Siris: A Chain of Philosophical Reflexions and Inquiries Concerning the Virtues of Tar Water, and Divers Other Subjects Connected Together and Arising One From Another

by George Berkeley

Excerpt from Siris

Agé 1 o h fen 20115 7 Q grwegfglxtiasrm 1'c lon of cold water to a quart of this tar, Pm and work them very {from to~ gcthcr, th a ?at ?ick, for about four minutes Let the vcfi'cl fiand cover ed forty gbr hours, that the tar may fobfide. Then pour off the clear wa.

Genres: Philosophy

378 pages, Paperback

First published December 20, 2009

About the author

George Berkeley (/ˈbɑːrklɪ/;[1][2] 12 March 1685 – 14 January 1753) — known as Bishop Berkeley (Bishop of Cloyne) — was an Anglo-Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immaterialism" (later referred to as "subjective idealism" by others). This theory denies the existence of material substance and instead contends that familiar objects like tables and chairs are only ideas in the minds of perceivers, and as a result cannot exist without being perceived. Berkeley is also known for his critique of abstraction, an important premise in his argument for immaterialism.

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

George^Berkeley

Reviews

[Michael Morrisey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has kind of a wild structure, which the author admits toward the end may be seen as a potentially pleasant trick played on the reader. I enjoyed most of it, but I didn't get what I came for. I had heard that it slowly transitions from being a treatise on tar water tonic to a proof of God, and I wanted to see how that subtle transition could be made. My experience was that after sixty relatively boring pages of questionable old science writing about tar water, which I will admit I do now want to try, it abruptly switches to a survey of ancient philosophers like Plato and more recent scientists (especially in 1744 when it was published) like Newton on the nature of light and God. Despite being a little let down by the subtlety of the form, I found the content of the latter two-thirds pretty engaging and worth reading on its own merit. I was surprised at how many ideas I think of as modern were already considered way back when. I particularly enjoyed seeing some early conceptions of the wave-particle duality of light.

[Galicius · Rating 2 out of 5]

The philosopher whose “immaterialism” theory that denies existence of material things—they are only in the mind and do not exist outside the mind—proposes, strongly the use of “tar-water” (pine tar) in “Essay on Tar-Water” as a cure for all sorts of ailments involving the nervous system.