Cet article éclaire la constitution moderne du concept de nature en montrant que la position phénoméniste de Berkeley peut être conciliée avec le mécanisme dans une optique non fondationnaliste et pragmatique : l’«idéalisme» de Berkeley se retrouve finalement du côté des opérations pratiques du sens commun. – La connaissance des lois; – L’ordre de la nature.
A problem in Berkeley’s philosophy is to reconcile his phenomenalism with mechanism, this latter stating that there is more in bodies than what we perceive in them. Berkeley’s account consists in defining bodies as ordered collections of ideas, which supposes that there is an order and that this is known. This knowing is that of common sense, and is attested by a trustworthy experience. The affirmation of the homogeneity between common sense and science allows to consider the latter as a norm for knowledge, and then to secure it pragmatically on common experience, without any metaphysical foundation.