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Michael Ende

Michael Andreas Helmuth Ende (12 November 1929 – 28 August 1995) was a German writer of fantasy and children's fiction. He is known for his epic fantasy The Neverending Story (with its 1980s film adaptation and a 1995 animated television adaptation); other well-known works include Momo and Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver. His works have been translated into more than 40 languages and sold more than 35 million copies.

Early life
Ende was born 12 November 1929 in Garmisch, Bavaria, the only child of the surrealist painter Edgar Ende and Luise Bartholomä Ende, a physiotherapist. In 1935, when Michael was six, the Ende family moved to the "artists' quarter of Schwabing" in Munich (Haase). Growing up in this rich artistic and literary environment influenced Ende's later writing.

In 1936, his father's work was declared "degenerate art" and banned by the Nazi Party, so Edgar Ende was forced to draw and paint in secret.

Second World War
World War II heavily influenced Ende's childhood. He was twelve years old when he witnessed the first Allied bombing raid on Munich: "Our street was consumed by flames. The fire didn't crackle; it roared. The flames were roaring. I remember singing and careering through the blaze like a drunkard. I was in the grip of a kind of euphoria. I still don't truly understand it, but I was almost tempted to cast myself into the fire like a moth into the light."

He was horrified, however, by the 1943 Hamburg bombing, which he experienced while visiting his paternal uncle. At the first available opportunity his uncle put him on a train back to Munich. There, Ende attended the Maximillians Gymnasium until schools were closed as the air raids intensified and pupils were evacuated. Ende returned to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where he was billeted in a boarding-house, Haus Kramerhof and later in Haus Roseneck. It was there that his interest in German poetry was awakened. As well as writing his own poetry, he began to study various literary movements and styles. As most recent German poetry was banned as part of censorship in Nazi Germany, he instead studied the German Romantic poet Novalis, whose Hymns to the Night made a great impression on him.

In 1944, Edgar Ende's studio at no. 90 Kaulbachstraße, Munich went up in flames and over two hundred and fifty paintings and sketches were destroyed, as well as all his prints and etchings. , Director of Public Art for Bavaria, was still in possession of a number of Ende's paintings, which survived the raids. After the bombing, Luise Ende was relocated to the Munich district of Solln. In 1945, Edgar Ende was taken as a prisoner of war by American GIs, but was released soon after the end of the war.

In 1945, German youths as young as fourteen were drafted into the Volkssturm and sent to war against the advancing Allied armies. Three of Michael Ende's classmates were killed on their first day of combat. Ende was also drafted, but tore up his call-up papers and joined a secret German resistance group founded to sabotage the SS's declared intention to defend Munich until the "bitter end". Ende served the group as a courier for the remainder of the war.

In 1946, Michael Ende's grammar school re-opened, and he attended classes for a year, following which the financial support of family friends allowed him to complete his high-school education at a Waldorf School in Stuttgart. This seemingly charitable gesture was motivated by more self-interest: Ende had fallen in love with a girl three years his senior, and her parents funded his two-year stay in Stuttgart to keep the pair apart. It was at this time that he first began to write stories ("Michael," par. 3). He aspired to be a "dramatist," but wrote mostly short stories and poetry (Haase).

Early career
During his time in Stuttgart, Ende first encountered Expressionist and Dadaist writing and began schooling himself in literature. He studied Theodor Däubler, Yvan Goll, Else Lasker-Schüler and Alfred Mombert, but his real love was the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, Stefan George and Georg Trakl. He also made his first attempts at acting, performing with friends in Stuttgart's America House. He was involved in productions of Chekhov's one-act comedy "The Bear", in which he played the principal role, and in the German premiere of Jean Cocteau's Orpheus. Ende's first play "Denn die Stunde drängt (As Time is Running Out)" dates to this period. It was dedicated to Hiroshima, and was never performed.

Ende decided that he wanted to be a playwright, but financial considerations ruled out a university degree, so in 1948 he auditioned for the Otto Falckenberg School of the Performing Arts in Munich and was granted a two-year scholarship (Haase). On leaving drama school, his first job as an actor took him to a provincial theatre company in Schleswig-Holstein. The troupe travelled from town to town by bus, usually performing on makeshift stages, surrounded by beer, smoke and the clatter of skittles from nearby bowling alleys. The acting was a disappointment, he usually had to play old men and malicious schemers, and had barely enough time to memorize his lines. Despite the frustrations and disappointments of his early acting career, Ende came to value his time in the provinces as a valuable learning experience that endowed him with a practical, down-to-earth approach to his work: "It was a good experience, a healthy experience. Anyone interested in writing should be made to do that sort of thing. It doesn't have to be restricted to acting. It could be any kind of practical activity like cabinet making—learning how to construct a cabinet in which the doors fit properly." In Ende's view, practical training had the potential to be more useful than a literary degree.

Thanks to the numerous contacts of his girlfriend Ingeborg Hoffmann, Michael Ende was introduced to a variety of cabaret groups. In 1955,, head of (the 'Little Fish' cabaret), commissioned Ende to write a piece in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of Friedrich Schiller's death. Ende produced a sketch in which a statue of Schiller was interviewed about newsworthy issues, and replied with quotes from Schiller's work. "There was rapturous applause, and commissions arrived from other cabarets too." Michael Ende began to compose sketches, chansons and monologues. He also worked as a film critic during the 1950s.

Commercial success: writing Jim Knopf
In the late 1950s, Ende wrote his first novel Jim Button. "I sat down at my desk and wrote: "The country in which the engine-driver, Luke, lived was called Morrowland. It was a rather small country." Once I'd written the two lines, I hadn't a clue how the third line might go. I didn't start out with a concept or a plan—I just left myself drift from one sentence and one thought to the next. That's how I discovered that writing could be an adventure. The story carried on growing, new characters started appearing, and to my astonishment different plotlines began to weave together. The manuscript was getting longer all the time and was already much more than a picture book. I finally wrote the last sentence ten months later, and a great stack of paper had accumulated on the desk."

Michael Ende always said that ideas only came to him when the logic of the story required them. On some occasions he waited a long time for inspiration to arrive. At one point during the writing of Jim Button the plot reached a dead end. Jim and Luke were stuck among black rocks and their tank engine couldn't go any further. Ende was at a loss to think of a way out of the adventure, but cutting the episode struck him as disingenuous. Three weeks later he was about to shelve the novel when suddenly he had an idea—the steam from the tank engine could freeze and cover the rocks in snow, thus saving his characters from their scrape. "In my case, writing is primarily a question of patience," he once commented.

After nearly a year the five hundred pages of manuscript were complete. Over the next eighteen months he sent the manuscript to ten different publishers, but they all responded that it was "Unsuitable for our list" or "Too long for children". In the end he began to lose hope and toyed with the idea of throwing away the script. He eventually tried it at a small family publishing-house, K. in Stuttgart. Michael Ende's manuscript was accepted by company director Lotte Weitbrecht who liked the story. Her only stipulation was that the manuscript had to be published as two separate books.

The first of the Jim Button novels was published in 1960. About a year later, on the morning of the announcement that his novel, Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver, had won the German Prize for Children's Fiction, Ende was being sued by his landlady for seven months' rent back payment. With the prize money of five thousand marks, Michael Ende's financial situation improved substantially, and his writing career began in earnest. After the awards ceremony, he embarked on his first reading tour, and within a year, the first Jim Knopf book was also nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Award and received the Berlin Literary Prize for Youth Fiction. The second Jim Knopf novel, Jim Button and the Wild Thirteen, was published in 1962. Both books were serialized on radio and TV, and the Augsburger Puppenkiste famously adapted the novels in a version filmed by Hesse's broadcasting corporation. The print-runs sold out so rapidly that K. Thienemanns could barely keep up. Translations into numerous foreign languages soon followed.

Writing style and themes
Ende claimed, "It is for this child in me, and in all of us, that I tell my stories", and that "[my books are] for any child between 80 and 8 years" (qtd. Senick 95, 97). He often expressed frustration over being perceived as a children's writer exclusively, considering that his purpose was to speak of cultural problems and spiritual wisdom to people of all ages. Especially in Germany, Ende was accused by some critics of escapism. He wrote in 1985:

"One may enter the literary parlor via just about any door, be it the prison door, the madhouse door, or the brothel door. There is but one door one may not enter it through, which is the nursery door. The critics will never forgive you such. The great Rudyard Kipling is one to have suffered this. I keep wondering to myself what this peculiar contempt towards anything related to childhood is all about."

Ende's writing could be described as a surreal mixture of reality and fantasy. The reader is often invited to take a more interactive role in the story, and the worlds in his books often mirror our reality, using fantasy to bring light to the problems of an increasingly technological modern society. His writings were influenced by Rudolf Steiner and his anthroposophy. Ende was also known as a proponent of economic reform, and claimed to have had the concept of aging money, or demurrage, in mind when writing Momo. A theme of his work was the loss of fantasy and magic in the modern world.

Japan
Michael Ende had been fascinated by Japan since his childhood. He loved Lafcadio Hearn's Japanese legends and ghost stories, and in 1959 he wrote a play inspired by Hearn's material. Die Päonienlaterne (The Peony Lantern) was written for radio, but never broadcast. Ende was primarily interested in Japan because of its radical otherness. The Japanese language and script were so different from Ende's native German that it seemed they were grounded in a different kind of consciousness—an alternative way of seeing the world. He was particularly intrigued by the way in which everyday circumstances were shaped into intricate rituals, such as the tea ceremony. There was, he realized, a sharp contrast between the traditions of ancient Japan and its industry-oriented modern-day society.

Ende won a devoted following in Japan, and by 1993 over two million copies of Momo and The Neverending Story had been sold in Japan.

In 1986 Michael Ende was invited to attend the annual congress of the JBBY (Japanese Committee for International Children's Literature) in Tokyo. He gave a lecture on "Eternal Child-likeness"—the first detailed explanation of his artistic vision. 1989 marked the opening of the exhibition Michael and Edgar Ende in Tokyo. The exhibition was subsequently shown in Otsu, Miyazaki, Nagasaki, Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuyama. At the invitation of Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper, Michael Ende attended the opening and spent two months touring Japan. It was his third trip accompanied by the Japanese-born Mariko Sato, whom he married in September 1989. The following year an archive devoted to Michael Ende was established at Kurohime Dowakan, a museum in the Japanese city of Shinano-machi. Ende donated letters and other personal items to the collection. On 23 October 1992 Michael Ende made his final trip to Japan. In the course of their three-week visit Michael Ende and Mariko Sato-Ende visited the Dowakan museum, joined Ende's Japanese publishers, Iwanami, in celebrating the millionth sale of Momo, and travelled to Kanazawa and Hamamatsu and a number of other cities that were new to Ende.

Personal life
On New Year's Eve 1952, Michael Ende met the actress Ingeborg Hoffmann during a party with friends. According to Ende, he was standing at an ivy-covered counter serving as barman, when Hoffmann strode towards him, looking "flame-haired, fiery and chic". She declaimed: "Leaning up against the ivy-covered wall / Of this old terrace"; "Mörike", Ende said instantly, recognizing the quotation. Hoffmann, eight years his senior, made a big impression on Ende. She in turn was intrigued by his literary cultivation and artistic inclinations. They began a relationship that led to their marriage in 1964 in Rome, Italy, and ended with Ingeborg Hoffmann's sudden and unexpected death in 1985 from a pulmonary embolism; she was 63 years old.

Hoffmann influenced Ende profoundly. In addition to assisting with getting his first major manuscript published, Hoffmann worked with him on his others, reading them and discussing them with him. Hoffman also influenced Ende's life in other ways. She encouraged Ende to join the Humanist Union, an organization committed to furthering humanist values. Together they campaigned for human rights, protested against West German rearmament, and worked towards peace. Thanks to Ingeborg Hoffmann's numerous contacts, Michael Ende was introduced to a variety of cabaret groups. In 1955, Therese Angeloff, head of Die kleinen Fische (the 'Little Fish' cabaret), commissioned Ende to write a piece in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of Friedrich Schiller's death. Ende produced a sketch in which a statue of Schiller is being interviewed about current events, and replies with quotes from Schiller's writings. "There was rapturous applause, and commissions arrived from other cabarets too." Michael Ende began to compose sketches, chansons and monologues.

For fourteen years, Ende and Hoffmann, who were both Italophiles, lived just outside Rome in Genzano, in a house they called Casa Liocorno ("The Unicorn"). It was there that Ende wrote most of the novel Momo. Following the death of his wife, Ende sold the home in Genzano and returned to Munich.

He married a second time in 1989, to Japanese woman Mariko Sato, and they remained married until his death. He first met Mariko Sato in 1976. Sato had emigrated from Japan to West Germany in 1974 and was working at the time for the International Youth Library in Munich. After their first meeting at the Bologna Children's Book Fair, Sato translated some of Ende's books into Japanese and helped answer his questions about Japanese culture. From 1977 to 1980 Michael Ende and Mariko Sato worked together to produce a translation into German of ten fairy tales by Japanese writer Kenji Miyazawa. The German text was never published, but their working partnership turned into a friendship. Mariko Sato accompanied him on a number of trips to Japan. The first trip took place in 1977 and included visits to Tokyo and Kyoto. For the first time Ende was able to experience Kabuki and Noh theatre, and was greatly impressed by traditional Japanese drama. Michael Ende had no children.

Death
In June 1994, Ende was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Over the next few months, he underwent various treatments, but the disease progressed. He ultimately succumbed to the disease in Filderstadt, Germany, on 28 August 1995.

Children's novels
Jim Button (Jim Knopf) series:
 * 1) Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver (Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer) (1960), ISBN 3-522-17650-2
 * Winner of the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 1961.
 * 1) Jim Button and the Wild 13 (Jim Knopf und die Wilde 13) (1962), ISBN 3-522-17651-0

Stand-alones:
 * Momo, or The Grey Gentlemen, or The Men in Grey (Momo, or Momo oder Die seltsame Geschichte von den Zeit-Dieben und von dem Kind, das den Menschen die gestohlene Zeit zurückbrachte) (1973), ISBN 3-522-11940-1
 * Winner of the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 1974.
 * The Neverending Story (Die unendliche Geschichte) (1979), ISBN 3-522-17684-7
 * The Night of Wishes: Or the Satanarchaeolidealcohellish Notion Potion (Der satanarchäolügenialkohöllische Wunschpunsch) (1989), ISBN 3-522-16610-8
 * Rodrigo Raubein und Knirps, sein Knappe (2019), with Wieland Freund, ISBN 978-3-522-18500-4; novel initiated by Ende and developed and concluded by Freund

All short stories

 * "Tranquilla Trampeltrue — the Persistent Tortoise" ("Tranquilla Trampeltreu, die beharrliche Schildkröte") (1972), ISBN 3-522-41030-0
 * "The Little Rag Puppet" ("Das kleine Lumpenkasperle") (1975), ISBN 3-522-43537-0
 * "Lirum Larum, Willi Why" ("Lirum Larum Willi Warum") (1978), ISBN 3-87838-231-6
 * "The Dream Eater" ("Das Traumfresserchen") (1978), ISBN 3-522-41500-0
 * "The Lindworm and the Butterfly", or "The Strange Swap" ("Der Lindwurm und der Schmetterling oder Der seltsame Tausch") (1981), ISBN 3-522-43495-1
 * "Filemon Foldrich" ("Filemon Faltenreich") (1984), ISBN 3-522-43483-8
 * "Norbert Fatnoggin, or The Naked Rhinoceros" ("Norbert Nackendick oder Das nackte Nashorn") (1984), ISBN 3-522-42430-1, based on his play Die Ballade von Norbert Nackendick; oder das nackte Nashom
 * "Ophelia's Shadow Theatre" ("Ophelias Schattentheater") (1988), ISBN 3-522-42520-0
 * "The Story of the Bowl and the Spoon" ("Die Geschichte von der Schüssel und vom Löffel") (1990), ISBN 3-522-14870-3
 * "Lenchen's Secret" ("Lenchens Geheimnis") (1991), ISBN 3-522-16690-6
 * "The Long Way to Santa Cruz", or "The Long Road to Santa Cruz" ("Der lange Weg nach Santa Cruz") (1992), ISBN 3-522-16809-7
 * "The Teddy Bear and the Animals" ("Der Teddy und die Tiere") (1993), ISBN 3-522-43138-3
 * "A Bad Night" ("Eine schlimme Nacht") (1994)
 * "A Tongue Twister Story" ("Eine Zungenbrechergeschichte") (1994)
 * "Instead of a Preface; To Be Precise" ("Anstelle eines Vorworts: Genau genommen") (1994)
 * "Moany Parker and Nosy-Kissy" ("Nieselpriem und Naselküss") (1994)
 * "Moni Paints a Masterpiece" ("Moni malt ein Meisterwerk") (1994)
 * "Never Mind" ("Macht nichts") (1994)
 * "The School of Magic", or "The School of Magic in the Realm of Wishes" ("Die Zauberschule im Wünschelreich") (1994)
 * "The Story of the Wish of Wishes" ("Die Geschichte vom Wunsch aller Wünsche") (1994)

Collections

 * The School of Magic and Other Stories (Die Zauberschule und andere Geschichten) (1994), collection of 20 short stories:
 * "Anstelle eines Vorworts: Genau genommen", "Die Zauberschule im Wünschelreich", "Tranquilla Trampeltreu, die beharrliche Schildkröte", "Das kleine Lumpenkasperle", "Lenchens Geheimnis", "Die Geschichte vom Wunsch aller Wünsche", "Norbert Nackendick oder Das nackte Nashorn", "Macht nichts", "Nieselpriem und Naselküss", "Eine Zungenbrechergeschichte", "Lirum Larum Willi Warum", "Moni malt ein Meisterwerk", "Die Geschichte von der Schüssel und vom Löffel", "Der Teddy und die Tiere", "Der lange Weg nach Santa Cruz", "Der Lindwurm und der Schmetterling oder Der seltsame Tausch", "Filemon Faltenreich", "Eine schlimme Nacht", "Das Traumfresserchen", "Ophelias Schattentheater"

Adult short stories
Collections:
 * Mirror in the Mirror: A Labyrinth, or The Mirror in the Mirror: A Maze (Der Spiegel im Spiegel. Ein Labyrinth) (1984), collection of 30 short stories, ISBN 3-423-13503-4:
 * "Verzeih mir, ich kann nicht lauter sprechen", "Der Sohn hatte sich unter der kundigen Anleitung", "Die Mansarde ist himmelblau", "Die Bahnhofskathedrale stand auf einer großen Scholle", "Schweres schwarzes Tuch", "Die Dame schob den schwarzen Vorhang ihres Kutschenfensters beiseite", "Der Zeuge gibt an, er habe sich auf einer nächtlichen Wiese befunden", "Der marmorbleiche Engel saß unter den Zuhörern im Gerichtssaal", "Moordunkel ist das Gesicht der Mutter", "Langsam wie ein Planet sich dreht, dreht sich der große runde Tisch", "Das Innere eines Gesichts mit geschlossenen Augen, sonst nichts", "Die Brücke, an der wir schon seit vielen Jahrhunderten bauen", "Es ist ein Zimmer und zugleich eine Wüste", "Die Hochzeitsgäste waren tanzende Flammen", "Über die weite graue Fläche des Himmels glitt ein Schlittschuhläufer dahin", "Dieses Heer besteht nur aus Buchstaben", "Eigentlich ging es um die Schafe", "Mann und Frau wollen eine Ausstellung besuchen", "Dem jungen Arzt war gestattet worden", "Nach Bureauschluss", "Der Bordellpalast auf dem Berge erstrahlte in dieser Nacht", "Der Weltreisende beschloß seine Wanderung", "An diesem Abend konnte der alte Seefahrer den ununterbrochenen Wind nicht mehr ertragen", "Unter einem schwarzen Himmel liegt ein unbewohnbares Land", "Hand in Hand gehen zwei eine Straße hinunter", "Im Klassenzimmer regnete es unaufhörlich", "Im Korridor der Schauspieler trafen wir einige hundert Wartende", "Das Feuer wurde von neuem eröffnet", "Der Zirkus brennt", "Ein Winterabend"
 * The Prison of Freedom (Das Gefängnis der Freiheit) (1992), collection of 8 short stories, ISBN 3-492-24990-6:
 * "Einer langen Reise Ziel", "Der Korridor des Borromeo Colmi", "Das Haus an der Peripherie", "Zugegeben etwas klein", "Die Katakomben von Misraim", "Aus den Aufzeichnungen des Traumweltreisenden Max Muto", "Das Gefängnis der Freiheit", "Die Legende vom Wegweiser"

Uncollected short stories:
 * "The Legend of the Full Moon" ("Die Vollmondlegende") (1993)

Plays

 * The Spoilsports, or The Fools' Inheritance (Die Spielverderber oder: Das Erbe der Narren) (1967)
 * Ein sehr kurzes Märchen (1976), based on short story Hansel and Gretel
 * Momo und die Zeitdiebe (1978), opera based on novel Momo
 * The Entertainer's Tale (Das Gauklermärchen) (1982)
 * Die Ballade von Norbert Nackendick; oder das nackte Nashom (1982)
 * Die zerstreute Brillenschlange (1982)
 * The Goggolori (Der Goggolori) (1984), opera
 * The Hunting of the Snark (Die Jagd nach dem Schlarg) (1988), opera based on poem "The Hunting of the Snark" by Lewis Carroll
 * Das Traumfresserchen (1991), opera based on short story "The Dream Eater"
 * The Pied Piper (Der Rattenfänger: ein Hamelner Totentanz. Oper in elf Bildern) (1993), opera
 * Die Geschichte von der Schüssel und vom Löffel (1998), opera based on short story "The Story of the Bowl and the Spoon"

Poems

 * The Nonsense Book (Das Schnurpsenbuch) (1969), ISBN 3-522-12890-7
 * The Shadow Sewing Machine (Die Schattennähmaschine) (1982), ISBN 3-522-12790-0
 * Flea Market of Dreams: Songs to be Sung at Midnight and Quiet Ballads (Trödelmarkt der Träume: Mitternachtslieder und leise Balladen) (1986), collection of poetry and lyrics, ISBN 3-492-24798-9

Non-fiction

 * Edgar Ende (1971)
 * Phantasie / Kultur / Politik. Protokoll eines Gesprächs (1982), with Erhard Eppler and Hanne Tächl, ISBN 3-522-70020-1, opinion
 * Archaeology of Darkness. Discussions about Art and the Work of Painter Edgar Ende (Die Archäologie der Dunkelheit. Gespräche über Kunst und das Werk des Malers Edgar Ende) (1985), with Jörg Krichbaum, ISBN 3-522-70190-9, art
 * Art and Politics. A Conversation (Kunst und Politik – ein Gespräch) series (art):
 * Kunst und Politik – ein Gespräch (1989), with Joseph Beuys, ISBN 3-928780-48-4
 * Kunst und Politik – Gesprächsfortsetzung (2011), with Joseph Beuys, ISBN 978-3-928780-53-7
 * Michael Ende's File-Card Box. Sketches and Notes (Michael Endes Zettelkasten: Skizzen und Notizen) (1994), ISBN 3-492-26356-9, collection of short stories, poems, essays, aphorisms, notes, letters, drafts, meditations and curiosities
 * Monogatari no yohaku (The White Rim of a Story) – a Conversation between Michael Ende and Toshio Tamura (Monogatari no yohaku (Der weiße Rand einer Geschichte) - ein Gespräch von Michael Ende/Toshio Tamura) (2000), with Toshio Tamura, opinion, published posthumously
 * The School for Louts (Die Rüpelschule) (2002), with Volker Fredrich, ISBN 3-522-43381-5, guide published posthumously
 * The Big Michael Ende Reader (Das große Michael Ende Lesebuch) (2004), literature, published posthumously

Adaptations

 * Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer (1961), animated series directed by Harald Schäfer, based on children's novel Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver
 * Jim Knopf und die wilde 13 (1962), animated series directed by Harald Schäfer, based on children's novel Jim Button and the Wild 13
 * Jim Knopf und Lukas, der Lokomotivführer (1970), TV movie directed by Günther Meyer-Goldenstädt and Eberhard Möbius, based on children's novel Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver
 * Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer (1977), animated series directed by Manfred Jenning, based on children's novel Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver
 * Jim Knopf und die wilde 13 (1978), animated series directed by Manfred Jenning, based on children's novel Jim Button and the Wild 13
 * The NeverEnding Story (1984), film directed by Wolfgang Petersen, based on children's novel The Neverending Story
 * Momo (1986), film directed by Johannes Schaaf, based on children's novel Momo
 * The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter (1990), film directed by George T. Miller, based on children's novel The Neverending Story
 * The Neverending Story III: Escape from Fantasia (1994), film directed by Peter MacDonald, based on children's novel The Neverending Story
 * The Neverending Story (1995-1996), animated series directed by Marc Boreal and Mike Fallows, based on children's novel The Neverending Story
 * Jim Button (1999-2001), animated series directed by Bruno Bianchi, André Leduc, Jan Nonhof and Jean-Michel Spiner, based on series of children's novels Jim Button
 * Wunschpunsch (2000-2002), animated series directed by Philippe Amador, based on children's novel The Night of Wishes: Or the Satanarchaeolidealcohellish Notion Potion
 * Momo (2001), animated film directed by Enzo D'Alò, based on children's novel Momo
 * Tales from the Neverending Story (2001-2004), series directed by Giles Walker and Adam Weissman, based on children's novel The Neverending Story
 * Momo (2003), animated series directed by Cohem Burke and Colum Burke, based on children's novel Momo
 * Cathedrals (2013), short documentary directed by Konrad Kästner, based on short story "The Station's Cathedral was Built on a Large Clod of Earth"
 * Legend of Raana (2014), animated miniseries directed by Majid Ahmady, based on children's novel Momo
 * Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver (2018), film directed by Dennis Gansel, based on children's novel Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver
 * Jim Button and the Wild 13 (2020), film directed by Dennis Gansel, based on children's novel Jim Button and the Wild 13

title: Michael Ende


text:
The Carnival of Champions

The Carnival of Champions, as Don King nicknamed it, was an important boxing event held in New Orleans's Louisiana Superdome on December 3, 1982.

The event had caught the international attention of boxing fans worldwide, but particularly in the United States, Puerto Rico and Mexico, because the two main events that night featured two Puerto Ricans, one Mexican and one American.

In the undercard's first of two co-main events, Wilfredo Gómez of Puerto Rico would defend his WBC world Jr Featherweight championship against WBC's world Bantamweight champion Lupe Pintor of Mexico. In the second, Wilfred Benítez, also of Puerto Rico, would defend his WBC world Jr Middleweight championship against the former WBA Welterweight champion of the world Thomas Hearns, of Detroit, Michigan.

There was a lot of media hype surrounding the event, and HBO televised both. Gómez, Pintor, Hearns and HBO commentator Sugar Ray Leonard (who came in to substitute Benitez) were paraded around New Orleans a few days before the event, and many former and current world boxing champions and other celebrities attended the fights.

Before the event, there was no palpable animosity, at least between Gomez and Pintor, and they were friendly towards each other during a press conference a few days before the fights; this might have been due in part to Gomez's 1981 defeat at the hands of Salvador Sanchez, Sanchez's tragic death on August 12, 1982 in a car accident, Pintor's fight with Johnny Owen after which Owen died as a consequence of the blows he took and Duk Koo Kim's recent death after a bout with Ray Mancini.

In Puerto Rico in particular, the event had been eagerly awaited for, because it would be the first time the two Wilfredos would fight the same night and in the same ring, defending their world titles. Another Wilfredo who would later join Gómez and Benitez as three division world champions, Wilfredo Vazquez, had been announced as a participator in the undercard, but he had to pull out because of an injury days prior to the fight.

After an excellent undercard that included a win by Alberto Mercado, Pintor was the first of the four world champions to step into the ring that night, to challenge Gómez for Gómez's world title. In a brutal slugfest, Gómez struck first, hitting Pintor with an uppercut in round one, and pinning Pintor against the ropes for a good portion of round three, including a nineteen punch combination that had Pintor almost falling. It wasn't to be easy, however, and by the end of that third round, Pintor began to introduce his jab to Gómez's face. Gómez's eye began to puff almost immediately. Gómez showed his championship heart by roaring back to take the fourth despite the bothering hematoma forming over his eye.

In the fifth, it was Pintor's turn to come back and take a round, but Gómez pounded Pintor to the head in rounds six, seven and eight, the latter in which Pintor lost a point for punching low. Pintor was finding out that Gómez was as hard to beat as his 37–1–1 (37 knockouts) record said he was. Pintor, however, had the heart of a lion too, and in the ninth he punched Gómez with poison in his hands and bad intentions, taking that round and round ten. Then came round twelve, one of the fiercest rounds in the Jr Featherweight boxing's history. Gómez and Pintor traded punches toe to toe fiercely during that round, and both men had to be carried by their cornermen back to their corners. However, Gómez's eyes were both almost closed by now, and his fans started having flashbacks of his 1981 bout with world featherweight champion Salvador Sánchez. Gómez realized he needed a dramatic finish, and he hit Pintor with everything he had, and with Pintor tiring and on the catching end of most of that round's punches, he figured out he had to try to outbox Gómez the rest of the way.

In round thirteen, Pintor attacked Gómez's eyes from a distance with his jab. One of the least action packed rounds was still a very good round, and Pintor took it by outmaneuvering Gómez for the first time in the bout.

Gómez, imagining he could have been behind on the scorecards, came for the fourteenth in a roar, and started throwing punches from all angles. Pintor was tired and Gómez looked stronger, but Gómez's eyes were almost completely closed by this time, and he could barely see Pintor. He was, as he described it later himself "fighting on instinct only". Then, suddenly he caught Pintor with a right to the temple and Pintor fell on his knees, for the first knockdown of the fight. He bravely beat the count of referee Arthur Mercante, but Gómez didn't waste his opportunity and chased his wounded prey with uppercuts and crosses, until a right cross caught Pintor on his chin and he fell to the floor on his back. Mercante didn't bother to count this time: He stopped the fight immediately and Gómez had retained his world title in a dramatic fight.

According to KO Magazine, Gómez led on fight judge Harold Lederman's card by 125–121, and on Dick Cole's by 126–120, while Pintor led on Artie Aidala's card by 124–121 at the time of the stoppage. KO Magazine's staff writer had it for Gómez at 125–120.

20 minutes after the first of the two co main events was over, it was Hearns' turn to step into the ring and challenge Benitez. The two engaged in one of the most intense staredowns in history. After touching gloves, Hearns began to use his longer jab, but the brave champion started to dig in. Hearns boxed from a distance in rounds one, two and three and Benitez kept applying pressure, and using his best method of fighting: Lying against the ropes. Whenever pinned there, Hearns would try to unleash a combination and Benitez would slip the punches coming at him and countering. Benitez's championship heart was also a very huge one.

In the fifth, Hearns struck with a right to the head and Benitez's gloves touched the canvas. Referee Octavio Meyran of Mexico counted, but Benitez came back and almost won the round after that. Hearns also dominated the sixth and the seventh, but in the ninth, a Benitez right hand graced Hearns' chin and Hearns fell on all fours. Hearns also got up, and won the tenth round. Rounds eleven and twelve were all Wilfredo, with the champion trying to close the gap between him and Hearns with masterful counter punching and ring intelligence. Hearns, however, knew he needed the next few rounds to secure another world title, and he boxed Benitez by using his jab. Benitez also imagined he was the one who needed a rally, and had in rounds thirteen and fourteen, two of his best rounds of the fight. In round fifteen, Hearns seemed to think he had the decision secured, and Benitez seemed to imagine he needed a knockout to win, so Hearns proceeded to use his jab for three more minutes and Benitez tried to avoid defeat by throwing quick combinations onto Hearns' face to see if he could find the punch that would finally lay down The Hitman for good. But it wasn't to be, and the bell rang, putting an end to the second of two intense and historic boxing battles.

When the decision was announced, it was a majority decision: two judges had voted for Hearns, (144–139 and 146–136, according to KO magazine) and one for a draw (142–142), making Hearns the WBC's new world Jr Middleweight champion.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: The Carnival of Champions


text:
Talk:George Berkeley

"Theoretical Starting Principles"
IMO, this section is really bad. I'm not sure why there is a section like this at all, and none of the things included in it are things Berkeley himself lists as his main principles. Anyway, I'm just deleting it, but here's the text of it in case anyone feels the need to put it back. 98.154.98.204 (talk) 01:11, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Allegedly, Berkeley stated that individuals cannot think or talk about an object's being, but rather think or talk about an object's being perceived by someone. That is, individuals cannot know any "real" object or matter "behind" the object as they perceive it, which "causes" their perceptions. He thus concluded that all that individuals know about an object is their perception of it.

Allegedly under his theory, the object a person perceives is the only object that the person knows and experiences. If individuals need to speak at all of the "real" or "material" object, the latter in particular being a confused term that Berkeley sought to dispose of, it is this perceived object to which all such names should exclusively refer.

To some, this possibly raises the question whether this perceived object is "objective" in the sense of being "the same" for fellow humans. In fact, is the concept of "other" human beings, beyond an individual's perception of them, valid? Berkeley argued that since an individual experiences other humans in the way they speak to him—something that is not originating from his own activity—and since he learns that their view of the world is consistent with his, he can believe in their existence and in the world being identical or similar for everyone.

It follows that:

 * 1) Any knowledge of the world is to be obtained only through direct perception.
 * 2) Error comes about through thinking about what individuals perceive.
 * 3) Knowledge of the world of people, things and actions around them may be purified and perfected merely by stripping away all thought, and with it language, from their pure perceptions.

From this it follows that:

 * 1) The ideal form of scientific knowledge is obtained by pursuing pure de-intellectualized perceptions.
 * 2) If individuals pursue these, we can obtain the deepest insights into the natural world and the world of human thought and action available to man.
 * 3) The goal of all science, therefore, is to de-intellectualize or de-conceptualize, and thereby purify, human perceptions.

As for Berkeley’s nominalism, see: Relying, on the one hand, on extreme nominalism (and thus challenging the authority of Thomas Aquinas, who asserted moderate realism in Christianity), and on the other, on a one-sided interpretation of Locke's sensualism, he [Berkeley] considered the concept of matter to be general and therefore false. //

Berkeley had already constructed a nominalist system of idealism in which such concepts as 'matter' and 'substance' were no more than names, because there were no universal essences. // Oizerman T.I. The main Trends in Philosophy. A Theoretical Analysis of the History of Philosophy. Moscow, 1988, p. 268. As for Berkeley’s phenomenalism, I can provide a lot of Russian sources, but they are not suitable for the English article, of course. Being too idle to go into details, I limited myself to using the template “see also.” As for the rest of the deleted section, I don’t see any reason for putting it back. Why restore the text violating the WP rules? --Solus ipse Inc. (talk) 11:52, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Precursor of Leibniz?
I don't have the text cited in connection with this in the intro, but Leibniz was dead by 1721 when De Motu was published, so it can't very well have been a 'precursor' to his views. (Quite the reverse: some of Berkeley's thoughts are probably based on the Leibniz-Clarke correspondence.) For now, I will just remove Leibniz from that list. kpearce (talk) 00:11, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Various
The university now called University of California, Berkeley was created (and named) before the city Berkeley; in fact, the presence of the university was originally the only reason for the existence of the town. I rewrote the "The city of Berkeley, California was named after him..." sentence to match this. —jtoomim
 * I'm somewhat confused here. The University of California was founded next to Oakland, California, and they named the town it was founded in (which did not really exist as much of a town for quite awhile) after Bishop Berkeley. However that location later became only one site in a larger UC system, and hence became named University of California, Berkeley, while University of California now refers to the entire system. Which is to say, I think the current formulation is a little off but I'm not sure of a graceful way to correct it -- the city is named after him, the University is now named after the city, even though the University created the city. Which confuses me just to think about it, so maybe it is fine the way it is... --Fastfission 22:48, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * To attempt to clarify: the University of California, Berkeley was not directly named after George Berkeley. Founders of the University of California named the area in which it was located "Berkeley" and it was not until much later, when the University of California expanded into a multi-campus system, that the name of the original University of California was changed to the University of California, Berkeley to correspond with the new University of California naming system of placing the name of the city in which a campus is located after "University of California."

Hmm. Possible copyright violation from http://www.georgeberkeley.org/. See the "picture text" which appears to be a cut-and-paste from the web site.

OK, with the picture link removed, this pages passes the Google test. Copyright panic over.

 * Wouldn't it be that case that a painting of the man would be in the public domain, and hence any picture of such a painting would also be in the public domain? INALBIPOOTI and I can't see that there would be any problem in copying and using the picture at http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~dwilkins/Berkeley/ for example

hawthorn

Am I right in thinking he was a bishop? Shouldn't we mention this somewhere? (If he is that Bishop Berkeley, Boswell reports that when he admired Berkeley's "irrefutable" proof of the non-existence of matter, Samuel Johnson cried "I refute it thus!" and kicked a nearby rock very hard...)

 * He was a bishop. Unfortunately, the article seems to be almost entirely a desription of his philosophical ideas, and has very little about his life. I think it would be better to have a whole separate article about his philosophical ideas, and have the main article as a more biographical one, with brief summaries of his philosophical ideas as and when they crop up in his life. Unfortunately I don't know enough about the man to do this myself, so I'm not really being very helpful here! I might do some research later... maybe... -- Oliver P. 11:51 Feb 3, 2003 (UTC)

 * I don't think we should split the page, unless there's a recognized name for his theory of the nonexistence of matter, in which case we could have a page on that. A single page can easily contain biography and ideas: Immanuel Kant for instance. We do need more biographical information, though. Maybe I'll do some research too... maybe... Mswake 12:15 Feb 3, 2003 (UTC)

 * Okay, fair enough. I suppose there's no point in having a separate page on his ideas if they don't fit into some specifically named theory, so I hereby retract my proposal to split the page up! -- Oliver P. 12:21 Feb 3, 2003 (UTC)

- Move to talk page from article by Evercat:

Discussion (to be rendered into tighter prose?):

You see a redwood tree. Ha! It's only there while you're looking at it. It was only an image in the mind of God, which the Almighty let you hallucinate on.

In response to the old riddle, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one heard it, did it make a sound?," Berkeley would reply that if no one were there, the tree wouldn't be there.

This is eerily similar to recent theoretical physics notion that mass does not exist.

Huh. I was just pondering, pea-brain fashion, the idea in particle physics that some particles exist, yet are massless, & the notion put me in mind of idealism, & I came here to do a bit of reading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:CF99:2080:AD38:8B05:DA71:B820 (talk) 00:44, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

As Bob Dylan sang about dreams, "It's all in your head."

Moved to talk page from article:

 * This is the essence and starting point of Berkeley's basic philosophy. Unfortunately, this doctrine is completely ignored by virtually all scholars today since there is not one who actually takes Berkeley seriously in the sense of approving of his precise philosophical principles as forming a legitimate method for pursuing scientific knowledge.

 * Yet without a firm grasp of these principles, it is impossible to render an accurate account of Berkeley's ideas or successfully apply them in any scientific enterprise.

I don't think this should be considered neutral or could be verified. Without further explanation it isn't very relevant either. DrZ 20:43 3 Jun 2003 (UTC)

From above: " In response to the old riddle, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one heard it, did it make a sound?," Berkeley would reply that if no one were there, the tree wouldn't be there. "

Berkeley was not concerned with what effect, if any, our presence has on reality. He was concerned with whether our perception of what we take to be reality somehow creates or colors that reality. Whether anyone was around when the tree fell would be irrelevant to the question of whether anyone perceived the falling tree (i.e., one can imagine a person in the forest, yet asleep during the movement of the tree). The interesting fact, for the empiricist, is not that we can be around, but that we can be aware. C d h (talk) 04:29, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Religion and mathematics

"Berkeley's intention seems to have been to defend religion by showing that the foundations of natural philosophy were equally weak"

There was certainly a relationship between BB's writings on the calculus and his views of religion, but this statement makes a hash of it. He thought the foundations of Christianity much stronger than those of Newtonian science, not "equal" to them in any way. I'll rewrite this passage. --Christofurio 18:35, May 8, 2004 (UTC)

First-Person
The article slips into the first-person at points. The article needs to be changed to be completely in the third-person.

Book ref
An anon recently added this book ref into the lead para
 * Study Guide: http://www.geocities.com/berkeley_principles

This looks like a Penguin study guide to the Principles and Three Dialogues, however it would be better in a 'further reading' section. Unfortunately I couldn't find the ISBN number to reference it properly. - Solipsist 08:07, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Contributions to Philosophy
(A side note, I think much of this section is completely incorrect.) -- User:165.123.152.192 23:25, 3 Apr 2005

 * Would you deign to enlighten everyone as to how it is completely incorrect?

205.188.116.67 14:01, 15 September 2005 (UTC)Bruce Partington

I am not sure if this is the correct place to say this, and if it is not, please let me know. The "theology" section that asserts that Berkeley's philosophy leads to solipsism is unconvincing, contains weasel words, and comes across as biased, so I intend to delete it.

Compare
Could someone talk about how his main philosophy compares with Descartes' "I think, therefore I am"? J. Crocker 19:09, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

You are in luck. Schopenhauer, in his "Sketch of a History of the Doctrine of the Ideal and the Real," wrote about Descartes. He said that he "...was the first to bring to our consciousness the problem whereon all philosophizing has mainly turned, namely that of the ideal and the real. This is the question concerning what in our knowledge is objective and what is subjective, and hence what eventually is to be ascribed by us to things different from us and what is to be attributed to ourselves. Thus in our head images arise not arbitrarily, as it were, from within, nor do they proceed from the connection of ideas; consequently, they arise from an external cause. But such images alone are what is immediately known to us, what is given. Now what relation may they have to things which exist quite separately from and independently of us and which somehow become the cause of those images? Are we certain that such things generally exist at all, and in this case do the images give us any information as to their nature?" "He was struck by the truth that we are above all restricted to our own consciousness and that the world is given to us only as representation or mental picture. Through his well known 'dubito, cogito, ergo sum' (I doubt, that is to say, I think, therefore I am), he tried to lay stress on the only certain thing of subjective consciousness in contrast to the problematical nature of everything else, and to express the great truth that self-consciousness is the only thing really and unconditionally given. "...Berkeley consistently went farther on this path of the Cartesians, and thus became the originator of the proper and true idealism, that is, of the knowledge that what is extended in and fills space, and thus the world of intuitive perception generally, can have its existence as such absolutely only in our representation, and that it is absurd and even contradictory to attribute to it, as such, another existence outside all representation and independently of the knowing subject, and accordingly to assume a matter existing in itself." 205.188.116.67 18:42, 7 September 2005 (UTC)Bruce Partington

--- Did Berkeley's addiction to tar water have anything to do with his being Irish? It is possible that a nutritional deficiency in the soil of Ireland has resulted in a need for the inhabitants to crave malt, barley, and hops. These are the ingredients of alcoholic drinks. There may also be a similar thirst for the components of tar water, just as deer need their salt lick. 64.12.116.65 01:56, 8 September 2005 (UTC)Bruce Partington

Many of the paradoxes of science, especially quantum theory, are the result of not understanding Berkeley. Are scientists directly experiencing objects? No. They are directly experiencing the sensations of electromagnetic radiation that reflect off of objects. Objects are then suggested to their minds by those sensations. Scientists spurn philosophy and, as a result, enjoy their paradoxes. 205.188.116.67 12:01, 8 September 2005 (UTC)Bruce Partington

Knowledge, not Existence
Berkeley's treatise concerned the principles of human knowledge, not the principles of absolute being. He asserted that we can directly know only our sensations and ideas, not abstractions such as matter and mind. Berkeley did not make claims about what exists external to the mind, as is commonly thought. He thought that whatever possibly exists other than our sensations and ideas is nothing to us. 64.12.116.65 13:15, 11 September 2005 (UTC)Bruce Partington

Original research
This article seems to contain a significant amount of original research. For example:
 * Immanuel Kant mischaracterized Berkeley as a radical idealist and falsely claimed that Berkeley's principles make objective knowledge impossible.

More later. --causa sui talk 11:25, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Philosophical Empiricism.
I changed "bills of slave" to "bills of sale." I've never heard of bills of slave and did a quick Google, and still didn't find anything, and bills of sale seems to fit far better. On the other hand, that's been there awhile, so maybe I'm just crazy. Apologies if this was incorrect.

I also rewrote the philosophical debate after the limerick somewhat. Johnson's position was somewhat straw manned in the original phrasing, I think, so I've tried to be a little fairer to both sides rather than simply blankly stating that Johnson was mistaken. (If it fit with the flow better, I'd have a counter-counter-response, where proponents of objective reality would point out that in an amazing coincidence, these collective hallucinations behave in extremely regular ways, also known as "science." But this is an article on Berkeley not why Berkeley is wrong, so I figured it'd be best to leave it out for now.) SnowFire 21:57, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Ben Johnson and the kicking of the rock
I havn't ever edited a wikipedia page, so I am reluctant to do it myself, but perhaps someone would care to change this... The discussion of Johnson's rock kicking seems to exhibit a gross misunderstanding of Berkeley.

For Berkeley, there is no skepticism about whether the rock is there or whether the sensation of kicking was caused by some contrived situation of arthritis. Berkeley did belive the rock was real; it was real because it was an idea in the mind of God, who causes perceptions and ideas to come upon our conciousness in an orderly manner. See Principles of Human Knowledge, Part 1, section 32-33... it states "The ideas imprited on the sense by the author of nature are called real things, and those exicted in the imagination, being less regular, vivid and constant, are more propertly termed ideas, or images of things which they copy and present."

--Luke

 * Luke, It was Samuel Johnson, not Ben.

Of course, everything that Samuel Johnson's mind directly experienced was an idea (mental picture) or sensation in his mind. Whatever was outside of his mind had to be inferred. And he didn't experience any general sensation of idea of matter or substance.Lestrade 13:24, 4 May 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

The Pronunciation of Berkeley
Giving a single Irish pronunciation of 'Berkeley' obscures the fact that there are two distinct ways in which the word is pronounced. The IPA given for Irish English produces BARKley (as in 'woof woof'), a pronunciation associated with a certain genteel class in Ireland. Most Irish people say BERKley (as in 'a fool'). Does anyone have the skills to render that in IPA on the article page? Thanks.

 * Does "a certain genteel class in Ireland" mean gradtuates of Trinity College Dublin? And is the anonymous author a graduate of University College Dublin? MnJWalker 23:19, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Human, all-too human
Here we have a philosopher who presents us with one of the most startling thoughts to ever occur in a mind. This is the thought that everything can only be mere appearance to our minds. We don't know matter or substance. We only directly and immediately know mental images or the content of our mind. External objects appear to us, in the way that they appear, as a result of the way that our sense organs and nervous system are constituted. Berkeley's way of thinking can only be shared by deep reflection and by separating out or analyzing the way that we perceive objects. Instead of discussing this new, amazing, and very difficult thought, which is commonly misunderstood and ridiculed, Wikipedia typically concerns itself instead with the pronunciation of his name, where he was born, what was named after him, if he owned slaves, where he was raised, and what references are made to him in today's popular culture.Lestrade 13:16, 18 May 2006 (UTC)Lestrade
 * Exactly - I'm not for whitewashing anything, but is the emphasis on his views on slaves (presented completely outside their historical context - by the standards of his time, Berkeley was not necessarily an inhumane man) really proportionate? Thomas Ash 12:03, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Additions yesterday
I've moved Kingofthemorning's additions to a place in the article where they seemed to make more sense in context, and tidied up spelling, grammar and structure. I'm not vouching for their being an accurate summary of Berkeley's argument. --ajn (talk) 10:41, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Is there any specific reason against having summaries of Berkely's arguments? Is there an different article devoted to his views that I haven't heard of/couldn't find?Kingofthemorning 04:11, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

 * There's no reason why Berkeley's arguments shouldn't be summarised. But I really would appreciate it if you'd run your prose through a spelling and grammar checker before inserting it anywhere - spelling the name of the philosopher incorrectly doesn't give a very good impression, nor does persistently confusing "their" and "there".  I moved the two paragraphs because they had nothing to do with the text above them (which they purported to clarify).  --ajn (talk) 08:57, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Relativity
The New Encyclopedia Britannica 2007 Micropædia article on Berkeley calls him "the precursor of Mach and Einstein." Berkeley's claim that objects exist as they are only in relation to an observing subject is the basis of relativity. With Berkeley's Idealism, no object exists as it is in itself, apart from an observing subject.Lestrade 18:10, 8 November 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

George Berkeley's Info Box
I noticed there was something lacking about George Berkeley’s info box, so I added a notable ideas section and changed his interests from idealism and empiricism to metaphysics, epistemology, language, mathematics and perception. Idealism and empiricism were his schools of thought, not his interests.

The reasons for why I listed what I did as his main interests are the following: in the Principles of Human Knowledge, George Berkeley expounds an ontology in which everything is either a subject or an idea within a subject: thus metaphysics; within the preface of the same treatise, Berkeley states that the objective of his work is to demonstrate that certain problems are caused by principles which are themselves caused by the misuse of human reason: thus epistemology; in the same preface, he analyses language and develops a nominalist theory of language which is important for his metaphysics and epistemology: thus language; Berkeley wrote a famous critique of calculus: thus mathematics; and finally, Berkeley also wrote a controversial book on vision: thus perception.

If any of my edits to the info box are misguided, feel free to point them out and edit them. I had considered putting nominalism in his notable ideas section, next to subjective idealism, but a type of nominalism had already been developed by William of Ockham. Should I have added it to the notable ideas section anyway? Le vin blanc 03:53, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

ghosts of departed quantities
What I recall from my calculus days is that Bishop Berkeley criticized the founders of infinitesimal calculus in the colorful terms mentioned in the subject headline. Perhaps this could be mentioned in the article. He was of course referring to the impossibility of division by zero. Katzmik (talk) 12:13, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I would add that the statement that "the phrase 'ghosts of departed quantities' [is] familiar to students of calculus" might have been true in 1911 (when I'm fairly sure, on the basis of style, that this bit is from; more specifically, from the 11th edition Encyclopaedia Britannica); it is not true today, at least in my experience, as the recipient of an Ivy-League BA in Pure Mathematics. I don't object to retaining the remark, but I think it should be properly contextualized, e.g. (assuming I am right about the source) "the phrase 'ghosts of departed quantities,' which a source as prominent and late as the 1911 edition of the Encylopaedia Britannica still described as 'familiar to students of calculus'." 35.11.156.189 (talk) 12:14, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

The Analyst controversy
This section discusses Berkeley's critique of the infinitesimal calculus and then jumps right to A. Robinson's development of non-standard analysis, with no mention whatsoever, even in passing, of the rigorous development of calculus by Cauchy with the epsilon-delta definition; —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.139.41.131 (talk) 06:07, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

George Berkley (engineer)
Hi, I recently created George Berkley (engineer). Ideally this article would be located at George Berkley so that people typing in his name will get the article. This is currently a redirect to George Berkeley. There are currently no links to this redirect and I have placed a hatnote at Berkley to provide a link to Berkeley for anyone who misspells the name. With that in mind does anybody object to me requesting a move for this purpose? Cheers - Dumelow (talk) 16:16, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I think your plan is the appropriate solution. ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 14:19, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, I have requested a move. Procedure says that anyone with any objections should discuss it at Talk:George Berkley (engineer).  Cheers - Dumelow (talk) 09:16, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Discussion is at Talk:George Berkley (engineer). --Una Smith (talk) 16:39, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Berkeley and Lem
I don’t think my concerning the relation between Stanisław Lem’s story and Berkeley’s Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous have anything to do with original research. I suggested them after the as allegedly having nothing in common with Berkeley’s outlook on the world. Had I inserted the reference again, it would have become edit warring. That was why I explained the expediency of mentioning Lem in a talk on Berkeley. I can’t provide any references to reliable sources, apropos of that. But in this case they’re needless, I think. My brief explanation seemingly does not contain a single original idea, let alone research. While defending a Slav Wikipedist’s, I limited myself simply to indicating similarities that were quite obvious.--Solus ipse Inc., ca. the 3rd millennium A.D.

Does the article need tagging?
It was an idea of mine to add this template to the article just because I myself contributed to the latter. Being quite aware of my Broken English, I considered tagging to be my duty. While developing the article, other Wikipedists corrected my grammar errors. Hence tagging seems to be needless now. But I mayn’t remove the template myself because I don’t know English so well as to evaluate the article’s English. So I’d like to apply to native speakers of English who develop this article. If its English is correct now, then the template can make a false impression on the readers.--Solus ipse Inc. (talk) 10:42, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Copyedit done. --Greenmaven (talk) 03:20, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

contradiction is fine in the real, but not on wikipedia...
the first paragraph of this article tell the reader that, "Thus, as Berkeley famously put it, for physical objects "esse est percipi" ("to be is to be perceived")."

the section headed "Contributions to Philosophy" reads "Incidentally, this claim is fundamentally different from the claim, sometimes inaccurately attributed to Berkeley, that to be is to be perceived (esse est percipi)."

i don't know whether or not berkeley said/wrote this and even if i did, i haven't ever edited in wikipedia before and am not sure how to even begin.

this is my first time participating in wikipedia, with an attempt to bring this to the attention of someone who can find the accurate information and delete that which is inaccurate.

i hope i'm doing this correctly and, if not, i ask pardon. thank you. Wlczmwpjr (talk) 22:57, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

 * Your comment is perfectly correct. It could be that both pages are fine.  If the attribution of "esse est precipi" to Berkeley as common, we are justified in citing it here without being overly worried about its correctness (the goal of wiki is verifiability, not truth).  If the other claim is sourced at "contributions to philosophy", that's also appropriate.  Tkuvho (talk) 13:37, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Indexing
There is something seriously wrong with Wikipedia's system of indexing [even aside from the fact that you can't search for "surname, first name"] that you cannot go directly to this page without knowing Berkeley's first name was George, but have to search through a list of relatively obscure persons named Berkeley and then the only way to spot is if you know he was a bishop. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.132.220.112 (talk) 19:10, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Treatise and Three Dialogues
In the intro, it sounds like Three Dialogues was a rewrite of the poorly-received Treatise, whereas in the Ireland section, it sounds like they're two completely different works, the one named Treatise having been well-received. Someone with more knowledge of the two works, please clarify. Mrgate3 (talk) 16:28, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Opposition to Abstract Ideas is an Important Missing Topic
The article I believe is missing a big issue, which is GB's opposition to other philosophers' use of abstract ideas and how it informed his own major ideas.

The article as currently written only has a single introductory reference to it. Doing a "Control F" for "abstract" returns just one hit in the article now. By contrast, in this encyclopedia article there are 9 hits. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/berkeley/

In another example, in this article, there are 48 hits for "abstract*" versus just the 1 here, and the third of the seven headers is "Against Abstraction."

https://www.iep.utm.edu/berkeley/

I like the general ordering used in the IEP article too, as the opposition to abstraction as a basis for philosophical argument is a good introduction to GB's most famous ideas about immaterialism. It also corresponds to how GB himself ordered his arguments in Principles of Human Knowledge. Declanscottp (talk) 23:03, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Birth year 1684 vs. 1685
@User:Alfie23 Just a point of clarification: official records in Britain & Ireland at this time used the English civil, legal and ecclesiastical calendar, where a year starts on March 25 (rather than January 1). So events happening between January 1 and March 25 are officially recorded as being part of the previous year. That means someone born on March 12, 1685 in historical year, would be listed in official records as being born March 12, 1684. This confusing calendar mismatch was fixed in 1752 (see Calendar (New Style) Act 1750), but not retroactively. So, birth or baptism certificates from pre-1752 will still be using the old calendar. Normally this disjuncture is dealt with by historians in either double-barreled format ("March 12, 1684-85", the first being the legal year, the latter the historical year) or simply ignored and the historical year (1685) used alone. While it is true Rev. Joseph Stock gives his birth-year as 1684, he is probably citing directly from official parish records; all modern books give his birth-year as 1685. Walrasiad (talk) 11:44, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Berkeley's razor?
Berkeley's razor is included among Berkeley's main contributions, but most of the writing under this heading is about Karl Popper. True, Popper is plausibly attributing a kind of instrumentalism to Berkeley (a reading you can find in D.M. Armstrong's intro to his Berkeley volume), but I'm not sure this sort of interpretative work should be counted as a contribution to philosophy by Berkeley himself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.45.138.97 (talk) 19:14, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Denaming of Trinity College Library
This is a transient news item that doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. The article never mentioned the naming of the library in the first place. It has little to do with Berkeley and much to do with academic politics. The citation is a press release. The whole section should be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Harrycroswell (talk • contribs) 07:40, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:George Berkeley