Refuting Idealism

A 'Refutation of Idealism' is a species of argument against the position that perceptual experience is 'in one's head', which is not precisely what is always denoted by 'Idealism', but is close enough to not be a misrepresentation. Two of the more dramatic recent versions of that argument were dismissive wavings of a hand, literally so from Moore, and verbally, from Heidegger. Both almost contemptuously reject the very premises of that Idealism, but it is unclear how moved a proponent of the latter would be them. In contrast, Kant took those premises seriously, so securing a much more potentially convincing refutation, by showing the contradiction that they lead to. For, according to those Idealists, stable objects are given only internally; but inner experience is a constant flux, meaning that their experience of stable objects is possible only with reference to stable objects outside of their experience, which Idealism denies existing. A refutation of a different sort can be derived from one of Moore's forerunners, Samuel Johnson, who famously kicked a rock, and asserted 'Thus I refute Berkeley', who was one of the pioneers of this Idealist position. Now, whether or not Berkeley would be moved by such a demonstration, which, after all, would just amount to one more episode in his inner experience, is unclear. But what Johnson's action does show is the limitations of Idealist methodology, which is basically sedentary observation. Instead, if Berkeley were to himself try to kick a rock, he might notice that vision is fundamentally not the passive recording of colors, but an active process coordinated with the motion of the foot. Furthermore, by kicking the rock, he might realize that the fundamental characteristic of all sensory objects is not color, taste, texture, smell, or sound, but resistance.