Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Anaxarchus, George Berkeley and Jacques Derrida

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10 ideas

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / c. Primary qualities

3933	Primary qualities (such as shape, solidity, mass) are held to really exist, unlike secondary qualities [Berkeley]
	Full Idea: Sensible qualities are by philosophers divided into primary and secondary; the former are extension, figure, solidity, gravity, motion and rest, which exist really in bodies.
	From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], I p.169)
	A reaction: A crucial distinction, which anti-realists such as Berkeley end up denying. I think it is a good distinction, and philosophers should fight to preserve it.

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / e. Primary/secondary critique

6726	No one can, by abstraction, conceive extension and motion of bodies without sensible qualities [Berkeley]
	Full Idea: I desire any one to reflect and try whether he can, by any abstraction of thought, conceive the extension and motion of a body without any sensible qualities.
	From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §10)
	A reaction: The rather geometrical view of objects found in Descartes and Russell is an attempt to do this. I don't think the fact that we can't really achieve it matters much. We divide primary from secondary qualities in our understanding, not in experience.

6728	Motion is in the mind, since swifter ideas produce an appearance of slower motion [Berkeley]
	Full Idea: Is it not reasonable to say that motion is not without the mind, since if the succession of ideas in the mind become swifter the motion, it is acknowledged, shall appear slower without any alteration in any external object.
	From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §14)
	A reaction: An intriguing argument, based on what is now the principle of slow-motion photography. Fast minds slow down movement, like great tennis players. By what right does Berkeley say that the external subject is unaltered?

6727	Figure and extension seem just as dependent on the observer as heat and cold [Berkeley]
	Full Idea: If heat and cold are only affections of the mind (since the same body seems cold to one hand and warm to the other), why may we not argue that figure and extension also appear different to the same eye at different stations?
	From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §14)
	A reaction: If the assessment of the qualities of an object is entirely a matter of our experiences of it, there is no denying Berkeley on this. However, judgement goes beyond experience, into speculations, inferences, and explanations.

3934	A mite would see its own foot as large, though we would see it as tiny [Berkeley]
	Full Idea: A mite must be supposed to see his own foot as a body of some considerable dimension, though they appear to you scarcely discernible.
	From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], I p.170)
	A reaction: Berkeley is confused. Hot is secondary, but temperature is primary. Bigness is secondary, size primay. Midgets and tall people don't disagree over the size of a table.

3935	The apparent size of an object varies with its distance away, so that can't be a property of the object [Berkeley]
	Full Idea: As we approach to or recede from an object, the visible extension varies, being at one distance ten or a hundred times greater than at another; doth it not follow that it is not really inherent in the object?
	From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], I p.171)
	A reaction: Berkeley is confused, because he is too literally empirical. Qualities are not self-evidently primary or secondary, but are judged so after comparisons (e.g. with testimony, or with the other senses).

3937	'Solidity' is either not a sensible quality at all, or it is clearly relative to our senses [Berkeley]
	Full Idea: By 'solidity' either you do not mean any sensible quality, and so it is beside our enquiry; or if you do, it must be hardness or resistance, which are plainly relative to our senses.
	From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], I p.173)
	A reaction: Berkeley fails to recognise that a quality can have primary and secondary aspects (hot/high temperature). He is right that primary qualities are not directly perceived. They are judgements.

3940	Distance is not directly perceived by sight [Berkeley]
	Full Idea: Distance is not properly and immediately perceived by sight.
	From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], I p.186)
	A reaction: Interestingly, if secondary qualities are not strictly perceptions of the object, and primary qualities are not directly perceived, then we don't seem to perceive anything at all. Perhaps we should drop the concept of 'perception'?

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 3. Representation

6495	Berkeley's idealism resulted from fear of scepticism in representative realism [Robinson,H on Berkeley]
	Full Idea: It was fear of scepticism based upon representative realism that motivated Berkeley's idealism.
	From: comment on George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710]) by Howard Robinson - Perception II.1
	A reaction: Personally I side with Russell, who accepts representative realism, and also accepts that some degree of scepticism is unavoidable, but without getting excited about it. The key to everything is to be a 'fallibilist' about knowledge.

3957	Immediate objects of perception, which some treat as appearances, I treat as the real things themselves [Berkeley]
	Full Idea: Those immediate objects of perception, which, according to you, are only appearances of things, I take to be the real things themselves.
	From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], III p.237)
	A reaction: If that is a judgement, which it seems to be, it is a strange one. Realists offer a much better explanation of perceptions.