1680 – 1732
Arthur Collier (1680–1732) was an English clergyman and idealist philosopher who independently arrived at conclusions strikingly similar to those of George Berkeley. In his major work Clavis Universalis (1713), he argued that the external world has no existence apart from mind, making him a significant figure in the development of British immaterialism. His philosophy blended metaphysical idealism with theological commitments, grounding the existence of all apparent external reality in God as the universal mind.
Independently developed a thoroughgoing immaterialism in Clavis Universalis (1713), parallel to Berkeley's
Argued that matter has no external existence and that all reality is mental or mind-dependent
Grounded his idealism theologically, identifying God as the sustaining universal mind behind all apparent externality
Contributed to the early-modern debate on the nature of perception and the limits of material substance