Arthur Collier

Arthur Collier (1680 to 1732) was an English Anglican priest and philosopher who argued that an absolute external world does not exist. Born at the rectory of Steeple Langford in Wiltshire and educated at Oxford, he held the family living at Steeple Langford from 1704 until his death. His thinking grew from close study of Descartes and Malebranche and was strongly shaped by John Norris, and he reached his conviction by about 1703 without any sign of knowing Locke. His chief work, the Clavis Universalis of 1713, offers a demonstration that an external world is impossible, resting on the view that common sense rejects representative perception and that imagination and sense perception differ only in degree. It appeared shortly after Berkeley made similar claims, though there is no evidence either knew the other.