How Are Locke and Berkeley Similar and Different in Regard to Their Empiricist Commitments?

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qualities in order to avoid perceptual relativity, Berkeley argues against primary qualities in two ways. The variability argument states that the qualities can differ from observer to observer just as secondary qualities. The inseparability argument states that we cannot conceive the extension and motion of a body without also experiencing its secondary qualities and so both are undoubtedly united and cannot be detached. In this way, primary qualities rely on the mind just as much as do secondary qualities. Since there is no directly perceivable material substance to support primary qualities, it seems that material things can only exist as ideas which are inseparable from the mind. Because these ideas are not innate, there must be some immaterial substance (God) who causes them. It is for this reason that Berkeley’s empiricist beliefs are also referred to idealism or immaterialism, because our world makes sense because God generates, organizes and protects our ideas. Thus, Locke and Berkeley share a common empiricist ground; however, they substantiate their commitments in divergent ways.

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Sources:

Aditya Pathre. Locke’s Empiricism, Berkeley’s Idealism. YouTube, Jul. 3, 2014. < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY5hLT4dRpA > Retrieved Oct. 14, 2015.

Glenn Statile, Arthur Gianelli, Kevin Kennedy. The Journey of Metaphysics, 5th edition (Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions 2012)