Scepticism and the Influence of the Lockean Thought on Berkeley’s Philosophy

The paper seeks to answer the question about the actual influence of the Lockean thought on Berkeley’s philosophy. It promotes the view that though scepticism that arises from the representational theory of perception is an important factor for motivating Berkeley to built his anti-sceptical strategy, it is the so-called corpuscular scepticism that was in fact an essential element of this influence. The latter was a consequence of assuming the notion of corpuscular, yet unknown material substance by Locke, and motivated Berkeley to consider an argument for rejection of the existence of such substance. The Berkeleian anti-sceptical argument here seems congenial to the Cartesian origins of his definition of existence, and enables us to combine the Lockean perspective with the Cartesian reading of sources of Berkeley’s philosophy