Born in Kilkenny, Ireland, George Berkeley (1684-1753) entered Trinity College, in Dublin, at the age of fifteen. He studied the philosophical luminaries of the time - Locke, Newton, Melebranche - as well as previous philosophers such as Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, and Leibniz. He learned mathematics, physics and optics from the works of Kepler, Descartes, and Newton. His greatest influence, however, was Plato.

Berkeley remained at Trinity for thirteen years, where he produced his most important works: Essays Toward a New Theory of Vision(1709), Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (1713) and A Treatise Concerning Human Knowledge (1710), written when he was only twenty-five. All three works were either ignored or vehemently disliked, however, mostly because they were completely misunderstood. Philosophers, scholars and theologians alike labeled him a skeptic, a label which he tried to refute; nevertheless, his views were for the most part regarded as being patently absurd.

bio by Daniel Kolak in Lovers of Wisdom
(Wadsworth, 1997)