MILL'S
PHENOMENALISM
looking for something on a desk, we are presented with a series of new sensations. Certain sensations which were possible come about. I could move this piece of paper, and experience the colour of the surface beneath it. There are all sorts of possible sensations that would occur under certain conditions. We have come, from experience, to expect this sequence of sensation; we are certain it will happen. And so we come to think of certain possibilities for sensation as being permanently available, under certain conditions. Material objects are 'permanent possibilities of sensation
We associate certain sensations, and the possibilities of other sensations, together, since whenever I have one sensation, the conditions of having another associated with it are to hand. These 'clusters' of possible sensations are what material objects are. A piece of paper is the permanent possibility of certain sensations that we associate together. Only some of the sensations in fact occur; but the material object is a collection of those that do and those that could occur. We derive the complexity of ideas of space, distance, perspective from the complex associations between sensations that we make (automatically – none of this need be thought through!)