Abstract

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 and those which are just sensations -are equally perceptions in the mind, and there is no reason to believe that one kind represents true properties of independently existing external objects while the other kind does not.