1. Indirect realism Also sometimes called ‘representative realism’

2. What we’re directly aware of are our sense data.

3. Remember If a tree falls over in a forest, and no one is there to hear it… …does it make a noise?

4. If a tree falls over in a forest, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a noise? Representative Realism; Yes and No. We perceive objects indirectly. We are only directly aware of our sense impressions of them. Objects only have some of the properties that appear in our perceptions of them. Variations in air pressure exist independently of our perceptions. So in this sense of ‘noise’, the answer is yes. But the way they sound to us only exists in our perceptions. So this kind of ‘noise’ only exists when there is someone there to hear it.

5. Indirect Realism’s ontology Dualist Dualism is the idea that there are two kinds of ‘stuff’ in the world; spiritual or mental (thoughts, ideas, sensations, beliefs, emotions and maybe souls and God) and physical or material (‘matter’; the stuff physicists tell us about). Indirect realism is a dualist theory. It thinks there are ‘real’, physical objects out there in the external world (hence ‘realism’). And there are also mental things (the sense perceptions via which we are aware of the real world, and any other mental phenomena.)

6. Make a spider diagram using p.39 of Lacewing of the features of sense-data. Sense-data

7. If we are indirect realists, how do we perceive the external world? Our perception of reality is mediated by sense data, so that we must infer the existence and nature of the external world on the basis of the way it is represented to us in the mind. illustration Now on your mini white boards either draw an illustration or write a five line poem explaining how indirect realists perceive the external world.

8. You need to know about three objections to IR and the replies to them. But 1 st we will look at the idea of properties (this will help when we do the objections next lesson)

9. An Intelligent Alien noises An intelligent alien lands on earth. The alien has a very different set of senses from the ones we use to navigate reality. He has a sonic sense like a bat, and an electric sense like a dolphin. He has no colour vision & can only see in black and white. When he touches objects his nerves and brain translate the touches into noises that he hears in his mind. The alien is about to examine some objects from earth to see what properties the objects have. Written Task: What would the alien write down as the real properties – properties the alien perceives of the mind-independent object – of the following: A pound coin. A cup of coffee. A piece of sandpaper.

10. Would the intelligent alien be able to discern the property of value of the pound coin? What does this tell us about the properties of physical objects? The example of the alien suggests that some properties of physical objects are more closely related to our senses than others. Colour, smell, sound, taste and texture depend very closely on our five senses. Creatures without these senses would not be able to perceive these qualities. Shape, size, motion, position and number don’t depend so closely on our senses. Creatures with very different senses could still perceive these qualities. Therefore there are two types of properties for physical objects.

11. Primary and Secondary Qualities Primary qualities: Qualities that exists independently of our perceiving them. In simpler terms, it refers to properties like shape, size and motion, that don’t depend on our senses. Secondary qualities: Qualities that require a perceiving mind to perceive them i.e. experience of the senses. In simpler terms, it refers to properties like colour, smell and taste, that do depend on our senses. A good way to remember this: primary qualities are in objects ‘primarily’ (before perceivers come along); secondary qualities appear only ‘secondarily’ (after perceivers arrive on the scene).

12. In pairs…. Read through the excerpts and highlight/underline points that you believe are relevant in helping to understand/define: What are primary and secondary qualities. How they are distinguished from each other. Make sure you have a different colour for each section. i.e. what is a primary quality will be underlined in red. A little bit further….. If you have completed the above create an argument in standard form using the example of a red rose to illustrate how we perceive objects indirectly.

13. Locke – Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II, Chapter viii The idea of heat or light, which we receive by our eyes, or touch, from the sun, are commonly thought real qualities existing in the sun, and something more than mere powers in it. But when we consider the sun in reference to wax, which it melts or blanches, we look on the whiteness and softness produced in the wax, not as qualities in the sun, but effects produced by powers in it. Whereas, if rightly considered, these qualities of light and warmth, which are perceptions in me when I am warmed or enlightened by the sun, are no otherwise in the sun, than the changes made in the wax, when it is balanced or melted, are in the sun. They are all of them equally powers in the sun, depending on its primary qualities; whereby it is able, in the one case, so to alter the bulk, figure, texture, or motion of some of the insensible parts of my eyes or hands, as thereby to produce in me the idea of light or heat; and in the other, it is able so to alter the bulk, figure, texture, or motion of the insensible parts of the wax, as to make them fit to produce in me distinct ideas of white and fluid. Descartes – Meditation 6 And although in approaching fire I feel heat, and in approaching it a little too near I even feel pain, there is at the same time no reason in this which could persuade me that there is in the fire something resembling this heat any more than there is in it something resembling the pain; all that I have any reason to believe from this is, that there is something in it, whatever it may be, which excites in me these sensations of heat or of pain.

14. Read pages 44-45 on Locke and primary/secondary qualities – read up to ‘Locke on primary qualities

15. A good way to remember this: primary qualities are in objects ‘primarily’ (before perceivers come along); secondary qualities appear only ‘secondarily’ (after perceivers arrive on the scene).

16. Characteristics of primary and secondary qualities

17. OK, so what does this distinction have to do with Indirect Realism? Helpful hint: Remember sense data is what we are immediately aware of in perception i.e. the colour and shape of the desk as I see it now. (the mental representation) Task: Use what we have learnt in today’s lesson and the image above to explain indirect realism. Refer to the distinction between primary and secondary qualities! Secondary qualities are what we perceive through sense data as they are mind- dependent properties of the object.

18. The secondary quality argument R1.When I look at a rose, I see something that is red. R2.The red thing cannot be the rose itself (since redness is a secondary quality which exists in the mind of the perceiver rather than the objects we perceive). IC.So it must be a mental image of the rose – a sense datum. C.But this means I see the rose indirectly, by seeing its sense-datum- in which case direct realism is false.

19. In a nutshell Indirect realism, through primary & secondary qualities, develops a ‘two-world’ view of perception. World No. 1 = the world as it really is. Objects with primary qualities obey the laws of physics here in a sense-less world i.e. no colour, taste or smell. But it is this world, in conjunction with our perceptual system, that causes us to perceive ‘World Number 2’. World No. 2, the world we directly perceive, is a representation of World No. 1, the world as it is. Written task: Create an analogy to help explain the distinction between primary and secondary qualities and how it explains how we perceive the external world.

20. How convincing is this distinction? Is it really possible to imagine an object with no secondary qualities? Can you really imagine an orange as colourless, odourless and without texture?

21. Homework Read pages 22 – 26 in Hayward, Jones & Cardinal. Make notes on how philosophers draw the distinction between primary & secondary qualities. They must be put into your own words! Due in next lesson.

22. 16. Flame is called ‘hot’ and ‘light’; snow ‘white’ and ‘cold’; and manna ‘white’ and ‘sweet’—all from the ideas they produce in us. [We know that Locke sometimes calls qualities ‘ideas’, but that seems not to be enough to explain the oddity of the next sentence down to its first comma. The passage as given here is almost verbatim Locke; all of the oddity is there in what he wrote.] Those qualities are commonly thought to be the same in those bodies as those ideas are in us, the one perfectly resembling the other; and most people would think it weird to deny this. But think about this: a fire at one distance produces in us the sensation of warmth, and when we come closer it produces in us the very different sensation of pain; what reason can you give for saying that the idea of warmth that was produced in you by the fire is actually in the fire, without also saying that the idea of pain that the same fire produced in you in the same way is in the fire? Why are whiteness and coldness in snow, and pain not, when it produces each idea in us, and can do so only through the size, shape, number, and motion of its solid parts? 17. The particular size, number, shape, and motion of the parts of fire or snow are really in them, whether or not anyone’s senses perceive them. So they may be called real qualities, because they really exist in those bodies; but light, heat, whiteness or coldness are no more really in them than sickness or pain is in manna. Take away the sensation of them— let the eyes not see light or colours, or the ears hear sounds; let the palate not taste, or the nose smell— and all colours, tastes, odours, and sounds vanish and cease, and are reduced to their causes, i.e. size, shape, and motion of parts.