Indirect Realism

Question 1

Indirect realism

Answer 1

The immediate objects of perception are mind-dependent objects that are caused by and represent mind-independent objects

Question 2

What is sense data

Answer 2

• private sense data that no one can see
• the content of percpetual experience
• sense data are exactly as they seem
• sense data only exist whilst they are being experienced

Question 3

Argument from non-veridical perception

Answer 3

• in illusions and hallucinations, when we perceive something having some property there must be something that has this property
• it cant be a mind-independent object, so it must be a mind-dependent object
• NVP is subjectively indistinguishable from VP
• when two things are subjectively indistinguishable, they are perceptions of the same thing
• therefore if we’re perceiving mind-dependent objects in NVP, we’re also perceiving MDO in veridical perception
• immediate objects of perception are always mind-dependent objects

Question 4

Locke’s primary and secondary distinctions

Answer 4

• primary qualities -> utterly inseparable from physical objects - extension,shape,motion,number and solidity - neither which require perception in order to be there
• cut them up, still have a shape if not the same
• secondary qualities -> physical objects have that are nothing but “powers to produce various sensations in us”, colours, sounds, tastes, smells and temperature (reliant on sense data)
• significant difference between the world we perceive it and the world as it is itself
• Locke claims we dont perceive physical objects directly because if we did we’d perceiver them how they really are

Question 5

Indirect realism leads to scepticism about the existence of mind-independent objects

Answer 5

• if the immediate objects of perception are mind-dependent objects, we can never know what they are caused by because we can never perceive anything but them.
• if we only perceive sense data how do we know anything about the external world
• scepticism is the view that we can’t know one particular claim
• we cant perceive them so how do we know they’re there?

Question 6

Response to issue of scepticism: Locke’s argument from the involuntary nature of our experience

Answer 6

• we don’t chose what we perceive, perception isn’t like memory or imagination
• my perceptual experiences must be produced in my mind by some exterior cause, which is a mind-independent object
• scepticism isnt true in leading from indirect realism

Question 7

Argument from Berkeley-> we cannot know the nature of mind-independent objects because mind-dependent ideas cannot be like mind-independent objects

Answer 7

• we cant know that mind-independent objects have qualities that resemble our experience of them
  -^^ we cant known ‘things that we see” have qualities that can relate to them
• sense data ‘screen’ stops our direct perception
• what causes a bruise is nothing like a bruise -> the bashing of your hand isn’t visible, the effect of the bruise isn’t caused
• an idea isn’t like anything else, ideas are very different from mind-independent objects
• if indirect realism is true then we cant know the nature of mind-independent objects

Question 8

Response to Berkley

Answer 8

• claim that the mind-dependent objects represent mind-independent objects, but not by resembling them
• the pattern of causal relation between mind-independent objects and mind-dependent ones is very detailed and systematic and in terms of complex causation ->
• we can explain how sense data represent physical objects

Question 9

response to scepticism 2: Trotter Cockburn, the argument from the coherence of the various kinds of experience

Answer 9

• the different mind-dependent objects we perceive agree with one another; cohere
• suggesting they all come from/caused by mind-independent objects
• we are able to confirm our experience using a different sense; and we are able to predict one experience from another
• therefore, it is not true that indirect realism leads to scepticism about the existence of mind-independent objects

Question 10

response to scepticism: the external world is the best hypothesis

Answer 10

• because we can never get beyond our sense-data to check what’s causing them, we can never be absolutely sure
• the most likely cause of our sense data is the external world and its MIO
• there is no other explanation as simple and plausable
  p1. either physical objects exist and cause my sense-data, or physical objects do not exist and do not cause my sense data
  p2. i can’t prove either claim is true or false
  c1. therefore, i have to treat them as a hypotheses
  p3. the hypothesis that physical objects exist and cause my sense-data is better
  c2. therefore, physical objects exist and cause my sense data