PERCEPTION- Issues With Indirect Realism: Scepticism About The Existance Of Mind-independent Objects

Question 1

What’s the main difficulty of indirect realism

Answer 1

Can lead to scepticism of the external world as according to direct realism we are only aware of our sense data and need to infer the existence of objects beyond the mind
But our senses can deceive us
It’s also conceivable that our sense data doesn’t correspond with material reality eg brain in vat
This shows inference isn’t valid and so not sufficient for knowledge

Question 2

What is another way of making this point

Answer 2

We can only truly know what we are directly aware of and as we cannot directly observe reality we cannot know that it is costs

Question 3

What is another wording for this problem

Answer 3

The veil of perception problem as it’s saying our sense data constitute a veil between us and reality which we cannot penetrate to discover the material world