Locke’s argument for the primary-secondary quality distinction is compared with Descartes’s argument (in the Principles of Philosophy) for the distinction between mechanical modifications and sensible qualities. I argue that following Descartes, Locke’s argument for the primary-secondary quality distinction is an essentially a priori argument, based on our conception of substance, and the constraints on intelligible bodily interaction that this conception of substance sets.

For more than 200 years scholars have proceeded on the assumption that there was a controversy (in the sense of an argumentative exchange) between the bishop of Cork and Ross, Peter Browne (c. 1665–1735), and his nowadays more famous contemporary, the bishop of Cloyne, George Berkeley (1685–1753) about what we might call ‘the problem of divine attributes’. This problem concerns one of the most vexing issues for 17th /18th century Irish intellectuals. Simply put, it turns on two interconnected questions, namely (...) (1) an ontological question regarding God’s attributes and (2) a semantical question regarding the proper conception of analogy: -/- (1) Do God’s attributes only differ in degree or also in kind from their human counterparts? -/- (2) Is “analogical attribution” only concerned with the structure or the modus of the attribution? That is, is it a separate mode of speech (apart from the metaphorical and literal) or does it just mean we have to use analogies for our divine attributions? -/- In regard to the first question Berkeley argues the attributes of God and humans only differ in degree but not in kind (Alc. 4.22). Browne, on the other hand, is convinced that human and divine attributes differ in kind: “What Knowledge and Goodness are in the Nature of Man, that some inconceivable but correspondent Perfections are in the Nature of God […] which tho’ totally different in Kind from those Properties in us bearing the same Name” (Procedure, 138). Furthermore, Berkeley rejects the notion that analogical attribution is a separate mode of speech in addition to the literal and the metaphorical. Rather, it is an attribution made in the form of an analogy in which the words can be used literally or metaphorically (Alc. 4.21). By contrast, Browne repeatedly insists analogical attribution is more than just using analogies for attributing something to God. He thinks it is a separate mode of speech that ought to be distinguished from literal and metaphorical language (Procedure, 12, 23–29, 123–46). -/- Hence, there can be no doubt that Browne and Berkeley advance conflicting solutions to the problem of divine attributes. Yet, advancing disagreeing positions is not the same as having a (heated) argumentative exchange, i.e., a controversy. In contrast to the controversy-reading, I will defend the following view: Browne surely felt attacked by Berkeley’s elaborations in Alciphron (1732) and reacted to them in his Divine Analogy (1732/3). However, there was no argumentative exchange because Browne’s Procedure (1728) had virtually no influence on Berkeley when he was writing Alciphron. Furthermore, the available evidence suggests that Berkeley was indifferent to the (elaborate) criticisms of Alciphron found in Browne’s Divine Analogy. Thus, while the two bishops have differing positions and Browne reacted to Berkeley there is no reaction on Berkeley’s part and hence there is no argumentative exchange between the two at all, which is why their differing opinions are best described as such and not as a controversy. (shrink)

Berkeley’s likeness principle states that only an idea can be like an idea. In this paper, I argue that the principle should be read as a premise only in a metaphysical argument showing that matter cannot instantiate anything like the sensory properties we perceive. It goes against those interpretations that take it to serve also, if not primarily, an epistemological purpose, featuring in Berkeley’s alleged Representation Argument to the effect that we cannot reach beyond the veil of our ideas. First, (...) in section 1, I raise some concerns about the traditional narrative concerning the likeness principle’s role in Berkeley’s argumentation. In section 2, I delineate an alternative narrative, arguing that there is no ‘missing premise’ in his alleged Representation Argument we need to explain simply because he advances no argument like that in the first place. In section 3–4, I provide a close reading of the relevant passages—first from the _Principles_, then the _Dialogues_—and their contexts, supporting textually a purely metaphysical interpretation of the likeness principle arguments. In section 5, I address some possible objections, based on the phrasing of the likeness principle passages and some related texts. (shrink)

In this paper, we focus on Berkeley's reasons for accepting the ‘resemblance thesis’ which entails that for one thing to represent another those two things must resemble one another. The resemblance thesis is a crucial premise in Berkeley's argument from the ‘likeness principle’ in §8 of the Principles. Yet, like the ‘likeness principle’, the resemblance thesis remains unargued for and is never explicitly defended. This has led several commentators to provide explanations as to why Berkeley accepts the resemblance thesis and (...) why he also takes his opponents to do so too. We provide a contextual answer to this question, focusing on epistemological discussions concerning resemblance and representation in Early Modern Irish Philosophy. We argue that the resemblance thesis is implicit in early responses to William Molyneux's famous example of the ‘man born blind made to see’ and trace the ‘Molyneux man’ thought experiment as it is employed by Irish thinkers such as William King and Berkeley himself. Ultimately, we conclude that Berkeley's acceptance of the resemblance thesis can be explained by the Irish intellectual climate in which he was writing. (shrink)

Commentators generally agree that Foucher presumes the resemblance theory of representation and uses it to substantiate external world skepticism. In this paper, I challenge this picture. First, I argue that he does not assume that representation is reducible to, or even just works through, resemblance between representation and object. Indeed, his functional-similarity theory primarily appeals to resemblance between the respective effects the representation and the object (would) have on our minds. I also propose that his argument for the resemblance-requirement of (...) representation depends on the causal likeness principle, and clarify its role in Foucher’s theory. Second, I show that his main interest lies with representation in the sense of truthfully making the object present. Accordingly, when Foucher concludes that we can only represent our own ideas, he merely means that our ideas reveal the ways objects affect us through our senses, as opposed to how they are in themselves. (shrink)

1. The aim of my paper is to correct the longstanding misperception of the relationship between two key figures of the Irish intellectual milieu of the seventeenth / eighteenth century: the bishop...