Phenomenalists have responded by appealing to the idea of a sensory route, a series of
juxtaposed and often overlapping sense data that would be experienced in ‘locating’ the
table. But there are many different sensory routes to a given material object, while ‘there
is a table in the next room’ seems to claim just one thing. Furthermore, we can often
understand the claim that a certain material object or set of objects exists at a certain
location without having any clear idea of the relevant sensory route, e.g. ‘Penguins exist
at the South Pole’. Finally,
the conditionals in which the analysis is given may be falsified
by situations that would not falsify the claim referring to the material object, e.g. I won’t
experience certain sense data if I suddenly go blind upon entering the room, but the table
will still be there.