Whitehead, Berkeley, and Realism
Whitehead, Berkeley, and Realism

Summary/Abstract: This paper examines the shifting interpretations of George Berkeley’s philosophy in early 20th-century British realism, contrasting the Cantabrigian reading of Moore and Russell with the more sympathetic neorealist readings of Alexander, Nunn, Laird, and Dawes Hicks. The Cantabrigians accused Berkeley of conflating act and object, confining perception to private mental entities, and equivocating on “being in the mind.” Neorealists disputed these charges, arguing that Berkeley’s ideas could be construed as public, objective constituents of reality, aligning him with direct realism. Whitehead initially adopted the Cantabrigian stereotype, portraying Berkeley as a subjective idealist. Over time, influenced by neorealist and critical realist reinterpretations, Whitehead reassessed Berkeley as rejecting both the sensationalist and subjectivist principles that underpinned representative realism. In his later works, especially Science and the Modern World and Process and Reality, Whitehead treated Berkeley as a philosophical ally against “simple location” and misplaced concreteness. Berkeley’s immaterialism was thus reframed as epistemologically realist, though his metaphysics illustrated a sort of “extreme idealism”. The paper shows how Whitehead’s mature philosophy positioned Berkeley outside the main targets of his epistemological critique. This reinterpretation challenges the standard Cambridge reading and integrates Berkeley into the lineage of pre-Kantian, non-Cartesian realist thought.

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