Trinity School Dublin’s foremost library has been generally known as the Berkeley Library, after thinker George Berkeley, since its opening in 1967, however its identify will now change, owing to Berkeley’s possession of slaves and his writing of a pamphlet suggesting slaves could be extra obedient if baptised.
Reuters studies:
The school mentioned in a press release it’ll retain a stained-glass window commemorating the thinker, whose identify was given to the Berkeley Library and to the U.S. metropolis of Berkeley, in what it mentioned was a “nuanced strategy” to criticism of one in every of its most well-known students.
“George Berkeley’s monumental contribution to philosophical thought will not be in query,” Trinity’s Provost Linda Doyle mentioned in a press release that confirmed Berkeley’s work would nonetheless be taught on the college.
“Nevertheless, it is usually clear that he was each an proprietor of enslaved folks and a theorist of slavery and racial discrimination, which is in clear battle with Trinity’s core values,” mentioned Doyle, a reference to 4 slaves Berkeley purchased to work on his Rhode Island property in 1730-31.
The Irish Times studies:
Trinity School Dublin mentioned it might “dename the Berkeley Library whereas adopting a retain-and-explain strategy to a stained-glass window commemorating George Berkeley. Portraits depicting Berkeley might be assessed sooner or later by a brand new total School coverage on paintings, whereas the educational Gold Medals memorialising Berkeley might be reviewed by the related educational division.”
A brand new identify for the library has not been determined upon.
In 2020, Joe Humphreys, who covers philosophy for The Irish Instances, reported on Berkeley’s slave proudly owning (and different issues about him, comparable to his use of “rhetorical nastiness that may make a seasoned web troll blush”) here.
Berkeley has additionally been controversial at Yale, the place a university is known as after him.
