indirect realism Flashcards
indirect realism
- we perceive mind independent objects indirectly via mind dependant objects
- (Riley exists independently from me, when I look at Riley I see an idea in my mind of Riley which is dependant on my mind)
sense data
sense data is the contents of our perceptual experiences
according to indirect realism:
- sense data are mental objects, they are exactly as they appear to us and there is no reality beyond their appearance
- sense data only exist when being experienced
- sense data are private, they are a part of your consciousness and can’t be experienced by anyone else
John Locke
- he was one of the British empiricists
- empiricism: the view that all knowledge ultimately comes from sense experience
- he wrote about sense perception and argued for indirect realism
- he was interested in science and using it to help us understand how we gain knowledge
- he made the distinction between primary and secondary qualities of an object
primary qualities
qualities an object has in itself
- size
- shape
- motion
- number
-solidity (taking up space)
secondary qualities
qualities of an object that are nothing but the power to cause sensations in us
- colour
- sound
- smell
- taste
- temperature
argument for indirect realism
Locke argues that the distinction between primary and secondary qualities presents us with an argument for indirect realism
1. science gives us an accurate picture of what the world is like
2. science describes the world in terms of primary qualities
3. perception presents the world to us as having many secondary qualities
4. therefore, what we perceive and the way the world is are not the same thing
5. therefore, indirect realism is correct
objection to indirect realism: realism leads to scepticism
- if all we ever perceive directly is sense data, then we do not directly perceive mind independent objects
- if we never directly perceive mind independent objects, then how do we know what they are really like, or if they exist at all?
- how can we know that mind independent objects are the cause of sense data if we only ever encounter sense data
response 1 to scepticism objection: locke’s argument on the involuntary nature of experience
- Locke observes that when we imagine or remember, we can choose what we experience
- whereas, perceptual experiences are not within our control, we can not alter them at will
- Locke claims this shows that imaginations are caused by our own minds, whereas perceptual experiences are caused by mind independent objects
response 2 to the scepticism objection: argument from the coherence of experience
- Locke and Cockburn both argue that there is a coherence to perceptual experiences
- eg hearing a dog bark and seeing a dog a very different experiences, but we learn to associate them with one another. how is it that we reliably find the two experiences together, unless they are caused by some mind independent object?
response 3 to the scepticism objection: the external world is the best hypothesis
- Russell says there is no way to prove whether mind independent objects exist
- so, we must treat both options as hypotheses
- Russell claims that the hypothesis that a mind independent external world exists is a better hypothesis and therefore the one we should believe
- Russell says that it is easier to explain our experiences if there is an external world
is our belief in an external world a hypothesis?
- do we really have to infer our belief in an external world from our experiences
- isn’t the external world something that we encounter?
- it seems strange to suggest it might be the end result of the reasoning process
- furthermore, how do we know that someone won’t come up with better hypothesis in the future?
the 4 key claims of indirect realsim
- realism: mind independent objects and their properties do exist
- sense data: what we immediately perceive is mind dependent sense data and their properties
- representation: sense data represents mind independent reality
- causation: sense data are caused by mind independent objects and their properties
the argument from Berkley against indirect realism
- we cannot know the nature of mind independent objects because mind independent objects cannot be like mind dependent objects
- indirect realism claims that our perceptions are mind dependent sense data which represents mind independent objects
- Berkeley attacks this claim with the likeness principle, which states that to justifiably say that two things to be alike, they must be comparable
- but, ideas (mind dependent) can only be compared to other ideas
- there is no way to compare ideas to mind independent objects and so resemblance between them cannot be justifiably claimed
- this issue attacks the claim of indirect realism that the objects of perception represent mind independent objects
indirect realist response to Berkley’s objection
- Berkeley assumes that representation requires resemblance
- there are other methods of representation
- e.g. the symbols we use in language are arbitrary; they have no resemblance to the objects they refer to
- the word ‘chair’ does not resemble a chair but can still represent it
- therefore, mind-dependent objects can be ‘like’ mind independent objects if we take ‘like’ to involve representation without resemblance
Berkely’s defence to an indirect realist response to his objection
- his argument is not attacking whether an idea could be like a mind independent object, but whether we could ever be in a position to know that it does
- Berkeley says that for a person to know that an idea is like a mind independent object, they would have to compare them and that cannot be done since we have no direct perception of mind independent objects
- therefore, no one can justifiably claim that ideas represent mind independent objects and therefore indirect realism cannot be justified
- even if we restrict ‘likeness’ to representation, our perceptions might not even represent the mind-independent world; it could be completely different to our perceptions
- we cannot know whether our perceptions represent mind-independent objects. therefore indirect realism leads to this sceptical issue
