Direct Realism Flashcards
What is the key claim of Direct Realism?
The immediate objects of perception are direct, veridical, unmediated, mind-independent and exist in the external world.
What are two “arguments” for Direct Realism?
It’s common sense, DR accurately describes how perception seems to us. Its simplicity, Ockham’s Razor.
What is the argument from illusion against DR?
If DR was true, the external world would
be perceived directly.
So it would appear as it exists in reality.
Illusions are cases where the external
world appears differently to how it exists
in reality.
E.g. A straight oar appears bent when
half-submerged in water.
So we experience something other than
the external world in illusions (e.g. sensedata).
Therefore DR is false.
What is Austin’s Counter argument against illusion?
Appearances are properties of objects
which exist in the external world. Illusions
are cases where we perceive a real object
in the external world but how it appears
may mislead us about it. E.g. A straight
oar appears bent when half-submerged in
water but that is not because we see
something else – all we see is the straight
oar and the water, not sense-data. How it
appears is just similar to how a bent oar
out of water appears. (Science may be
able to explain why – e.g. refraction of
light).
What is the argument against DR from perceptual variation?
If DR was true, the external world would
be perceived directly.
So it would appear as it exists in reality.
Perceptual variation is when the external
world appears in different ways which are
inconsistent (i.e. they cannot all be how
reality exists).
E.g. Russell’s table – appearing different
colours and shapes.
So we experience something other than
the external world in perceptual variation
(e.g. sense-data).
Therefore DR is false.
What is Austin’s Counter argument against perceptual variation?
Appearances are properties of objects
which exist in the external world.
Perceptual variation occurs where we
perceive a real object in the external
world but it has several appearances,
which are inconsistent. E.g. Russell’s table
is brown but it also has the property of
appearing other colours from different
perspectives or in different light. How it
appears can just be similar to tables of a
different colour – but all we see is the
brown table in different light conditions,
not sense-data. (Science may be able to
explain why – e.g. refraction of light).
What is the argument against DR from hallucination?
If DR was true, the external world would be perceived directly. So it would appear as it exists in reality. Hallucinations are experiences of things or properties that do not exist. E.g. MacBeth sees a floating, bloody dagger. So we experience something other than the external world in hallucinations (e.g. sense-data). Therefore DR is false
What is Austin’s Counter argument against hallucination?
One way to defend DR against the argument from hallucination is to claim that hallucinations involve perceiving sense-data but veridical perception doesn’t. Direct realists should deny that experiences which cannot be told apart by the perceiver must be the same kind of process. Despite hallucinations being subjectively indistinguishable from veridical experiences, one is in direct perception of the external world and the other is direct perception of sense-data.
What is the argument against DR from time-lag?
If DR was true, the external world would be perceived directly.
So it would appear as it exists in reality now.
But light takes time to travel from an object to the eye, so how things appear is always
how they were in the past.
E.g. We see the sun as it was about eight minutes ago in the past.
But the past does not still exist.
So we experience something other than the external world as it exists now (e.g. sense-data).
Therefore DR is false.
What is Austin’s Counter argument against time-lag?
Direct perception
means perception without an
intermediary or via a representation. But
that does not mean that direct perception
is immediate. Perception is a process and
all processes take time. The Direct Realist
should accept that we perceive the
external world directly but as it existed in
the (very recent) past.
Does DR solve the problem of scepticism?
NO! DR does no prove that sense-data doesn’t exist - it only shows it isn’t needed to explain perception. An evil demon could still be creating sense-data to deceive us or simply giving us delusions.
