ABSTRACT
The dealing with objections is in George Berkeley’s view, largely the dispelling of the prejudices and misapprehensions which prevent people from seeing the obvious. Commentators have often been puzzled by Berkeley’s double use of ‘idea’, and Marc-Wogau has raised the question whether it is supposed to be analytic that the esse of ideas is percipi. There is, however, a difficulty concerning terminology. As Berkeley saw the position, the materialists were committed to the view that there are real objects which lie on the dark side of the veil of perception and which we don’t directly perceive. But they were also committed to the view that there are ideas which we do perceive. Given that the materialist is going to reject premiss in the sense that Berkeley intends it anyway, this terminological problem may seem completely trivial.
