ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that George Berkeley has an argument against abstract ideas which depends neither on his failure to bring them into introspective focus, nor on his belief that ideas images. It analyses the taxonomy of Berkeley’s targets defended by E. J. Craig in his article “Berkeley’s Attack on Abstract Ideas.” The evaluation of Craig’s taxonomy raises every important issue in the interpretation of Berkeley’s attack on abstraction. The conclusion that the general idea of a triangle is inconsistent appeals to Berkeley in part because of the account he gives of the nature of representation. Berkeley believes that an idea represents a thing only if it resembles the thing. He also seems to think that in order for an idea to represent a triangle, the idea must itself be triangular. The chapter argues against Craig, that John Locke’s general idea of a triangle belongs in kind along with other abstract general ideas.
