ABSTRACT
George Berkeley is well known for his immaterialist philosophy and metaphysics; the good Bishop is one of the main critics of the “new” corpuscularian and Cartesian philosophy of body of the seventeenth century. Hume’s attack on substance is standard material in introductions to the history of philosophy as well as his skepticism concerning the external world, or as he himself calls it, skepticism against or with regard to the senses. It is also common knowledge that Hume uses one of Berkeley’s many skeptical arguments against matter in his writings. This is the argument at the end of Part 1, Section 12 of An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748)1 (EHU 12.15-16) and the main argument of the Section Of the modern philosophy in A Treatise of Human Nature (1739)2 (Treatise 1.4.4.5-16). It is therefore surprising that this Berkeleyan skeptical argument is too much ignored in the literature (Hakkarainen 2007: xvii-xviii). The argument is apparently premised on the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. Accordingly, Hume’s understanding and view of this distinction has not received enough attention in the literature either. In general, his attitude to the “new” philosophy and metaphysics of body is not widely studied.
