ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Berkeley’s critique of the doctrine of abstract ideas. It shows that the doctrine of abstraction was quite generally entertained by philosophers from several traditions. The chapter suggests that both Berkeley’s rhetoric and the tenets he ascribed to the abstractionists suggest that he intended his refutation to be general in scope. It highlights that as the doctrine of abstract ideas is an intensional or connotative theory of meaning, Berkeley’s refutation of that doctrine constitutes a general refutation of intensional theories of meaning. Before considering Locke’s discussions of abstraction and abstract ideas, one should notice the distinction between abstraction as a mental process and the abstract idea one obtains by engaging in that process. Locke’s account of abstraction, however, is not limited to abstract ideas of particular simple qualities or kinds of simple qualities. According to Aristotle, the mind abstracts by stripping an object of its sensible qualities.
