L'immatérialisme, allié naturel ou ennemi désigné des philosophes chrétiens

Abstract

The aim of Berkeley's philosophy, as indicated in the subtitle of the Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, was to attack scepticism and atheism ; it seemed therefore destined to become a reference, or even the inspiration, for those 18th-century Christian thinkers who wanted to counter contemporary mate¬ rialism and atheism. Despite a few exceptions, however, this was not the case, and they were more concerned to refute Berkeley's immaterialism. The Jesuits were particularly responsible for this treatment of it, but they were not the only ones. In the face of scepticism and egoism, Christian thinkers generally agreed that the existence of internal feelings should necessarily convince the solipsist of his own existence, and that immaterialism, seen as solipsism, was a pernicious doctrine as it undermined the cosmological proof of the existence of God and the doctrine of the creation of a substantial world ex nihilo, independent of the perception of the creatures who inhabit it.