The felt concreteness objection
English poet Samuel Johnson is said to have argued against Bishop Berkeley’s idealism by kicking a large stone while exclaiming: “I refute it thus!” (Boswell 1820: 218). Johnson was clearly appealing to the felt concreteness of the stone to suggest that it could not be just a gment of imagination. Indeed, the felt concreteness of the world is probably the main reason why people intuitively reject the notion that reality unfolds in consciousness. If a truck hits you, you will hurt, even if you are an idealist.
However, notice that appeals to concreteness, solidity, palpability and any other quality that we have come to associate with things outside consciousness are still appeals to phenomenality. After all, concreteness, solidity and palpability are qualities of experience. What else? A stone allegedly outside consciousness, in and by itself, is entirely abstract and has no qualities. If anything, by pointing to the felt concreteness of the stone Johnson was implicitly suggesting the primacy of experience over abstraction, which is eminently idealist
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