Consider whether idealism provides a satisfactory account of the nature and existence of physical objects.

The Idealism of Bishop Berkeley, rejects the existence of physical as they are usually thought off. Whatever we think they are, our idea is that that a physical object is something that is mind-independant. All forms claim that reality is, in some important sense, dependant on minds. Berkeley claims that the ordinary objects of perception; table, chairs, trees and so on, are dependant on minds. They must be perceived in order to exist: esse est percipi ( to be is to be perceived). The only thing that exists then are minds, which perceive, and that what is perceived by the mind. Therefore, nothing exists that is independent of the mind.

Idealism claims, then, that what we think of as physical objects are bundles of ideas that we have come to associate with each other, because they are observed to accompany each other. The reason Berkeley argued for this conclusion, as he believed we are unable to make proper sense of the idea of a physical object.

In order for this to make sense Berkeley goes on to apply the same argument given against secondary qualities to the primary qualities said to be inherent in the object. He feels that the qualities Locke sees as belonging to objects themselves, collapse upon annalyse, into the secondary qualities of perception. Berkeley argues that primary qualities are no different from the secondary qualities , being equally mind dependant ,showing that there is no necessity for material substance. So we lose nothing by denying it.

He accepts lockes empiricism and pushes it to its logical conclusion: if everything we know can be known by experience, and locke claims that we can never know material substance directly but only by ideas generated by primary qualities, then from an empirical point of view we can never