thestickman

I have been reading George Berkeley's Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonius and was just wondering what the main opinion at the moment is of his argument that primary qualities don't exist. I think the conclusion is correct (ie. that primary qualities are in fact secondary qualities) but I think some of his premises are incorrect. For example when Philonious is explaining to Hylas why motion is a secondary quality he says:
I think this is wrong. Is not time measured, at least scientifically, using the number of emissions in a certain atom (I remember reading this in a New Scientist magazine)? But hope isn't lost for Berkeley's conclusion because doesn't relativity say time depends on the speed we travel? So is the conclusion is still correct however Berkeley's premise is wrong? Or am I just wrong?

If anyone knows of the current view on Berkeley's conclusion I would like to know. I would also like to know if his premises are wrong. If Berkeley's conclusions aren't accepted, was his argument invalid?

Thanks in advance

Pyrrho

Let me start by saying that I will not speak for "current academia" on this matter at this time. I will only observe that the main reason almost no one today agrees with Berkeley on most matters is because almost no one likes his conclusions. Though I think it is flawed, the Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous is a very good book, far better than most things with which people waste their time. I agree with you (and Berkeley) that the distinction between primary and secondary qualities is unfounded.

Regarding your comments about time, I believe you are thinking about it in the wrong way. During Berkeley's day, scientists, as well as regular people, used clocks to tell the time, and he must surely have been aware of them. I believe he was thinking about how we have the idea, concept, or awareness of time. And our idea of time, no matter how we got it, was not derived from a clock, whether we are thinking of an old-fashioned clock or an atomic one.

But if you are enjoying Berkeley, I strongly suggest that you next read something by David Hume, as he pushes things further, so to speak, than Berkeley.

Probably, it would be best to start with An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, third edition of both of Hume's Enquiries, L.A. Selby-Bigge, revised by P.H. Nidditch, published by Oxford. These have been the standard editions for years, but Oxford has come out with newer editions that, it seems, they intend will replace the editions mentioned here as the new standards. They may be better, but I have not looked at them closely enough to have anything very useful to say about them.

Interesting Ian

I agree with him on most things. That is to say I would describe myself as a subjective idealist/mental monist.

mhc

Those atomic clocks are useful because the radioactive material decays at a very constant rate.
So Berkeley's notion still holds. Time is necessarily a succession of things, be they ideas or isotopes. Time is only noticable by way of change, one thing happens, then another thing happens. If there was no change, we would not perceive time.
Kant said time and space were only modes of perception,we can only know them through objects; they are innate mental structures that allow us to perceive objects in a certain relationship to ourselves, and other objects.
I suppose it doesn't matter. We can't help but perceive things as in time, so for us, time has real existence.