Imagery of sight
Berkeley is deeply immersed in his research to discover the principles of knowledge. His description of the fellow philosophers helps the reader to visualize their views regarding expertise. Berkeley says, “How discouraging soever this attempt may seem, when I consider how many great, and extraordinary men have gone before me in the like designs, yet I am not without some hopes-upon the consideration that the largest views are not always the clearest, and that he who is short-sighted will be obliged to draw the object nearer, and may perhaps, by a close and narrow survey, discern that which had escaped far better eyes.”
The imagery of an object
The author is keen to learn why people are discriminative of what they see. For instance, an object is perceived by sight. The author says, “For example, there is perceived object extended, colored, and moved: this mixed or compound idea the mind resolving into its simple, constituent parts, and viewing each by itself, exclusive of the rest, does frame the abstract ideas of extension, color, and motion.”
Imagery of Mind
The mind's action arouses the sense of sight when the reader goes through ‘A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge’ by George Berkeley. According to the author, the mind can see and distinguish between people and objects. The author writes, "For example, the mind having observed that Peter, James, and John resemble each other in certain common agreements of shape and other qualities, leaving out the complex or compounded idea it has of Peter, James, and another particular man."
The imagery of dust
Berkley argues that philosophers have not uncovered the principles of knowledge simply because their assumptions have blocked up knowledge’s way. The author writes, “Upon the whole, I am inclined to think that the far greater part, if not all, of those difficulties which have hitherto amused philosophers, and blocked up the way to knowledge, are entirely owing to ourselves-that we have first raised and a dust and then complain we cannot see.”
