Which qualities did George Berkeley consider ideas in the mind?
George Berkeley did not distinguish between primary and secondary qualities in the traditional sense; rather, he argued that all sensible objects are ideas in the mind.1
While other philosophers categorized qualities like heat and colour as subjective "secondary qualities" and figure and motion as objective "primary qualities," Berkeley maintained that both types are equally dependent on the mind. He asserted that because all sensible objects are things we perceive by sense, and we perceive nothing besides our own ideas, it follows that all sensible objects—including extension, motion, colour, and heat—are "sensible ideas" or sense-data.1
For Berkeley, these qualities are not mental attributes or modes of the mind itself; instead, they are the direct objects of a percipient mind. His philosophy, often summarized by the doctrine esse est percipi ("to be is to be perceived"), holds that reality consists entirely of active minds or spirits and the passive objects they perceive, which he termed ideas.12