ABSTRACT
Berkeley’s view of perception does not seem to permit, much less necessitate, his doctrine of abstract ideas. Abstraction begins with an experienced thing, and the first step of the process occurs when the mind makes one quality the object of special attention. Berkeley sometimes writes, in giving illustrations of abstract ideas, as though he meant that there are certain abstract ideas that cannot be abstracted from other abstract ideas, as when he says that the mind cannot “frame to itself by abstraction the idea of colour exclusive of extension”. Berkeley sometimes speaks as though a particular motion is an idea we acquire through sight, but an idea that is not abstractable from particular extensions and shapes.
