ABSTRACT
The question whether 'objects' are or are not entities that can be discovered by simple inspection is complicated by the circumstance that in one sense it is the merest truism that we perceive objects. The term 'objects' is in fact precisely the one that is used to denote whatever it may be that we perceive. Though we might normally hesitate to regard a gas as a 'thing', for example, in the same way that the bell-jar containing it in the laboratory is regarded as a 'thing', we should feel perfectly entitled to refer to the gas as the 'object' of our observation. In this sense it is simply a tautology to say that 'it is objects that are perceived', for the term 'objects' would be used indiscriminately of whatever it might be that we could in any way perceive or conceive, i.e. for whatever it is that will serve as the grammatical object after the verb 'perceive' (or 'conceive') or after particular verbs of perception (or conception) in such sentences as 'I see/hear/smell/feel. .. ' (or 'I think/imagine/ ... )
The OT, however, is connected with the more restricted usage of the term 'objects', in which objects or 'physical objects' are contrasted with 'sense-data', appearances, and so on. This usage is admittedly a more technical one. We shall later on question whether it is not merely a mistaken usage, or at any rate one that is liable to mislead. But the concept of a 'physical object' is so traditional in modern philosophy and initially seems so obvious that I shall for the present assume its legitimacy. It is in connection with objects of this sort (i.e. 'physical objects') that we shall have to consider whether they are or are not entities empirically discoverable.
