ABSTRACT
In the Dialogues George Berkeley assumes from the outset that sense data are discrete items. Further, it will turn out that he agrees with the Causal Theorist that these entities are mind-dependent. He holds, though, that if talk of substantial objects is to be meaningful it must be cashable in terms of ideas. Phenomenological considerations have influenced those committed to the Causal Theory, and it seems quite plain that Berkeley at least is encouraged to think that a purely phenomenological approach should lead to certain conclusions precisely because he is influenced by the Causal Theorist’s thinking about the status of sense data. When Berkeley says that ‘in truth and strictness, nothing can be heard but sound’, he can thus be represented as recommending one way of describing the situation in favour of the other, though both ways of talking seem acceptable to the plain man.
