Abstract

This paper engages with the debate of how Berkeley reconciles restricting the objects of sense perception to what is immediately perceived with allowing that ordinary physical objects are amongst the objects of perception. Pitcher’s (1986) argument that Berkeley did not take the claim that we perceive ordinary physical objects to be ‘strictly true’ is rejected before we move to the debate between Pappas (2000) and Dicker (2006) about whether Berkeley equivocates about the definition of ‘immediate perception’ in a way which undermines his position. They agree that Hylas must accept indirect realism, but disagree about how this affects the cogency of his argument. However, Stoneham (2002) gave a different account of the dialectic in the First Dialogue that shows both Pappas and Dicker to be mistaken. This allows us to resolve Berkeley’s problem by appeal to the ordinary idea that we can perceive an object by perceiving part of it.