Q0187

George Berkeley

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Their being is to be perceived.
Thinker George Berkeley
School Empiricism
Source A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, §3
Theme Being
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, §3, within the tradition of Empiricism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of being, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In George Berkeley's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: George Berkeley. (n.d.). Their being is to be perceived. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0187

MLA: George Berkeley. “Their being is to be perceived..” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0187.

Chicago: George Berkeley. “Their being is to be perceived..” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0187.

Same theme

More on being

  1. There are more things that frighten us than crush us, and we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
  2. The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself as accepted in spite of being unacceptable.
  3. Hope consists in asserting that there is at the heart of being… a mysterious principle which is in connivance with me.
  4. Picture human beings as if living in an underground, cave-like dwelling.
  5. Wherever you are, make yourself master; wherever you stand is real.

Browse the being theme