George Sotiros Pappas (born 1942) is a professor of philosophy at

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

. Pappas specializes in

epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epis ...

, the history of

early modern philosophy Early modern philosophy (also classical modern philosophy)Richard Schacht, ''Classical Modern Philosophers: Descartes to Kant'', Routledge, 2013, p. 1: "Seven men have come to stand out from all of their counterparts in what has come to be known ...

philosophy of religion Philosophy of religion is "the philosophical examination of the central themes and concepts involved in religious traditions". Philosophical discussions on such topics date from ancient times, and appear in the earliest known texts concerning ph ...

and

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

. He is of Greek and English origin. He is the author of the '' Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' entry on " Internalist versus Externalist" conceptions of

epistemic justification Justification (also called epistemic justification) is the property of belief that qualifies it as knowledge rather than mere opinion. Epistemology is the study of reasons that someone holds a rationally admissible belief (although the term is a ...

. He was co-editor (with Marshall Swain) of ''Essays on Knowledge and Justification'' (1978), regarded as a key anthology of essays relating to the

Gettier problem The Gettier problem, in the field of epistemology, is a landmark philosophical problem concerning the understanding of descriptive knowledge. Attributed to American philosopher Edmund Gettier, Gettier-type counterexamples (called "Gettier-cases") ...

and used as a core text in undergraduate

courses. Pappas is an editorial consultant of Berkeley Studies.

Studies in Berkeley's philosophy

Pappas is known to be a leading Berkeley scholar; his essay "Berkeley and Scepticism" was in 1993 awarded the International Berkeley Prize. Pappas is a regular participant of International Berkeley Conferences. At one such conference, celebrating the 300th anniversary of George Berkeley's birth, Pappas propounded a new approach to the relationship between Berkeley's anti-abstractionism and "esse est percipi" principle. On Pappas' reading, Berkeley's two theses — that there are no abstract ideas and that sensible objects must be perceived in order to exist — entail one another. Pappas' interpretation of Berkeley's esse'' is ''percipi thesis has sparked much discussion. In 1989, the Garland Publishing Company brought out a 15-volume collection of major works on Berkeley; Pappas' paper "Abstract ideas and the 'esse is percipi' thesis" was included in the third volume, as it was considered to be a significant contribution to Berkeley scholarship. Pappas developed his treatment of Berkeley's "esse est percipi" principle to repudiate the "inherence interpretation of Berkeley", upon which Edwin E. Allaire, among others, elaborated.

That account is put forward to answer an extremely perplexing question in the history of philosophy: Why did Berkeley embrace idealism, i. e., why did he hold that esse est percipi, that to be is to be perceived?

After emerging in the early 1960s, the "inherence account" attracted numerous proponents and became an influential element of contemporary Berkeley scholarship. In his paper "Ideas, minds, and Berkeley" Pappas revealed some discrepancies between fountain-head evidences and Allaire's approach to a reconstruction of Berkeley's idealism. Pappas' critical examination of the "inherence account" is greatly appreciated by Berkeley scholars. Pappas' penetrating remarks compelled Edwin B. Allaire to revise and improve his conception. Even those who share Allaire's account of Berkeley's idealism acknowledge Pappas' article to be "an excellent review and critique of the IA nherence account" In 2000, Pappas published his monograph ''Berkeley's thought'' in which some parts were based on earlier papers of his. While writings by A. A. Luce or Geoffrey Warnock are long outdated, ''Berkeley's thought'' is often included in lists of recommended literature on Berkeley's philosophy.As examples, take: * * *

Publications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pappas, George 1942 births American philosophers Epistemologists Living people Ohio State University faculty George Berkeley scholars

Studies in Berkeley's philosophy

Publications

See also

References