Answer to Question 1
- George Berkeley: subjective idealism (the belief that only ideas and conscious minds have actual existence) expressed as esse est percipi (To be is to be perceived).
- Using the example of the table, Berkeley admits that there must be something which continues to exist when we are not perceiving it, and seeing the table gives us reason to believe that there is something that persists even when we are not seeing it. But he thinks that this something cannot be radically different in nature from what we see, and cannot be independent of seeing altogether, though it must be independent of our seeing. He is thus led to regard the real table as an idea in the mind of God.
- What the senses immediately tell us is not the truth about the object as it is apart from us, but only the truth about certain sense-data which, so far as we can see, depend upon the relations between us and the object. Thus what we directly see and feel is merely appearance, which we believe to be a sign of some reality behind.
Answer to Question 2
- In epistemology, skepticism is a school of thought that casts doubt on the possibility of achieving genuine knowledge.
- Skepticism includes positions such as doubting all assumptions until proved or claiming that no knowledge is possible in any circumstances.
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