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esse est percipi

Latin Phrases
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

To be is to be perceived; Berkeley's philosophical principle that existence depends on being perceived by a mind.

Detailed Definition
Esse est percipi is the central principle of Bishop Berkeley's immaterialist philosophy, asserting that material objects exist only insofar as they are perceived. In poetry, it raises profound questions about the relationship between the perceived world and the perceiving mind, between reality and representation. It resonates in verse exploring subjectivity, solipsism, and the creative power of consciousness. The poem itself becomes a form of perception that brings its subject into being, making the poet a kind of god of the poem's world.
Example
Example in poetry:
Berkeley's esse est percipi was immediately controversial and generated philosophical poetry from his contemporaries — the immaterialist claim that the tree falling in an empty forest makes no sound if no mind perceives it; Wallace Stevens's entire poetic project engages esse est percipi — the Supreme Fiction is the world as the imagination perceives it, and reality is constituted by the act of creative perception; A student writing a poem about a painting, a piece of music, or a landscape might explore esse est percipi — the way the perceiving mind creates as much as it receives; Hopkins's theory of inscape draws on esse est percipi — the self's distinctive pattern of being is revealed in the act of intense perception, which is also a form of creation; A contemporary poet writing about photography, film, or digital experience might engage esse est percipi — the question of whether the recorded image has a reality independent of its being seen
Additional Notes
Esse est percipi (to be is to be perceived) is George Berkeley's (1685-1753) fundamental philosophical principle from his Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. Students should note that Berkeley's full position is more nuanced than the slogan suggests: for Berkeley, the continued existence of things not currently perceived by any finite mind is guaranteed by their continuous perception by the infinite mind of God. This means that esse est percipi is not a simple idealism but a form of theism: the world exists continuously because God always perceives it. In secular poetry, however, the phrase tends to be used without the theological guarantee, creating the more radical and vertiginous implication that unperceived things do not exist. This secular esse est percipi is central to modernist poetics — the poem as the act of perception that calls the world into being. Related terms include phenomenology, the imagist principle of direct presentation, and the observer effect in physics.
Also Known As
to be is to be perceived esse is percipi being is perception
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