1 American Philosophical Quarterly. 6 (1969), 198-207. All references to Pitcher's work will be made within my text and will be indicated by and” MIB” followed by a page number.

2 Odegard, Douglas, “Berkeley and the Perception of Ideas”, Canadian journal of Philosophy, 1 (1971), 155-171CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 For example, Pitcher does not make it clear whether ideas are non-relational objectless states of the mind, as suggested by his claim that ideas stand to the mind as a person's consciously or unconsciously turning a somersault stands to that person, (d., MIB 203 and 206-7), or whether ideas are properties of such states, as suggested by his claim that perceiving ideas is analogous to dancing a jig, (cf., MIB 203).

4 Both versions of the adverbial analysis are compatible with Berkeley's ontological phenomenalism. For example, to say of a die that it is red is tantamount to saying, on both versions, that a case of sensing redly is a member of a collection of sensings denoted by “die”.

5 Compare Pitcher's remarks that physical acts and states “qualify” physical objects, (MIB, 199). If we take seriously Pitcher's analogy that is presented below, then we must infer that mental states or acts qualify mental substances. This inference is compatible with either one of the two versions of the adverbial analysis.

6 George Berkeley, The Works of George Berkeley, edited by A.A. Luce and T.E. Jessop, 9 vols., (Thomas Nelson: 1948-57). References in the present text are, by section numbers, to The Principles of Human Knowledge (henceforth, “Principles“), by page number to Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (henceforth,” Dialogues“) in volume II of the Works, and by page number to the Philosophical Commentaries (henceforth, “Commentaries“) in volume I of the Works.

7 Throughout the body of the present paper, I shall use “sensing”, “sensed”, and “senses” instead of “perceiving”, “perceived”, and “perceives”, respectively. I shall also use “sensing” and “immediate awareness” or “awareness” interchangeably. It is well known that Berkeley systematically conflates, in the case of finite minds, the notion of immediate or direct perception with that of sensation in his epistemological writings. To avoid Berkeley's confused usage, I propose to use the “sensing” terminology in reformulating Pitcher's reductio.

8 If Pitcher's analogy is to be accurate then, given Berkeley's ontological phenomenalism, it must be that the counterpart of the tree in Pitcher's example is a collection of tree-ideas. Thus, proposition (2) must be understood to mean that the mind is wholly distinct from any collection of ideas that it senses. Pitcher also says that on the act-object view, but not on the adverbial view, the mind is wholly distinct from, e.g., its idea of blueness, (MIB, 202, 204-5). In his case, the analogy would have to be that the mind stands to its sensed simple ideas, (to the sensible qualities which are directly perceived through a single appropriate sense), as Bill stands to the sensuous qualities of the tree. To do justice to Pitcher's two uses of “an idea”, I suggest that (2) be taken to mean that the mind is wholly distinct from any simple idea or collection of ideas (simple or compound) that it senses.

9 James W. Cornman has argued that Berkeley does hold the weak interpretation of (3) rather than the strict interpretation. See, Cornman's “Berkeley on Sensations: Sensory Ideas Versus Sensings”, (unpublished).

10 Douglas Odegard argues the same point. See, his “Berkeley and the Perception of Ideas”, Op. cit., 161-3.

11 It is clear that Berkeley rejects Platonic Realism. That is, he holds that all sensuous properties and, thereby, all simple ideas must be properties of some substance and, therefore, must be in a substance, (Principles, 91). His account of this ontological dependence relation differs from that presented by the Aristotelian, (Principles, 490).

12 The argument appears to suffer from an equivocation on “sensible”. After all, sensible qualities are sensible in that they can be immediately perceived. But no mind is sensible in this sense simply because we have no idea of minds. Thus, minds are not the proper objects of immediate perception. Nonetheless, all finite minds are sensible in that they can sense ideas. It should be noted, however, that Berkeley systematically exploits this ambiguity of “sensible“ throughout the first dialogue in his Dialogues. Suppose that his opponent is the philosopher who claims that all qualities can exist in a substance that is neither perceivable nor which can sense anything. In this case, Berkeley's strategy in the first dialogue is, first, to establish esse est percipi and then, by exploiting the ambiguity of “sensible”, to infer the incoherence of his opponent's position.

13 It might be objected that what follows is that the mind is “qualified” by its idea of whiteness whenever it senses a white object. It does not follow, however, that the mind is white whenever it has an idea of whiteness. Thus, Berkeley could avoid the counterintuitive view that the mind has, as its accidents, the very same qualities of which it has an idea.

14 For a more detailed discussion on this point, see George S. Pappas's “Ideas, Minds and Berkeley”, (unpublished).

15 Pitcher seems to hold this interpretation, (MIB, 201).

16 I am indebted to Professors James W. Cornman, Thomas M. Lennon, Douglas Odegard, and Richard j. Van lten for their valuable comments.