Introduction and Important notes
This chapter acts as an introduction to the novel as well as pre-requisite knowledge required. Please note that this is purely a form of submission for an assignment.
A dystopian society that functions purely on the principles of George Berkeley. To an extreme point wherein, an object, thing, person or concept that is not perceived in any manner, simply ceases to exist.
Finally, please note that due to the nature of the assignment, the language and structure of the sentences are a mix of academic and creative writing. The first three chapters are for submission. Should there be any future updates, they shall be purely fictional and for the sake of content and not academia.
In-text citations and their respective paragraphs are given below:
1) Rasmussen, 1953.
"His notes primarily centralised around the concept of Phenomenology, that is, there was an additional emphasis on the subjective experience of a phenomenon, rather than what the actual phenomena was. "
"That is your idea of an apple. Your perception. In reality, the apple is immaterial. It is but a mere collection of properties; properties such as redness or sweetness. It is these properties that shape or allow for our perception of reality,"
"Meditate upon this. Subjectivity is ultimately absolute, which leads us to perception. Our perception of everything is a result of our reflexivity and subjectivity, it only natural for our ideas to differ. We are humans, it is within our nature to be different," he smiled and hovered closer to the painting.
2) Grossmann, 1977
"The gestalts put forth the notion of perceiving reality as a whole, and not just its individual constituents…." George muttered to himself, Berkeley's spirit was only visible and perceivable to him.
3) Kockelmans, 1967
" "Phainomenon? Ah!" Berkeley managed to connect the dots. For him, Greek was like another language. Considering the fact that the majority of English language uses words with a foundation of either Greek or Latin, it didn't take too much for him to establish the connection.
(Authors Note: You see, the word itself was first ever used in 1907, in Edmund Husserl's article. Berkeley was born on 12th March, 1685)"
References
Rasmussen, E. T. (1953). Berkeley and Modern Psychology. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 4(13), 2–12. http://www.jstor.org/stable/686040
Downing, L. (2021). George Berkeley. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=berkeley
Grossmann, R. (1977). Structures versus Sets: The Philosophical Background of Gestalt Psychology. Crítica: Revista Hispanoamericana de Filosofía, 9(27), 3–21. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40104091
Kockelmans, J. J. (1967). Phenomenology: The philosophy of Edmund Husserl and its interpretation. Northwestern University Press.