What was George Berkeley's reason for employing Empiricism in his own philos

Question: What was George Berkeley's reason for employing Empiricism in his own philosophy!?
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

He said that only minds and spirits exist, and that physical entities are merely "ideas!." But that is the Rationalist view, so he used Empiricism against itself!. He attacked Locke's theories of abstractions!.

Too bad he was wrong!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

George thought that God was the cause of all things in every meaning of the word "cause"!. Aristotle listed four categories of causes and George used all but had to defend his philosophy against the more narrow definition of efficient cause that Rene Descartes developed, the way we think of cause today!. To do this George said that we should "think with the learned, and speak with the vulgar"!. That means that we should think that all things are caused by God, even to the minutest detail, but that we should use our empirical observations to describe the events God caused!. Empiricism was a hand maid for idealism and nothing more!.

George's idealism runs amok when he treats all objects as mind dependent!. Errors of perception become impossible and a bent oar in the water is a bent oar although it would be an error to think that when the oar is taken out of the water it will still be bent!.

There was also the problem of the existence of things when our minds are not present!. This is the source of the question that gets asked about once a day on this forum about whether a falling tree makes a noise in the forest if no one is there!. The way it was humorously summed up was:

"There was a young man who said God,
must find it exceedingly odd
when he finds that the tree
continues to be
when no one's about in the Quad!."

the Berkelean style reply was

"Dear Sir, your astonishment's odd
I'm always about in the Quad
And that's why the tree
continues to be
Since observed by, yours faithfully, God"Www@QuestionHome@Com