Berkeley on Perception

Abstract This chapter interprets Berkeley’s theory of visual perception as more similar to contemporary constructivist models of vision than to the representationalist theories dominant among his predecessors. It also interprets Berkeley’s theory as addressing a problem of epistemic luck rather than perceptual error. Berkeley shows that the received representationalist solution to perceptual error—having ideas that are caused by and resemble external primary qualities—is neither necessary nor sufficient for veridically seeing those qualities. Berkeley’s constructivist approach to this problem of visual epistemic luck includes three unique features. First, visual processing has a linguistic structure. Second, visual experiences of the external world include normative contents. Third, natural laws ground both the linguistic structure of visual processing and the normative contents of visual experiences. It is argued that these features allow Berkeley to overcome both perceptual error and visual epistemic luck.