Berkeley's Argument That Primary And Secondary Qualities Are Mind-Independent

Introduction

In this paper I will argue against Berkeley who claims that primary and secondary qualities are both mind-dependent, I will do so by arguing that the former are mind-independent but the latter mind-dependent. The first section of this paper will be dedicated to defining what primary and secondary qualities are, and what it means for these qualities to be mind-dependent or mind-independent. The second section will be an argument on Locke’s account as to why ideas of primary qualities are mind-independent and accurately represented by the objects that produce them and how secondary qualities do not accurately represent the ideas produced by the object; also, Berkeley’s argument and its application against Locke who says that primary qualities are mind-dependent. My counter argument against Berkeley will emerge in the third section where I will go into more detail on how Berkeley’s argument fails to provide an accurate
Berkeley’s argument as proof that primary qualities are mind dependent seems to fail especially when he posits that there is no substance behind all the qualities that holds all the particular properties of an object together simply because it is abstract. For if there were no underlying subject that subsisted through the changes then it just seems like each change amounts to a new particular, and as a result, change is just a chain of different particulars. On Berkeley’s view, it is presupposed that there is nothing that underlies these changes and that it is the nature of ideas to be perceived. However, it seems like these ideas have to be in something in order for it to be perceived, and that this must be something like matter, unqualified and unmixed, yet absolutely extended. When it is qualified and mixed it gives rise to the type of thing it will come to