{"agent_id":"berkeley","agent_name":"George Berkeley","slug":"the-likeness-principle-and-the-collapse-of-primary-and-secon","label":"The likeness principle and the collapse of primary and secondary qualities: can primary qualities be 'in matter' in any sense the secondary qualities cannot?","topic":"The likeness principle and the collapse of primary and secondary qualities","question":"Can primary qualities be 'in matter' in any sense the secondary qualities cannot?","position":"An idea can be like nothing but an idea. The likeness principle is the simplest and the deepest of the arguments against matter. Two things can be known to be alike only if both can be compared, and comparison requires that both be objects of mind. The supposed material substance, ex hypothesi unperceivable, cannot be compared with any idea; therefore no idea can be known to resemble it; therefore no idea can be a \"picture\" or \"representation\" of it. This holds whether the idea is of a primary quality or a secondary. Locke conceded that secondary qualities (colour, sound, taste, smell, warmth, cold) are not in matter as we sense them but are powers in matter to produce sensations of those qualities in us; he held that primary qualities (extension, figure, motion, solidity, number) are in matter as we conceive of them, by way of resemblance. The concession was fatal. If the likeness principle prevents secondary qualities from being in matter, it equally prevents primary qualities from being in matter: an idea can no more be like an extension in matter than like a colour in matter. Moreover primary qualities cannot be abstracted from secondary in any concrete case: extension is always coloured extension; motion is the motion of a coloured-and-resistant body. Locke's distinction cannot be sustained. The matterist cannot retreat to it; the whole sensible world is in the mind, primary qualities and secondary together.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"An idea can be like nothing but an idea.","n":[]},{"t":"The likeness principle is the simplest and the deepest of the arguments against matter.","n":[]},{"t":"Two things can be known to be alike only if both can be compared, and comparison requires that both be objects of mind.","n":[]},{"t":"The supposed material substance, ex hypothesi unperceivable, cannot be compared with any idea; therefore no idea can be known to resemble it; therefore no idea can be a \"picture\" or \"representation\" of it.","n":[]}],[{"t":"This holds whether the idea is of a primary quality or a secondary.","n":[]},{"t":"Locke conceded that secondary qualities (colour, sound, taste, smell, warmth, cold) are not in matter as we sense them but are powers in matter to produce sensations of those qualities in us; he held that primary qualities (extension, figure, motion, solidity, number) are in matter as we conceive of them, by way of resemblance.","n":[1,2,3]}],[{"t":"The concession was fatal.","n":[]},{"t":"If the likeness principle prevents secondary qualities from being in matter, it equally prevents primary qualities from being in matter: an idea can no more be like an extension in matter than like a colour in matter.","n":[]},{"t":"Moreover primary qualities cannot be abstracted from secondary in any concrete case: extension is always coloured extension; motion is the motion of a coloured-and-resistant body.","n":[]}],[{"t":"Locke's distinction cannot be sustained.","n":[]},{"t":"The matterist cannot retreat to it; the whole sensible world is in the mind, primary qualities and secondary together.","n":[4,5]}]],"texts":"Principles §§8-15 (the central treatment); Three Dialogues I (the Hylas-Philonous dialectic on heat, taste, sound, color, extension, figure, motion); Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding II.viii (the target distinction). Reception: Hume's adoption of the collapse in the Treatise I.iv.4; Kant on phenomena and things in themselves as the post-Berkeleian relocation of the question; Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind (1764) on the alleged conflation of psychology and metaphysics; G.E. Moore's analytic engagement; the contemporary realist tradition (Locke's heirs in Boyd, Psillos) on structural-causal properties as the heir of primary qualities.","works":["Principles §§8-15 (the central treatment)","Three Dialogues I (the Hylas-Philonous dialectic on heat, taste, sound, color, extension, figure, motion)","Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding II.viii (the target distinction)"],"reception":"Hume's adoption of the collapse in the Treatise I.iv.4; Kant on phenomena and things in themselves as the post-Berkeleian relocation of the question; Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind (1764) on the alleged conflation of psychology and metaphysics; G.E. Moore's analytic engagement; the contemporary realist tradition (Locke's heirs in Boyd, Psillos) on structural-causal properties as the heir of primary qualities.","status":"One of Berkeley's most-vindicated diagnostic claims and the decisive technical move against Locke's representationalism. Hume in the Treatise I.iv.4 adopted the collapse without attribution and used it to undermine the entire framework of Lockean material substance. Kant's response was to relocate the question — phenomena are mind-correlative, things in themselves are unknowable — preserving the structure of the distinction at a deeper transcendental level rather than defending Locke directly. Reid's Common Sense response in the Inquiry into the Human Mind (1764) charged Berkeley with conflating psychology and metaphysics; the Reidian tradition remains a live alternative reading. Contemporary scientific realism (Boyd, Psillos) defends a successor distinction at the structural-causal level; whether this escapes the likeness principle is the contemporary question.","era":"1685-1753","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Works Vol 2 - Principles and Three Dialogues","page":"pp. 204–205","canonical":"","quote":"HyLas. But what say you to fure intellect? May not abstracted ideas be framed by that faculty? PHILONOUs. Since I cannot frame abstract ideas at all, it is plain, I cannot frame them by the help of pure intellect, whatsoever 114 of all those—(A, B) of light and colours, hard and soft, hot and cold, with the rest of those. 1 28 size or figure, or sensible quality—(A, B) size, colour, @c.","label":"Works Vol 2 - Principles and Three Dialogues, pp. 204–205"},{"n":2,"work":"Works Vol 2 - Principles and Three Dialogues","page":"pp. 209–210","canonical":"","quote":"Pray what think you of this? It is just come into my 30 head, that the ground of all our mistakes lies in your treating of each quality by itself. Now, I grant that each quality cannot singly subsist without the mind. Colour cannot without extension, neither can figure without some other sensible quality.","label":"Works Vol 2 - Principles and Three Dialogues, pp. 209–210"},{"n":3,"work":"Works Vol 2 - Principles and Three Dialogues","page":"pp. 197–199","canonical":"","quote":"Are not these shocking notions, and are not they subject to as-many ridiculous inferences, as those you were obliged to renounce before in the case of sounds? 30 uytas. I frankly own, Philonous, that it is in vain to stand out any longer. Colours, sounds, tastes, in a word, all those termed secondary qualities, have certainly existence without the mind.","label":"Works Vol 2 - Principles and Three Dialogues, pp. 197–199"},{"n":4,"work":"Works Vol 2 - Principles and Three Dialogues","page":"pp. 216–217","canonical":"","quote":"Or if you say it resembles some one only of our ideas, how shall we be able to distinguish the true copy from all the false ones? Hy.as. I profess, Philonous, I am at a loss. I know not what to say 10 to this. PHILONOUs. But neither is this all. Which are material objects in themselves, perceptible or imperceptible? HYLAS. Properly and immediately nothing can be perceived but ideas.","label":"Works Vol 2 - Principles and Three Dialogues, pp. 216–217"},{"n":5,"work":"Works Vol 2 - Principles and Three Dialogues","page":"pp. 200–201","canonical":"","quote":"The very same. But doth this latter fact ever happen? PHILONOUs. You may at any time make the experiment, by looking with bare, and with the other through HYLAs. I know not how to maintain it, and yet I am loth to give up extension, I see so many odd consequences following upon such a concession. PHILONOUS. Odd, say you? After the concessions already made, Thope you will stick at nothing for its oddness.","label":"Works Vol 2 - Principles and Three Dialogues, pp. 200–201"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"immaterialism-esse-est-percipi","label":"Immaterialism / esse est percipi: are sensible things constituted by perception, or do they have an existence independent of all minds?"},{"slug":"the-master-argument","label":"The Master Argument: can a sensible object be conceived as existing unperceived, or does the very attempt smuggle the perceiver into the conception?"},{"slug":"god-as-the-cause-of-ideas","label":"God as the cause of ideas: is divine continuous perception the metaphysical guarantee of the perceivable, or is the appeal to God philosophical sleight of hand?"},{"slug":"the-analyst-and-the-critique-of-the-calculus","label":"The Analyst and the critique of the calculus: are the differentials of fluxions and infinitesimals rigorously grounded, or are they 'the ghosts of departed quantities'?"}]}