Direct Realism - 25 Marker Flashcards
INTRODUCTION
DR - immediate objects of perception are mind-independent, external objects and their properties and thus these MIO are constituents of our present perceptual experiences.
(OUTLINE ARGUMENTS)
Ockham’s razor
IN FAVOUR OF DR
The best explanation of perceptual experience is the one that has the most explanatory power and is the simplest, combine with our own account of experience as the DR theory aligns with our own common sense view of perception.
Outline the illusion argument
CONTRADICTS THE DR THEORY
An illusion is something that distorts reality and our senses can be subject to illusions, posing a potential challenge to DR (premise-conclusion below)
P1) in the illusion argument, i have a visual impression of the stick in the water being crooked.
P2) however, the stick does not have the property of being bent.
C1) therefore, the visual experience doesn’t always present the mind independent, external properties of the object.
P4) when my visual experience presents something as having property X then there must be something that has property X.
C2) therefore, in the illusion case, my sense data has the property of being bent.
P5) my visual experiences in illusion cases and in verification cases are ‘subjectively indistinguishable’.
C3) therefore, my visual experience in the illusion case is the same kind of state.
C4) therefore in all cases of visual experience I perceive sense-data.
Explain ‘subjectively indistinguishable’ and why it’s an issue
P5 of illusion argument
For visual impressions, the subject cannot tell whether it is their sense-data or reality.
Issue because in the illusion case we do not only perceive the properties that the object actually has thus sufficient to disprove DR as a general thesis because DR claims that all cases of perception are direct, where we perceive properties that the object actually has, thus casting some doubt as to whether DR is convincing as a theory.
Provide the DR response to the illusion argument
Relational properties - the crooked stick bears a particular relation to my eyes and has the relational property of looking crooked.
DR perspective - rewrite P1) I have the visual impression of the stick looking crooked when it is in water, therefore because the stick is at a certain angle, under certain circumstances by being in a glass of water, then it looks a certain way when it is in that relation to the person.
Outline the hallucination argument
PREMISE CONCLUSION;
P1) i. A hallucination we perceive something having some property Y
P2) when we perceive something as having some property Y then there is something that is Y.
P3) in a hallucination we don’t perceive a physical object at all.
c1) therefore, we perceive something mental; SENSE-DATA.
P4) hallucinations ca be experiences that are ‘subjectively indistinguishable’ from verification perceptions.
C2) therefore we see the sense-data (same thing) in both hallucinations and verification perceptions.
C3) therefore, DR must be false.
DR response to hallucination argument
In normal perception, we are perceiving objects and their properties accurately and direct whereas in hallucinations we are not in normal conditions/perception, therefore hallucinations do not undermine the accuracy of normal perception.
THIS RESPONSE can be challenged with the disjunctive theory; when we perceive something, either we are perceiving an object as it really is or we are perceiving an appearance. HOWEVER, in hallucinations we are not perceiving anything an all, rather we are imagining something, therefore, the experience of hallucination tells us nothing about perception at all.
Hallucination is NOT a verification perceptions, so it cannot be used to infer that in perception we perceive sense-data rather than objects themselves.
Outline the time-lag argument
PREMISE-CONCLUSION;
P1) according to Dr external objects are constituents of our present perceptual experiences.
P2) in the case where we perceive a star that stopped existing before your birth, the star cannot be a constituent of our present perceptual experience because it doesn’t presently exist.
P3) in all cases of perception, light takes some time to travel from external objects to our eyes and brain, so in all cases the external objects cannot be a constituent of our present perceptual experience.
C1) THEREFORE, DR must be false.
DR response to time-lag argument
DR can accept time lag but can’t deny that this implies that we don’t directly perceive physical objects e.g, we see the sun as it was 8 minutes ago BUT we still saw it as it really was.
HOWEVER, the time-lag argument and response takes away the DR account that we see things instantaneously BUT it doesn’t refute the idea that we saw it directly as it was, THEREFORE, time lag is not a problem for DR.
HOWEVER, this can be overall challenged; if we perceive things as they were in the past then there is a lack of spatial relation between my eyes (veridical perceptions) and the object, which renders DR as slightly incoherent.
