The Problems of Philosophy

Descartes (1596-1650), the founder of modern philosophy

perhaps a majority, have held that there is nothing real except minds and their ideas. Such philosophers are called 'idealists'

Cogito, ergo sum

But science habitually assumes, at least as a working hypothesis, that general rules which have exceptions can be replaced by general rules which have no exceptions

Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists

Bishop Berkeley (1685-1753). His Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists, undertake to prove that there is no such thing as matter at all, and that the world consists of nothing but minds and their ideas.

If, then, we cannot trust what we see with the naked eye, why should we trust what we see through a microscope? Thus, again, the confidence in our senses with which we began deserts us.

no two can see it from exactly the same point of view, and any change in the point of view makes some change in the way the light is reflected.

our instinctive beliefs do not clash, but form a harmonious system.

Most philosophers, rightly or wrongly, believe that philosophy can do much more than this—that it can give us knowledge, not otherwise attainable, concerning the universe as a whole, and concerning the nature of ultimate reality.