What Are The Differences Between John Locke And George Berkeley

Philosophers John Locke and George Berkeley agreed that knowledge is derived from experience. However, while Locke argued that knowledge is also acquired through our senses, such as, primary qualities, the perception, and secondary qualities, the object perceived, Berkeley argued that our minds and ideas are the sole essence of most knowledge, except knowledge of self and knowledge of God. As a subjective idealist, he believed that physical objects only exist as they are perceived. More specifically, there are no primary or secondary properties of objects in themselves, and also, matter cannot be discovered through sensory perception. Both philosophers claimed that knowledge comes through experience, but Berkeley argues that material objects cannot exist if not experienced. According to John Locke, the ideas which resemble their causes are the ideas of primary qualities, and the ideas which do not resemble their causes are the ideas of secondary qualities. In …show more content…
He recognized no distinction between primary and secondary qualities, he anticipated both qualities as ideas of the mind. Furthermore, Berkeley introduces his theory of idealism; our minds and ideas only exist. Experience is intellectual; we only experience ideas, thus we never have direct experience of anything material. In addition, in Berkeley's, “First Dialogue”, Philonous (Berkeley) argues that matter is fiction. He initially states that primary and secondary qualities are sensations that only exist in the mind and have no resemblance to anything material existing outside the mind. Berkeley suggests that matter is just a figment of the mind. He argues that matter is impossible because all ideas derive from what we directly experience. Hence, the concept of matter has no empirical content, and is meaningless. He concludes that ideas and matter cannot resemble each other, only ideas can resemble