarded as the founder of immaterialism, a philosophical theory he developed which later came to be known as subjective idealism. He has also been called "the father of idealism" by German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Berkeley played a leading role in the empiricism movement and was one of its pioneers. He was among the most cited philosophers of 18th-century Europe, and his works deeply influenced later thinkers such as Immanuel Kant and David Hume.