The Aptly Named ‘Cratylus’? Berkeley’s Approach to Shaftesbury in <em>Alciphron</em>, III

In Alciphron (1732) Berkeley engages in extensivecriticism of the Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury. Berkeley’scriticism of the Earl is remarkably aggressive. It culminates in §§12-14 ofthe Third Dialogue, where Berkeley launches a vicious personalattack against Shaftesbury, under the name of ‘Cratylus’. In this way the thirddialogue differs radically in tone from Berkeley’s other philosophical worksand has been viewed with shock and derision. In this paper I will show thatBerkeley names Shaftesbury ‘Cratylus’ because he wants to impute the kind ofself-deception against the Earl that Plato vividly describes in thedialogue Cratylus. This, moreover, is the key to correctlyunderstanding Berkeley’s argument against Shaftesbury’s moral theory, which isan attack on a pernicious form of moral subjectivism, rather than an attack onvirtue ethics, as is commonly thought.