Acts, ideas, and objects in Berkeley's metaphysics

Abstract

Berkeley holds that objects in the world are constituted of ideas. Some commentators argue that for Berkeley, ideas are identical to acts of perception; this is taken to proceed from his view that ideas are like pains. In this paper, I evaluate the identity claim. I argue that although it does not follow from the pain analogy, nonetheless the texts suggest that Berkeley does think ideas and acts are identical. I show how Berkeley can account for objects persisting over time and being perceivable by multiple observers, even if the ideas that constitute them are intermittent and dependent on particular actors.

Can the Berkeleyan Idealist Resist Spinozist Panpsychism?

“…For a classic defense of this interpretation, see Pitcher 1969. For a recent defense of a similar view, see Frankel 2013. For an extended criticism of views of this kind, see Marušić 2018.…”