Michael Collins Allers is the recipient of the Colin and Ailsa Turbayne International Berkeley Essay Prize administered by the University of Rochester Department of Philosophy.
Allers, who received his undergraduate degree in philosophy from Cornell University in 1999, will be a student in the doctoral graduate program in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Michigan.
Essays submitted for the competition discuss aspects of the teachings of Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. Berkeley, who lived from 1685 to 1753, was an idealist and an empiricist in the tradition of John Locke and David Hume.
The title of Allers' work was "A Worry About Divine Perception in Berkeley's Philosophy."
Turbayne is a professor emeritus of the philosophy department. He joined the Rochester faculty in 1957 and taught at the University for 23 years. Turbayne is the author of numerous articles and the books The Myth of Metaphor and Metaphors for the Mind: The Creative Mind and Its Origins. The biennial Berkeley Essay Prize carries a $2,000 cash award.