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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
Part of Berkeley's strategy in his attack on materialism in the Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous is to argue that the epistemological distinction between ideas of so-called primary qualities and ideas of secondary qualities, especially as this distinction is found in Locke, is untenable. Both kinds of ideas-those presenting to the mind the quantifiable properties of bodies (shape, size, extension, motion) and those which are just sensations (color, odor, taste, heat)-are equally perceptions in the mind, and there is no reason to believe that one kind (the ideas of primary qualities) represents true properties of independently existing external objects while the other kind does not.
1 All references are to the Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, 9 vols., Luce, A.A. and Jessop, T.E. eds. (London: Nelson & Sons 1949).Google Scholar TD = Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, in vol. 2; PHK = Principles of Human Knowledge, in vol. 2; PC = Philosophical Commentaries, in vol. 1. I have also provided in brackets the corresponding page number from the readily available Berkeley's Philosophical Writings, David M. Armstrong, ed. (New York: Macmillan 1965), abbreviated as ‘A.’
4 It should be noted that the primary/secondary distinction, even at the level of ideas alone, need not be only an epistemological distinction. Malebranche, for example, argues that sensations, which do not at all resemble external objects, are modifications of the human mind, while pure ideas (truly representing the quantitative properties of objects) are not part of the human mind but are in God. Thus, in Malebranche, the epistemological difference between sensations and ideas is paralleled by an ontological difference. See De la recherche de la vérité, especially Book I, chapter 13; Book III, part 2; and Éclaircissement X. An excellent discussion of the primary/secondary distinction in Locke is in Alexander, Peter Ideas, Qualities, and Corpuscles: Locke and Boyle on the External World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1985), esp. ch. 6–8.Google Scholar
5 For a discussion of the first premise, see Pitcher, George Berkeley (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1977), 100ff.Google Scholar
6 Berkeley also backs up this pain/pleasure argument for the mind-dependence of sensible qualities with arguments from the relativity and variability of appearance ('that which at other times seems sweet, shall, to a distempered palate, appear bitter’). See Pitcher, 104-6. Berkeley sometimes appears to believe that either argument is, in itself, sufficient to prove his point. For example, after Philonous uses the pain/pleasure argument with respect to taste, Hylas gives up: ‘I see no purpose to hold out, so I give up the cause as to these mentioned qualities’ (TD I, 180 [A, 144]). Philonous only introduces the relativity argument ‘for your farther satisfaction.’ I have yet to come across any commentators who look on the pleasure/pain argument as anything more than a mistake. See, for example, Warnock, G.J. Berkeley (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press 1983), 146ffGoogle Scholar. For a more general discussion of the distinction and relationship between ideas and pleasure or pain in Berkeley, see Brykman, Geneviève ‘Pleasure and Pain Versus Ideas in Berkeley,’ Hermathena 139 (1985) 127-37Google Scholar.
7 The case of color might be a bit more complex and problematic than the others, since it is clear that an intense and sharp perception of red, however painful or uncomfortable, involves something more than the sensation of pain, i.e. redness. It does not seem, however, that this fact, in itself, seriously weakens Berkeley's argument, since the painfulness would be for him an essential and inseparable part of the sensible quality. Its painfulness would be essential to its identity as this particular red-perception. And its inherent painfulness would place it, with the other qualities, in the mind.
8 Berkeley notes that a version of the pleasure/pain argument probably played some kind of role in the genesis of the primary/secondary distinction, since the presence or absence of pleasure and pain constitutes a clear differentiation between the two sets of qualities. See TD I, 191-2 (A, 155).
9 See also PHK 9-15, where Berkeley incorporates into his argument a claim regarding the inseparability of the so-called primary and secondary qualities.
10 This application of the relativity argument to primary qualities has its most evident source in Pierre Bayle's Dictionnaire Historique et Critique, article on Zeno, remark G. For a study of this influence, see Popkin, Richard H. ‘Berkeley and Pyrrhonism,’ in Burnyeat, Myles ed., The Skeptical Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press 1983), 377-96.Google Scholar
11 Margaret Wilson argues (against Mandelbaum, Alexander, and Mackie) that Berkeley does not make the mistake of overestimating the importance for Locke of the relativity argument in establishing the primary/secondary quality distinction. See her ‘Did Berkeley Completely Misunderstand the Basis of the Primary-Secondary Quality Distinction in Locke?,’ in Turbayne, Colin ed., Berkeley: Critical and Interpretive Essays (Manchester: Manchester University Press 1982), 108-23.Google Scholar
12 See TD III, 239 (A, 202): ‘A thing which hath no ideas in itself cannot impart them to me'; and PC 641, 78: ‘We find in our own minds a great Number of different Ideas. We may Imagine in God a Greater number….‘ J.D. Mabbott argues that Berkeley did not make the Divine Ideas an essential part of his system, and that there is good reason to doubt whether Berkeley's God has ideas at all; see ‘The Place of God in Berkeley's Philosophy,’ Philosophy 6 (1931), reprinted in Martin, C. D. and Armstrong, D.M. eds., Locke and Berkeley (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books 1968) 364-75CrossRefGoogle Scholar. George Thomas argues that Berkeley's God may have ideas, but His relation to these ideas is not that of perception; see ‘Berkeley's God Does Not Perceive,’ Journal of the History of Philosophy 14 (1976) 163-8.
13 For a good discussion of this, and a comparison of Berkeley's several arguments concerning God's pain, see Gotterbarn, Donald ‘Berkeley: God's Pain,’ Philosophical Studies 28 (1975) 245-54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
14 See Gotterbarn, 250ff.
15 PHK 30, 33, 36; TD III, 238 (A, 200-1)
16 See Gotterbarn, 251ff. Samuel Johnson, D.D., is the first to raise these questions regarding Berkeley's use of the archetype/ectype distinction; see his letter of September 10, 1729 (Works, vol. 2, 274-5). Geneviève Brykman argues that Berkeley is not willingly or deeply committed to a realm of archetypal divine ideas; see 'La notion d’ “archetype” selon Berkeley,’ Recherches sur le XVIIème siècle 7 (1984) 33-43. See also Mabbott.
17 For Berkeley, of course, ideas are not in themselves causally efficacious-not even God's ideas. However, they do play an essential role in God's causing our ideas, since ‘a thing which hath no ideas in itself cannot impart them to me.'
18 Brykman ('Pleasure and Pain Versus Ideas in Berkeley,’ 129-30) argues that Philonous’ use of the pleasure/pain argument should not be confused with a commitment to it on Berkeley's part.
19 PHK 15: ‘It must be confessed this method of arguing does not so much prove that there is no extension or colour in an outward object, as that we do not know by sense which is the true extension or colour of the object’ (47 (A, 66-7]). On the other hand, see TD I, 189 (A, 153), where Philonous calls the relativity argument 'a good argument’ to the effect that secondary qualities are not in objects. For a discussion of Berkeley's change in attitude towards this argument, see Lambert, Richard T. ‘Berkeley's Use of the Relativity Argument,’ Idealistic Studies 10 (1980) 107-21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
20 An early draft of this paper was read to the 1988 meeting of the International Berkeley Society in Washington, D.C. I would like to thank the participants of the discussion there for their helpful comments and questions. I am particularly grateful to Kenneth Winkler, Douglas Jesseph, Robert McKim, and Richard Lambert for their extensive written comments.