Commentators are divided over whether Berkeley holds that physical objects are immediately perceived by sense. As I read Berkeley, discrimination is necessary for perceiving physical objects by sense. He says that discrimination requires a perception of motion. Since motions can only be mediately perceived, according to Berkeley, physical objects can be perceived by sense only mediately. I defend this reading against three objections. I also propose a new objection to the claim that physical objects are immediately perceived for Berkeley. I argue that immediate perception is neither necessary nor sufficient to perceive an object by sense, according to Berkeley.
This chapter proposes an interpretation of Berkeley as a semiotic idealist. According to semiotic idealism internal ideas are signs for external divine ideas, and sensible objects are composite entities with external divine ideas as their essential parts and internal ideas of the imagination and (where applicable) sensations as their contingent parts. Signification is the ontological glue that unifies these parts into individuals. Divinely instituted normative linguistic rules govern the use of internal ideas as signs for external divine ideas. This semiotic relation gives objective form and meaning to internal ideas. Furthermore, Berkeley explicitly links this semiotic relation with rewards and sanctions, and claims that such connections allow us to make predictions about advantageous and disadvantageous courses of action. Sensible objects turn out to be values (rather than facts) because they are sources of pleasure and pain, guides to human flourishing, and sources of external meaning for Berkeley.
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