After hours of being unable to sleep, 19-year-old John Quincy Adams pulled out one of George Berkeley’s Dialogues against materialism, which JQA considered “a curious System, and rather a new one to me.” Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne and an influential philosopher of the early modern period, was known for defending idealism, a school of thought arguing for the existence of immaterial things. This was contrary to materialism, the idea that material things exist. Click on the link to read JQAs full diary entry.
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 14:02:31 +0000