Did Berkeley Completely Misunderstand the Basis of the Primary-Secondary Quality Distinction in Locke?
Margaret D. Wi/son
I
According to leading seventeenth-century philosophers and scientists, our sensory "ideas" of physical objects are of two importantly different types. Certain sorts of ideas, the "ideas of primary qualities," resemble qualities actually existing in the object. While there are some differences about what exactly these comprise, size, shape, motion or rest, and number are among the accepted examples. (Locke, notoriously, includes ‘solidity"; he sometimes mentioned position. Gravity, as we will see below, was sometimes included later.) On the other hand, the "ideas of secondary qualities" do not resemble any quality really existing in the object, although they are systematically produced by the interactions of the objects’ primary qualities with percipients. Ideas or sensations of colors, odors, tastes, sounds, and temperature (hot and cold) are among the traditional "ideas of secondary qualities." [1]
Berkeley is the best known early critic of this distinction -- although, as we shall see, he did have predecessors. In the early twentieth century, the distinction was vigorously attacked by Whitehead, who considered it a prominent manifestation of the fallacy of misplaced concreteness -- which, he claimed, has "ruined" modern philosophy. [2] More recently, D.J. O’Connor, after critically expounding Locke’s doctrine of qualities, dismisses it with the comment:
[1] See John Locke, Essay concerning Human Understanding, bk. II, chap. viii. Descartes, Galileo, and Boyle are among the other prominent exponents of the distinction.
[2] A. N. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (1925; repr. New York: The Free Press, 1967), chap. 3.
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Clearly all this is a great muddle. The doctrine of primary and secondary qualities is, in truth, nothing but some scientific truths dangerously elevated into a philosophical doctrine. [3]
But since O’Connor’s article was published in 1964, the primary-secondary quality distinction has increasingly been treated with respect, especially by philosophers sympathetic to "scientific realism." In terms of historical criticism, this development has been accompanied by an increasingly sympathetic construal of Locke’s philosophy in general, and a tendency to dismiss Berkeley as having had a very poor understanding of Locke’s position. The following views, in particular, have been espoused by a number of writers. (1) Locke’s distinction should be viewed as principally grounded in the explanatory success of Boylean atomism. (2) Berkeley erroneously and misleadingly construed the distinction as one supposed to rest on ordinary experience of macroscopic objects. More specifically (some have held), Berkeley misinterpreted the "arguments" of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, bk. II, chap. viii, sects. 16-21 -- having to do with illusion and the relativity of perception -- as Locke’s main foundation for the distinction, and therefore falsely supposed that he could refute the distinction by showing that primary-quality perceptions are also subject to relativity considerations. But in fact the issue of perceptual relativity plays no such central role in Locke’s thought. (The reasoning of Essay, II, viii, 16-21 should be read either as some incidental "bad arguments" for the distinction, or simply as an attempt to bring out the explanatory power of the Boylean conception of body.) (3) Berkeley is responsible, through his stress on relativity considerations, and epistemological issues generally, for a long subsequent history of misinterpreting Locke as relying on such considerations. He is correspondingly responsible for the widespread failure to recognize the truth stated above under (1). (4) When Locke’s distinction is correctly reinterpreted as resting on a tacit appeal to the "explanatory success" of contemporary science, it is a much stronger position than traditionally believed. (In fact, at least one prominent philosopher has firmly endorsed I.ocke’s position, with only minor qualifications, relating mainly to scientific progress since Locke’s time.) [4]
I fully agree with the view that l.ocke’s distinction was heavily influenced by Boylean science. however, I do not think there is strong reason to suppose that Berkeley seriously "misrepresented" or "misinterpreted" Locke in this connection, is "wholly unfair" to him,
[3] "Locke," in D.J. O’Connor, ed., A Critical History of Western Philosophy (New York: The Free Press, 1964), p. 211.
[4] J. L. Mackie, Problems From Locke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), chap. 2. Other sources for the views cited (with less explicit philosophical endorsement of Locke’s distinction) are found in the works of Mandelbaum and Alexander, cited below. At the beginning of the paper cited in n. 6, Barry Stroud gives many references to works advancing the "old" interpretation of Locke.
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read him "carelessly," or produced arguments against Locke that are "wholly [or "simply"] beside the point," as various critics allege. [5] As Barry Stroud has recently noted, this conception of Berkeley, like the old view of Locke, is a purely fictional chapter in the history of philosophy." [6] Stroud persuasively demonstrates this claim by a careful examination of the arguments of the Principles and the Dialogues, in relation to the primary-secondary quality distinction. Stroud stresses throughout that Berkeley is primarily concerned with what he sees as his predecessors’ ‘faulty notion of existence" -- specifically, their assumption that something unperceived and unperceiving could exist. [7] It is this assumption that Berkeley sees as their major error, rather than mistakes about the relativity of primary quality perceptions, or the epistemological appearance-reality distinction generally.
In the present essay I will defend a point of view that is similar to Stroud’s, but with a somewhat different approach. [8] I will focus on the claims of three commentators -- Mandelbaum, Alexander, and Mackie -- who hold that Berkeley falsely believed Locke’s primary-secondary quality distinction to rest on facts about ordinary perception. After quoting some passages from their writings, I will argue that there is in reality very little basis for attributing this interpretation of Locke to Berkeley. I will suggest, however, that there is something of a puzzle about the role of relativity arguments in the history of the primary-secondary quality distinction. (As we will see, the puzzle in question goes back beyond Berkeley; I am unable to resolve it.) I will then show that there is ample evidence that Berkeley was aware that Locke’s distinction was supposed to derive major support from arguments from scientific (or corpuscularian) explanation. He in fact deals with such arguments repeatedly, searchingly, and -- at least in part -- astutely. I will also sketch the variety of considerations by which he tries to meet them.
It is so easy to show that Berkeley was aware of the supposed corpuscularian grounding of the distinction that what really requires explanation is the fact that he has so long been accused of missing it. In conclusion I will point out that two of the three critics indeed seem to acknowledge obliquely that Berkeley is far from simply ignoring the alleged scientific basis of Locke’s distinction. But -- perhaps out of sympathy for Locke’s philosophy? -- they do not sufficiently consider the implications of these concessions for their other charges against Berkeley.
While this is strictly an interpretive essay, I would like to mention in
[5] All of these comments are from Mackie, Alexander, and Mandelbaum. Some of them occur in the passages I cite from their works at the beginning of pt. II.
[6] "Berkeley v. Locke on Primary Qualities," Philosophy 55 (April 1980):
150. See also Daniel Garber, "Locke, Berkeley, and Corpuscular Scepticism," Berkeley: Critical and Interpretive Essays, Colin M. Turbayne, ed. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), pp. 174-94.
[7] Stroud, "Berkeley v. Locke," pp. 150-51 and passim.
[8] To the best of my knowledge, my views about the interpretation of Berkeley developed in complete independence from Stroud’s. I did not become aware of the similarities between our ideas on this matter until I came across the published version of his paper, after an earlier version of the present article had been submitted for publication. I must acknowledge, however, that I had in my possession all the while a manuscript version of his essay, which constituted part of a much longer paper on Locke and Berkeley that he sent me years ago. Apparently, I had never read the section on Berkeley, and had indeed misremembered the paper as being wholly on Locke. (My oversight came to light as a result of recent correspondence with Stroud.) I have extensively revised pt. I of the present essay to take account of Stroud’s prior work. For reasons of structure and exposition, it has proved impractical to remove all overlap from later sections, however. In particular, my treatment of Berkeley on relativity arguments is in several respects close to Stroud’s. Stroud also touches briefly on Bayle’s precedence to Berkeley, which I discuss in more detail, and on the issue of materialist explanation.
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passing that I am in some respects quite sympathetic to Berkeley’s position on the subject under discussion. That is, I share his view that the primary-secondary quality distinction is an affront to common sense, and I am not convinced that a satisfactory version of the argument from explanation has so far been brought forward to establish it. [9]
II
A key passage from Mandelbaum’s influential essay on "Locke’s Realism" reads as follows:
The upshot of our argument . . . is that the basis on which Locke established his theory of the primary qualities was his atomism; it was not his aim to attempt to establish the nature of physical objects by examining the sensible ideas which we had of them. Thus instead of viewing Locke’s doctrine of the primary and secondary qualities as a doctrine which rests on an analysis of differences among our ideas, his doctrine is to be understood as a theory of physical entities, and of the manner in which our ideas are caused. To this extent the Berkeleian criticism of Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities is wholly beside the point, for it rests on an assumption which Locke did not share -- that all distinctions concerning the nature of objects must be based upon, and verified by, distinctions discernible within the immediate contents of consciousness. [10]
Mandelbaum does not explain exactly what he means by "distinctions discernible within the immediate contents of consciousness." However, in a footnote he cites Essay. II, viii, 21 as the only passage in Locke where it might seem that the theory of primary and secondary qualities is being supported by such a distinction. (This is the passage in which Locke observed that the corpuscularian theory of warmth in our hands as merely a motion of animal spirits enables us to understand how the same water can feel warm to one hand and cold to another, ‘Whereas it is impossible that the same Water, if those Ideas were really in it, should at the same time be both Hot and Cold."" He goes on to indicate that "figure" does not present the same problem, "that never producing the Idea of a square by one Hand which has produced the Idea of a Globe by another.") Mandelbaum remarks that the passage is primarily concerned with the causal story of the origin of ideas of secondary qualities, and he suggests that "the contention that we are not
[9] I critically discuss Mackie’s exposition of the argument in ‘The Primary-Secondary Quality Distinction: Against Two Recent Defenses," 1979, unpublished.
[10] Maurice Mandelbaum, "Locke’s Realism," in Philosophy, Science, and Sense Perception (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1974), pp. 27-28; see also p. 20.
[11] John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Peter H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarenolon Press, 1960; repr. 1975), p. 139.
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deceived by tactile impressions of shape plays no significant part in the discussion." [12]
Rather similarly, Peter Alexander writes in the introduction to "Boyle and Locke on Primary and Secondary Qualities":
Locke has been seriously misrepresented in various respects ever since Berkeley set critics off on the wrong foot. I wish to discuss just one central view the misunderstanding of which has been particularly gross, namely, the distinction between primary and secondary qualities and, especially the alleged arguments for this distinction in Essay II, viii, 16-21. Robert Boyle is often mentioned in connection with Locke but the extent and importance of his influence on Locke has seldom been realized. [Alexander here cites Mandelbaum as one of two "honourable exceptions."] If the arguments of II, viii were intended, following Berkeley, to establish the distinction between primary and secondary qualities then Locke was both foolish and incompetent; a study of Boyle can help us to see that he was neither of these things by making it clear what he was driving at. [13]
And, finally, some excerpts from Chap. I of John Mackie’s book, Problems from Locke:
But Locke [after well arguing that the corpuscularian science can explain the ‘illusion" of lukewarm water feeling cold to one hand and hot to the other] throws in, for contrast, the remark that "figure -- that is, shape -- never produce[s] the idea of a square by one hand [and] of a globe by another." Though literally correct, this is unfortunate because it has led careless readers from Berkeley onwards to think that Locke is founding the primary/secondary distinction on the claim that secondary qualities are subject to sensory illusion while primary qualities are not. It is then easy for Berkeley to reply that illusions also occur with respect to primary qualities like shape, size, and motion, and hence that there can be no distinction between the two groups of qualities. ... But of course Locke’s argument does not rest on any such claim . . .; it is rather that the corpuscular theory is confirmed as a scientific hypothesis by its success in explaining various illusions in detail. [14]
The textual support offered for these negative characterizations of Berkeley’s understanding of Locke is surely, by anyone’s standards, singularly meager. Neither Mandelbaum nor Alexander cites any texts at all, while Mackie refers us (in the paragraph after the one partially quoted) to "especially ... the First Dialogue." What, then, do they have in mind? Following up Mackie’s clue, let us turn first to that Dia-
[12] Mandelbaum, ‘Locke’s Realism," p. 28,n. 52.
[13] In I. C. Tipton, ed., Locke on Human Understanding (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 62; sec also p 73. (Originally published in Ratio 16 [1974].)
[14] Problems from Locke. pp. 22-23; cf. p. 24.
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logue. One feature of Berkeley’s strategy there does afford at least prima facie support for the charge against him.
In the first part of the Dialogue, Philonous has argued in a variety of ways (not just through notions of relativity or illusion) that sensible colors, sounds, heat and cold, tastes and odors exist "only in the mind." Hylas, reluctantly persuaded of this conclusion, suddenly be-thinks himself of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. "Philosophers," he points out, assert that all of the properties so far covered in the Dialogue "are only so many sensations or ideas existing nowhere but in the mind." The primary qualities, however -- "Extension, Figure, Solidity, Gravity, [15] Motion, and Rest -- they hold exist really in bodies." Hylas concludes his speech as follows: "For my part, I have been a long time sensible there was such an opinion current among philosophers, but was never thoroughly convinced of its truth until now." [16] Philonous then introduces the next phase of the argument for immaterialism in the following terms: "But what if the same arguments which are brought against Secondary Qualities will hold good against [extensions and figures] also?" [17] He then proceeds to argue that perceptions of extension are relative to the condition and situation of the percipient. This discussion includes a passage that does indeed recall the argument of Essay, II, viii, 21:
Phil: Was it not admitted as a good argument [cited in our previous discussion] that neither heat nor cold was in the water, because it seemed warm to one hand and cold to the other?
Hyl: It was.
Phil: It is not the very same reasoning to conclude, there is no extension or figure in an object, because to one eye it shall seem little, smooth and round, when at the same time it appears to the other great, uneven, and angular? [18]
In response to Hylas’ expression of skepticism as to whether this ever happens, Philonous goes on to cite the instance of the microscope.
Now, does this passage, together with Philonous’ subsequent development of relativity arguments for motion and solidity, show that Berkeley seriously overestimated the importance of relativity considerations for Locke? This seems to me a rather extravagant supposition, for several reasons. First (and least important), surely there really is a suggestion in Essay, II, viii, 21 that relativity considerations show that hot and cold as we perceive them are not really in the water; and some
[15] The inclusion of gravity constitutes an important departure from Locke: cf. Margaret D. Wilson, ‘Superadded Properties: The Limits of Mechanism in Locke," American Philosophical Quarterly 14 (April 1979): 148-49. On the other hand, Berkeley does not always include gravity in the list of primary qualities: cf. A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, I, sect. 9. (In A. A. Luce and T. F. Jessop, eds., The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, 9 vols. [London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1948-57], vol. II, p. 44. This edition hereafter referred to as Works.)
[16] Works, II, pp. 187-88.
[17] Ibid., p. 188.
[18] Ibid., P. 189.
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contrast is suggested in this respect between hot-and-cold and figure. Second, as Michael Ayers has pointed out, the fact that there is an "association" of Philonous’ reasoning with Locke’s brief remarks about relativity scarcely shows that Berkeley sees Locke as resting the distinction between subjective ideas and real qualities on considerations of relativity or the possibility of illusion. [19] And, finally, the argument of the First Dialogue is clearly not presented in the form of ad hominem reasoning at all. That is, the overt strategy is not simply to take a premiss from the opposition -- that relativity considerations establish the subjectivity of the "secondary qualities’‘ -- and show that anyone who holds that can logically be forced into immaterialism. Rather, Berkeley first has Philonous systematically persuade Hylas (through relativity and other considerations) that colors, odors, etc., are mere ideas in the mind. Following Ayers, then, I would deny that Berkeley’s treatment of relativity arguments in the First Dialogue tends to convict him of a misunderstanding or "careless reading" of Locke. [20]
It might be suggested, however, that the Principles actually provide more direct proof than do the Dialogues that Berkeley saw Locke and his followers as resting the primary-secondary quality distinction on considerations of perceptual relativity. For we do find in Principles, I, sect. 14 the following statement:
I shall farther add, that, after the same manner as modern philosophers prove certain sensible qualities to have not existence in Matter, or without the mind, the same things may be likewise proved of all other sensible qualities whatsoever. Thus, for instance, it is said that heat and cold are affections only of the mind, and not at all patterns of real beings, existing in the corporeal substances which excite them; for that the same body which appears cold to one hand seems warm to another. [21]
He goes on to claim that the same relativity considerations hold in the cases of extension and motion. It is true, as Ayers points out, that Berkeley immediately goes on (in sect. 15) to observe that this reasoning does not establish the mind-dependence of either class of qualities:
Though it must he 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. [22]
The passage does, however, provide direct evidence that Berkeley thought that "modern philosophers" drew on relativity arguments to
[19] "Substance, Reality, and the Great Dead Philosophers," American Philosophical Quarterly 7 (January 1970): 43. Ayers is disputing a rather different allegation of Berkeleyan misunderstanding -- that of Jonathan Bennett -- but some of his remarks are relevant to the present context as well.
[20] Ayers points out that Berkeley’s deployment of relativity arguments in the First Dialogue can well be read as the outcome of "his own quasi-sceptical reflections on the fact that the state, position, etc. of the perceiver help to determine how any aspect of the world is perceived." However, as I explain below, there is considerable reason to believe that the "quasi-sceptical reflections" in question were strongly influenced by Bayle.
[21] Works, II, pp. 46-47. In Principles, sect. 14-15, Berkeley specifically mentions relativity considerations as applying to color and taste, as well as hot and cold, among the secondary qualities, and extension, figure, and motion among the primary qualities.
[22] Ibid., p. 47. A similar point is made by Bayle in the section of "Zeno" cited in the next note.
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establish the subjectivity of secondary qualities. It appears to imply that he thought they had not noticed that perception of primary qualities, too, could be affected by the position or condition of the percipient. What does this tell us about his reading of Locke?
The first point to observe is that the idea that relativity considerations extend to primary as well as secondary qualities did not originate with Berkeley -- nor did the use of this point as a criticism of the view that perceptions of primary qualities possess superior objectivity. The passage quoted above from Berkeley’s Principles has an extremely close parallel in section G of the article "Zeno of Elea" in Bayle’s Dictionary, published years before. [23] The likelihood that Berkeley adopted this part of his reasoning from Bayle was apparently first demonstrated by Richard Popkin in 1951, and has frequently been noted in subsequent writings by Popkin and others. [24] Bayle is criticizing "the new’ philosophers." The following passage is representative:
All the means of suspending judgment that overthrow the reality of corporeal qualities also overthrow the reality of extension. Since the same bodies are sweet to some men and bitter to others, one is right in inferring that they are neither sweet nor bitter in themselves and absolutely speaking. The "new" philosophers, although they are not skeptics, have so well understood the bases of suspension of judgment with regard to sounds, smells, heat, cold, hardness, softness, heaviness and lightness, tastes, colors, and the like, that they teach that all these qualities are perceptions of our soul and that they do not exist at all in the objects of our senses. Why should we not say the same thing about extension? ... [N]otice carefully that the same body appears to us to be small or large, according to the place from which it is viewed; and let us have no doubts that a body that seems very small to us appears very large to a fly. [25]
Now, against whom, exactly, does Bayle suppose that such reasoning is effective? In another article Bayle credits Simon Foucher with influencing his views on the indefensibility of the primary-secondary quality distinction. [26] He specifically cites Foucher’s Critique de Ia Recherche de la Verite, an attack on Malebranche published in 1675. [27] This would take the criticism of the primary-secondary quality distinction back to fifteen years before the publication of Locke’s Essay. While Foucher does argue that the primary-secondary distinction is indefensible, however, he does not, as far as I can find, focus on the issue of the comparable relativity and variability of primary qualities. [28] It is perhaps logical that he should not, since Malebranche himself makes much of the rela-
[23] Pierre Bayle, Dictionnaire historique et critique, nov. ed., tome XV (Paris: Desoer, 1820), pp. 44-45; Historical and Critical Dictionary ed. Richard H. Fopkin (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), pp. 364-66. Subsequent references are to Popkin’s edition. The Dictionary was originally published in 1697.
[24] Richard H. Popkin, "Berkeley and Pyrrhonism," Review of Metaphysics 5 (1951-52): 223-46. See also his notes to his edition of Bayle’s Dictionary s.v. "Pyrrho" and "Zeno of Elea." See also Richard A. Watson, The Downfall of Cartesianism, 1673-1712 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966), p. 3; and his Introduction to Simon Foucher, Critique de la Recherche de Ia Verite (New York and London: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1969), p. xxix. I am grateful to Phillip Cummins for calling my attention to Bayle’s (and Foucher’s) relevance to the present inquiry.
[25] Dictionary. pp 364-65.
[26] s.v. "Pyrrho," ibid., P. 197.
[27] Reprinted 1969: see n. 24. See esp. pp. 76-80 of this work. Foucher’s influence on Bayle has been noted by Popkin and Watson in the works cited above. Watson’s Downfall of Cartesianism contains an especially detailed discussion of Foucher and his relationship to Malebranche, Bayle, Berkeley, and others. See also Phillip Cummins, ‘Perceptual Relativity and ldeas in the Mind,’’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 24 (December 1963): 202-14. Cummins notes Bayle’s seemingly erroneous emphasis on the issue of perceptual relativity and provides an interesting analysis of his (and of Foucher’s) conception of the issue.
[28] Popkin indicates that he does: cf. Popkin, "Skepticism," in Paul Edwards, ed., The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 7 (New York: Macmillan and The Free Press, 1967), p. 454. He does not give an exact reference, however. Watson, in his detailed discussion of Foucher’s anti-Malebranche works, does not seem to point to the presence of an "equal variability" argument in Foucher. (I have personally had access to only the first of Foucher’s critical works.)
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tivity of perceptions of extension in the Recherche! [29] Bayle himself notes that such arguments are found in Malebranche and the Port Royal Logic, among other sources. [30] It is therefore presently unclear to me just whom Bayle thought he was refuting in the passage quoted, and just what he thought their error was. (Not noticing that perceptions of primary qualities are variable? Not drawing the right conclusion from the observation?) -- There certainly seems to be no good reason to suppose he had in mind specifically Essay, II, viii, 16-21. The same difficulties then come up at one remove about Berkeley’s closely comparable reasoning (and even wording) in Principles, sects. 14-15. That is, there may have been "modern" or "new" philosophers who fit the role that Bayle and Berkeley cast them in more closely than Locke -- and Bayle and Berkeley may have had them in mind. Or there may not have been, in which case Berkeley will have taken over from Bayle a piece of reasoning without a proper target. In contrast to this rather murky situation, however, it is possible to show clearly that Berkeley (if not Bayle) fully appreciated the importance of the alleged success of corpuscularian explanations as a basis for the primary-secondary quality distinction. Let us now turn to this task.
III
It is an interesting fact that Mandelbaum, Alexander, and Mackie, in arguing that the explanatory success of corpuscularianism is the main basis for Locke’s distinction, particularly cite the ability of this science to explain the production of ideas in us, including the ideas of secondary qualities. But this is, as it happens, a topic with which Berkeley deals repeatedly and emphatically. For instance, at the very beginning of the Second Dialogue, Hylas first admits that he can see no false steps in the reasonings of the previous day. But, he says,
when these are out of my thoughts, there seems, on the other hand, something so satisfactory, so natural and intelligible, in the modern way of explaining things that, I profess, I know not how to reject it. [31]
The conversation proceeds as follows:
Phil: I know not what you mean.
Hyl: I mean the way of accounting for our sensations or ideas.
[29] Recherche de la verite bk. I, chap. vi, sect. 1, in Nicholas Malebranche, Oeuvres completes, ed. A. Robinet, vol. I (Paris: J. Vrin, 1958), pp. 79ff. However, Malebranche does claim that judgments about bodies’ primary qualities involve truths about proportions and relations, while judgments about secondary qualities are more wholly erroneous: cf. Watson, Downfall, p. 44.
[30] Bayle, Dictionary, s.v. "Zeno," no. 66 and 67, pp. 365-66.
[31] Works, It, p. 208.
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Phil: How is that?
Hyl: It is supposed the soul makes her residence in some part of the brain, from which the nerves take their rise, and are thence extended to all parts of the body; and that outward objects, by the different impressions they make on the organs of sense, communicate certain vibrative motions to the nerves; and these being filled with spirits propagate them to the brain or seat of the soul, which, according to the various impressions or traces thereby made in the brain is variously affected with ideas.
Phil: And call you this an explication of the manner whereby we are affected with ideas? [32]
In objecting to this reasoning, Philonous first points out that by the previous day’s reasoning the brain is just one sensible object among others, and hence itself exists "only in the mind." How could one idea or sensible thing reasonably be supposed to cause all the others? But, he continues, Hylas’ position is intrinsically inacceptable, even apart from conclusions previously arrived at.
Phil: … for after all, this way of explaining things, as you called it, could never have satisfied any reasonable man. What connexion is there between a motion in the nerves, and the sensations of sound or colour in the mind? Or how is it possible these should be the effect of that? [33]
As this passage shows conclusively, Berkeley was perfectly aware that the primary-secondary quality distinction was supposed to derive support from the alleged ability of contemporary science to explain perception in terms of materialist mechanism -- and hence of primary qualities. His response is straightforward: the purported ‘explanation" is a sham. In presenting this response he invokes the notion that the production of ideas by states of matter is not "possible." Such an a priori stricture on causal relations would be considered untenable by many philosophers today. It was, however, accepted by Locke, who argued at length that states of matter cannot "naturally" produce "Sence, Perception, and Knowledge." [34] Far from missing Locke’s point, Berkeley has come down on a crucial weakness -- and problem of consistency -- in the Lockean system. [35]
Berkeley raises this issue repeatedly. [36] However, he also deals in other ways with the notion that the contemporary concept of external
[32] Ibid., pp. 208-9.
[33] Ibid., p. 210.
[34] Cf. Wilson, "Superadded Properties," pp. 144-48; and Stroud, "Berkeley v. Locke," p. 158.
[35] Foucher had already observed this inconsistency -- and some related ones -- in the dualist, realist philosophies of his day, and had dwelt on it emphatically and at length. As noted above, however, his targets were post-Cartesian continental philosophers, especially Malebranche. Foucher’s critical arguments and their influence on Berkeley and others have been meticulously detailed by Watson in Downfall.
In "Berkeley on the Limits of Mechanistic Explanation" (Turbayne, op. cit., pp. 95-107, Nancy L. Maull also stresses Berkeley’s use of this line of argument, and mentions its ad hominem relevance. Unfortunately, I did not learn of Maull’s essay until the present paper had been submitted for publication. While there are a number of points of contact between our approaches, I disagree strongly with Maull’s conclusion that we can now see that Berkeley’s criticism of contemporary materialist philosophy was ‘ultimately ineffectual and irrelevant." That is, I do not believe that Berkeley’s criticism has been shown to reflect a merely dogmatic distinction between the mental and the physical (as she seems to imply), or that it has been discredited by the subsequent development of psychophysiology.
[36] See Principles, I, sect. 50 (Works, II, p. 62):
You will say there have been a great many things explained by matter and motion: take away these, and you destroy the whole corpuscular philosophy, and undermine those mechanical principles which have been applied with so much success to account for the phenomena .... To this I answer, that there is not any one phenomenon explained on that supposition, which may not as well be explained without it. . . . To explain the phenomena, is all one as to shew, why upon such and such occasions we are affected with such and such ideas. But how matter should operate on a spirit, or produce any idea in it, is what no philosopher will pretend to explain.
See also Philosophical Commentaries, sect. 476, ed. A. A. Luce
(London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1944), p. 161.
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matter characterized (just) by primary qualities is justified by its "explanatory success." Some of his arguments draw on problematic -- even idiosyncratic -- views about causal relations. For present purposes there is no need to analyze the relevant passages in detail. I will merely summarize the main considerations he advances.
(1) From the contention that only spirits are active, Berkeley argues that extension, motion, etc -- or unthinking matter characterized by these qualities -- cannot be causes of anything. Hence they cannot "explain" the production of any effect. [37]
(2) Even apart from the impossibility of understanding how a motion of matter could produce an idea, or how an "inert" entity could be a cause, contemporary materialism is far from explanatorily adequate. Have the materialists, Berkeley demands,
by all their strained thoughts and extravagant suppositions… been able to reach the mechanical production of any one animal or vegetable body? Have they accounted, by physical principles, for the aptitude and contrivance, even of the most inconsiderable parts of the universe? [38]
(3) The explanatory successes that the new science has had can readily be accommodated within the immaterialist philosophy. They have to do mainly with uncovering regularities and "analogies" in nature. Nothing but confusion results when it is thought that these regularities are leading to the discovery of productive material causes (e.g., "gravitational attraction"). Rather they should be conceived as part of an increasingly comprehensive theory of ideal "signs" to significata. The underlying ground of this relation is the causality of the infinite spirit, orderly producer of these ideas or sensible objects that constitute nature. [39]
These contentions range, clearly, from prodigious metaphysics to simple common sense. Taken together, however, they hardly indicate unawareness of the explanatory claims of contemporary mechanism -- or of the philosophical significance attributed to these claims.
Two final points should be added, in concluding this discussion of Berkeley. First, the specific considerations against arguments from "explanatory success" for the Boylean concept of matter are offered despite the fact that Berkeley (in the Principles, anyway) believes that he can demonstrate the unintelligibility of the notion before the issue of its "explanatory power" -- which surely is in some sense posterior -- is even raised. Second, it would be wrong to suppose (as Mandelbaum
[37] Cf. Principles, I, sect. 25, and I, sect. 102, Works, It, pp. 51-52, 85.
[38] Third Dialogue, ibid., p. 257.
[39] Principles, I, sects. 58ff. and 103, ibid., pp. 65ff., 86. Compare Philosophical Commentaries, sects. 71 and 403, in Luce, ed., pp. 19 and 131. (See also Stroud, "Berkeley v. Locke," pp. 158-59.) As the first of the two passages from the Commentaries suggests, Berkeley felt that the mechanists were faced with certain problems in merely understanding physical causality, problems that his system avoided. Probably he had in mind, for instance, some of Locke’s statements about the incomprehensibility of cohesion on materialist principles: cf. Wilson, "Superadded Properties," p. 149.
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sometimes seems to) [40] that Berkeley neglects the prevailing view that qualities of material bodies are supposed to derive from their inner real essences or constitutive corpuscles. He clearly states and disputes this Lockean conception in more than one passage.
IV
In conclusion, I want to acknowledge that both Mandelbaum and Alexander show some recognition that Berkeley’s attack on Locke was not wholly a matter of misinterpretation. In the case of Mandelbaum, the recognition is extremely oblique and in several ways puzzling. Mandelbaum points out that Berkeley did not merely overlook the fact that Locke's philosophy was founded on scientific considerations; rather he consciously "sought to free philosophic questions from any direct dependence upon science." [42] From this observation Mandelbaum somehow moves to the conclusion that it is accordingly "misleading" to interpret Locke in the light of Berkeley’s criticisms. He also seems to think that Berkeley’s efforts "to free philosophic questions from any direct dependence upon science" entail his reading the Essay "as an epistemological treatise devoid of a scientific substructure" [43] But none of this really follows, unless it be supposed that Berkeley’s attempt to free philosophy from dependence on science was somehow a mere blind turning away from the earlier "tradition" without any direct confrontation with its assumptions. Perhaps this inference is tied in with Mandelbaum’s undefended claim that Berkeley simply assumes that all distinctions among ideas must be drawn within the contents of ordinary experience of macroscopic objects. In any case, I hope to have shown that Berkeley did understand these "scientific" aspects of Locke’s position that Mandelbaum is concerned to stress -- and still had reason to regard the position as incoherent.
At the end of his article, Alexander does allow that "perhaps the most difficult objection for Locke to meet," with respect to the primary-secondary quality distinction, "is an argument about causality put by Berkeley." [44] It appears at first that Alexander means (surprisingly) Berkeley’s argument that everything except spirit is "inert" and hence causally inefficacious. But the whole passage gives the impression that ‘‘the most difficult objection’’ that Alexander has in mind is really Berkeley’s observation, expounded at some length above, "that no phi-
[40] Cf. Mandelbaum, "Locke’s Realism," p. 3.
[41] Principles, I, sect. 65 and 102, Works, II, pp. 69, 85; Philosophical Commentaries, sect. 533, in Luce, ed., p. 185. See also Garber’s detailed discussion, this volume.
[42] "Locke’s Realism," p. 3.
[43] Ibid.
[44] Alexander, "Boyle and Locke," in Tipton, ed., p. 75.
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losopher even pretends to explain ‘how matter should operate on a spirit.’"
In my opinion, this has to be a crucial point of contention between Berkeley and Locke’s present-day apologists, with respect to the primary-secondary quality distinction. [45] Berkeley, I have argued, rejected the argument from the explanatory success of mechanistic physics; he did not merely ignore it. And I have also claimed that, insofar as Berkeley was pointing out an inconsistency in the philosophy he opposed, his position is solidly grounded. It is apparently open to the contemporary philosopher, concerned with philosophical truth as well as Locke exegesis to deny that there is, after all, any special problem about causal relations between the mental and the physical, and hence about "explaining" perceptions in physical terms. (In this, I stress again, he would have to disagree with both Berkeley and Locke.) Mandelbaum and Mackie do not address this point; they do not seem to see it. [46] Alexander does at least partly see it. But rather than reject the eighteenth-century assumption that there is some special problem about mind-body interaction, he attempts to help Locke out of the difficulty by invoking an unexplained distinction between scientific and philosophical issues:
Locke believes, as does Boyle, that the facts of experience force dualism upon us; the consequent problem is not scientific but philosophical and is therefore not particularly involved in the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. [47]
But surely the whole drift of Berkeley’s attack on Locke’s distinction is that the "facts of experience" do not force dualism upon us -- so the philosophical inconsistency that Locke falls into can be avoided. Berkeley thinks that his immaterialism lets us accommodate the facts of experience without having a problem -- whether "philosophical" or "scientific" -- about how matter could possibly produce ideas in the mind. Alexander has not only conceded to Berkeley a relevant, if not powerful, objection to Locke’s system. [48] He has unintentionally pointed to one of the strongest positive features of Berkeley’s anti-Lockean metaphysics.
[45] At least those discussed in this paper. Jonathan Bennett’s defense of the distinction does not focus on the issue of explanatory adequacy, and to this extent avoids completely any problem about body-mind causation: cf. his Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971).
[46] As becomes clear in a later chapter, Mackie does see a problem about "reducing" phenomenal properties or sensations to states of matter: see Problems from Locke, pp. 167ff.
[47] "Locke and Boyle," p. 76.
[48] Alexander also concedes at the end of his article that he has not "dealt adequately with Berkeley’s conclusion from his various arguments that the idea of matter is unintelligible." It seems, then, that Alexander concedes in conclusion that there is a good deal that is relevant, if not powerful, in Berkeley’s attack on Locke’s distinction, and the "idea of matter" that is tied to it.
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