The traditional view holds that qualities must inhere in substances to exist. Berkeley argues that sensible qualities are ideas that depend on minds for their existence, not by inhering in them but by being perceived. This alternative framework, once properly understood, provides a solution to a central problem in the philosophy of perception: how ordinary perception can acquaint us with a mind-independent world despite the mind's power to create phenomenally rich experiences.
Empirical arguments in the philosophy of perception, such as the Argument from Structure, aim to settle debates between internalism and externalism about visual experience. This paper argues that the same empirical evidence used to support internalism about color experience also supports externalism about shape experience. Because a unified metaphysical account of visual experience is required, these opposing arguments cancel each other out, leading to a dialectical stalemate. Thus, empirical arguments do not overcome the limitations of armchair theorizing but instead reinforce the existing impasse.