physical object

…correspondence between percepts and the physical objects to which they ordinarily relate. How accurately, for example, does the visually perceived size of an object match its physical size as measured (e.g., with a yardstick)?

Objects are, in the first instance, just what are ordinarily called “objects”—tables, chairs, rocks, planets, stars, and human and animal bodies, among innumerable other things. Physicists sometimes talk further about “unobservable” objects, such as molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles; and psychologists have posited unobservable…

In similar fashion, a so-called physical object will be said to have an independent existence if expectations of future perceptual experiences are borne out. If tomorrow, or the day after, one has perceptual experiences similar to those one had today, then one can say that the object being perceived has…

…“To be,” said of the object, means to be perceived; “to be,” said of the subject, means to perceive.