Arthur Collier (12 October 1680 – September 1732) was an English Anglican priest and philosopher who wrote about the non-existence of an absolute external world.
He was in financial difficulties (some say due to his wife[2]), from which at last he was obliged to free himself by selling the reversion of the Langford advowson to Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
Being a Demonstration of the Non-Existence, or Impossibility, of an External World (printed privately, Edinburgh, 1836, and reprinted in Metaphysical Tracts, 1837, edited by Sam.
It was favourably mentioned by Reid, Stewart and others, was frequently referred to by the Leibnitzians, and was translated into German by Johann Christian Eschenbach the Elder in 1756, Berkeley's Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge and Theory of Vision preceded it by three and four years respectively, but there is no evidence that they were known to Collier before the publication of his book.
[1] Collier married Margaret the daughter of Nicholas Johnson who was the army's paymaster and his wife who was a sister of Sir Stephen Fox.
[1] The first part ends with a reply to objections based on the universal consent of men, on the assurance given by touch of the extra existence of the visible world, and on the truth and goodness of God (Descartes), which would be impugned if our senses deceived us.
He thinks with Berkeley, that objects of sight are quite distinct from those of touch, and that the one therefore cannot give any assurance of the other; and he asks the Cartesians to consider how far God's truth and goodness are called in question by their denial of the externality of the secondary qualities.
If there is no external world, the distinction between substance and accidents vanishes, and these become the sole essence of material objects, so that there is no room for any change whilst they remain as before.
Sir William Hamilton thinks that the logically necessary advance from the old theory of representative perception to idealism was stayed by anxiety to save this miracle of the church; and he gives Collier credit for being the first to make the discovery.
Hamilton (Discussions, p. 197) allows greater sagacity to Collier than to Berkeley, on the grounds that he did not vainly attempt to enlist man's natural belief against the hypothetical realism of the philosophers.
His views on the problems of Arianism, and his attempt to reconcile it with orthodox theology, are contained in A Specimen of True Philosophy (1730, reprinted in Metaphysical Tracts, 1837) and Logology, or a Treatise on the Logos in Seven Sermons on John 1.