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Hume is not a ‘Humean’ about causation. His key thesis is epistemological; he claims that all we can know of causation is regular succession. His claim is not ontological; he does not hold that regular succession is (knowably) all that causation is. The ontological claim is dogmatic metaphysics, and is as such wholly incompatible with Hume's scepticism. The same goes for the view that he is a phenomenalist about physical objects. He makes an epistemological claim about all we can know about objects, not about what objects are, let alone about what objects knowably are. It's true that Hume defines causation as regular succession, but he uses ‘definition’ like his contemporaries Burke and Priestley when they write (respectively): ‘A definition may be very exact, and yet go but a very little way towards informing us of the nature of the thing defined’, and ‘A definition of any particular thing cannot be anything more than an enumeration of its known properties’.

Hume is not a ‘Humean’ about causation. His key thesis is epistemological; he claims that all we can know of causation is regular succession. His claim is not ontological; he does not hold that regular succession is (knowably) all that causation is. The ontological claim is dogmatic metaphysics, and is as such wholly incompatible with Hume's scepticism. Sceptics do not claim to know the ultimate nature of (non-mental) reality. Hume does hold that ‘regular succession’ is all we can legitimately and positively contentfully mean by the word ‘causation’ when we use it in philosophy, since this is the only clear and distinct meaning we can give to the word on his empiricist principles, and philosophy is committed to using only clear and distinct ideas. At the same time, he is clear on the point that there is something like natural necessity in the world, as many quotations show, including quotations from his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.

This chapter considers the Kantian and the Phenomenalist conception of externality. The Phenomenalist wants to rid philosophy of a false conception of externality and to recapture true conception, the conception we actually use. Kant maintains that we have two conceptions of externality: an everyday ‘empirical’ conception and a ‘transcendental’ conception. These are both valid conceptions with different domains of application. The former applies to what Kant often calls ‘outer appearances’, the latter to ‘things-in-themselves’.

The next question to be considered is whether the general model world at its present second level of necessity or austerity contains some feature which means that it is impossible for a world just of sensations to be a comprehensible one. This question is obviously of central importance to many theories and worries about perception. It also derives the feature that it must be possible for the protagonist to be in error in some of his present tense judgements about the world. It is hoped that establishing this feature will form an intermediate step in the derivation of the impossibility of a world consisting just of sensations, and so this feature will be dubbed the intermediate feature. In addition, the consequences of the possibility of error in present judgements are presented. The chapter also covers the formal argument for same conclusion. Next, it explores the phenomenalism and knowledge by acquaintance. The desired conclusion that a world just of sensations would not be a comprehensible one has therefore finally been reached.

F. H. Bradley's philosophical system involves the condemnation of the entire world of common-sense experience and reflection. Things and their properties, terms and their relations, space, and time, and the whole host of things whose analysis involves these notions are all claimed to belong, not to reality, but to the realm of appearance. This is a strange and counter-intuitive position which has not as yet been fully elucidated. Bradley's reasons for denying the ultimate reality of these things have already been discussed, but it is not clear what he means by calling them ‘appearance’. The concept of appearance plays a very important role in Bradley's thought; however, his use of the term is somewhat technical and idiosyncratic. This chapter explores Bradley's account of the Absolute and its appearances, phenomenalism and things-in-themselves, and degrees of truth and reality. A solution to the problem of appearance and reality is considered.

The first section of this chapter discusses three rival ontologies in the Indian context. The Buddhist envisions a world populated by phenomenal particulars. These are called the svalaḳsạnas, ‘self-characterized’. They include both physical phenomena such as colour-patches and mental phenomena, cognitive events and other ‘mental’ bits concomitant with them (mimi). The Nyāya–Vaíṣsika world is populated with three main types of particulars, certain (real) universals and one genuine relation. The particulars are substances, quality-instances, and action-moments. The third ontology is holistic. This is the view that says that the ultimate reality is one unbreakable, unstructured whole, which is the ultimate reference of all linguistic expressions and all thoughts. The second section discusses phenomenalism and atomism. The last section examines direct realism.

This chapter discusses the following: (i) The Kantian concept of the Transcendental Object, and of its relation to that of the Noumenon and the Thing-in-itself; (ii) Kant's theory of knowledge cannot be positivistically interpreted, but requires underlying unities that hold appearances together, and which, by their identity, give the latter constancy of character; (iii) Kant's theory of knowledge cannot be idealistically interpreted, since it accepts the reality of a Transcendental Subject and of transcendental acts that exist beyond experience and knowledge, and are constitutive of it. It also accepts the reality of many Transcendental Objects that affect our subjectivity and which have characters and relations not given to the latter, at best corresponding to phenomenal characters and relations; (iv) Kant's phenomenalism is more radical than other phenomenalisms in that it accepts space and time only as ordering forms for phenomena. But it advances important arguments, based mainly on ontological criteria, for restricting them to what is thus phenomenal; (v) The regular connection among the appearances of objects is the necessary empirical surrogate for the unity of the objects from which they spring. Kant therefore makes use of his metempirical presuppositions to illuminate phenomenal data.

The problems of perception are generally discussed in the Western context with reference to three main theories. These theories are about what one can directly know, and how one knows it. They are naïve or direct realism, representationalism, and phenomenalism. The second section of this chapter discusses the Nyaysutra definition of perception. The third section looks at Vasubandhu's illusionism. The fourth section considers a case where the external world does not exist. The fifth section considers as case where the external world does exist. The sixth section examines the Abhidharma phenomenalism. The seventh section discusses nominal existence and substantial existence. The last section explores colour and shape with regards to Molyneux's question.

Pears examines Wittgenstein's views on sensations and their types in the light of classical phenomenalism. He argues that Wittgenstein never subscribed to phenomenalism with an empirically fixed baseline and outlines the relation between Wittgenstein's critique of ego‐based solipsism and such a phenomenalism.

Having clarified the private language argument, Pears relates it to the earlier discussion of phenomenalism, which by itself constitutes a basis of objection against Wittgenstein's argument. Pears then works out the relation between the private language argument and the thesis that sensation language grafted on to a complex pre‐linguistic structure. These two discussions constitute the basis on which the deep structure of the private language argument is to be revealed.

This chapter reviews and assesses Berkeley's main arguments for immaterialism, his arguments against the existence of matter or material substance. I place particular emphasis on the themes of earlier chapters: intentionality, abstraction, necessity, and intelligibility. My aim is to show that Berkeley's thinking about these topics made a powerful contribution to his immaterialism, even if they seem, on the surface, to be distant from it. I provide an account of immediate perception as Berkeley understands it, and emphasize the phenomenalist elements in Berkeley's development of immaterialism.