Recap – Direct Realism - Issues Split your whiteboard into 4. In each section outline a criticism of Direct Realism. Try to do as much as you can without the use of your notes.

Responding to the Criticisms Lesson Objective: Consider whether the Philosophical Direct Realist can effectively respond to criticisms of their theory. Philosophical Direct Realism: Some philosophers offer a more sophisticated version of direct realism which exploits the advantages, whilst avoiding the inadequacies of its naïve predecessor. This is known as Philosophical Direct Realism (PDR) to distinguish it from the naïve/common-sense version.

Response 1: Illusion Carefully read the information in the paragraph at the bottom of page 7 (and the following page) of your handouts. Then on your whiteboards explain what you think it means and how it is a response to the problem of illusions. Note: These handouts are yours so I urge you to annotate, underline and highlight and scribble all over key sections if it will help you remember the information!

PDR argues that just because we come to know an object through its appearance this in no way necessitates the view that what we are aware of in experience is an appearance and not the object itself. The more sophisticated realist could appeal to science, notably physics, to demonstrate that illusion does not have to occur internally at the level of perception but can be accounted for externally, at the level of objects themselves. The stick appearing to bend when placed in water is due to a physical fact about refraction rather than a mental episode of human error; it is this process of refraction that I directly observe when perceiving such events.

Philosophical Direct Realist Response 1: Illusion

Philosophical Direct Realist Response 1: Illusion Problem: Stick appears bent but isn’t actually bent. Perception doesn’t match reality. Solution: Stop describing the situation so simply, if we add in all the information we know about how light is refracted then we would not have this issue. Instead of the problem above it would be we perceive a stick-that-appears-to-be-bent and in reality (due to refraction) there would be a stick-that-appears-to-be-bent. Illusion is not a failure of my perception, but a property of the object and the world around it. In the barn/church example – you perceive a building that looks like a barn, and in reality there is a building that looks like a barn.

PDR Response 2: Perceptual Variation Carefully read the information in the paragraph at the bottom of page 8 (and the following page) of your handouts. Then on your whiteboards explain what you think it means and how it is a response to the problem of perceptual variation. Note: These handouts are yours so I urge you to annotate, underline and highlight and scribble all over key sections if it will help you remember the information!

Again, as with illusion, a more sophisticated realist could respond by arguing that just because we come to know of objects through their appearance this in no way necessitates that what we directly apprehend in experience is an appearance and not the object itself. Appearance can therefore be defined as being a direct experience of an object from a specific position in time and space; different positions yield different perceptions. Perspectival variation is as much a physical fact of the world as a penny’s roundness.

PDR Response 2: Perceptual Variation

PDR Response 2: Perceptual Variation Problem: Object seems to change for the perceiver depending on perspective. Object doesn’t change in reality. Solution: A fuller description of the object and it’s circumstances is required. When describing reality we should take into account position / lighting / distance etc. So when I say I perceive an elliptical penny I should also know what exists in reality is a round penny seen from angle x. We already do this subconsciously and predictably, we know that the grey chair is really a blue chair in the dark. We know that tables don’t change shape depending on the angle we perceive them from – we can even predict these occurrences exactly because they are a property of the object and the world around it.

PDR Response 3: Hallucination Carefully read the information in the paragraph on page 9. Then on your whiteboards explain what you think it means and how it is a response to the problem of hallucination. Note: These handouts are yours so I urge you to annotate, underline and highlight and scribble all over key sections if it will help you remember the information!

A serious challenge to the hallucination argument is that hallucinatory perceptions must be distinct from veridical ones because if they were not we would not be able to recognise them as hallucinatory in the first place. The fact of the matter is that we do distinguish hallucinations from reality (though not necessarily immediately) and if this were not the case, we would not recognise a hallucination as such in the first place. The concept of a hallucination relies on you already having a concept of what a real perception is, as we need something with which to contrast the hallucination in order for us to recognise hallucinations.

PDR Response 3: Hallucination

PDR Response 3: Hallucination Problem: We perceive things that we know are not real, therefore our perceptions don’t always match up with reality. Solution: If we couldn’t tell hallucinations apart from veridical (true / real) perceptions then we wouldn’t have this issue to begin with! The fact we can means that hallucinations aren’t real types of perception meaning they aren’t a problem for DR (which is a theory of perception). Hallucinations are distinct from true-perceptions in how they are caused and the resulting impact on our senses. Macbeths dagger is caused by his “heat-oppressed brain” not his perception of a real object thus there is no reason to consider that it must match up with a real object.

PDR Response 4: Time-Lag Carefully read the information in the paragraph on page 9. Then on your whiteboards explain what you think it means and how it is a response to the problem of time-lag Note: These handouts are yours so I urge you to annotate, underline and highlight and scribble all over key sections if it will help you remember the information!

Given that all light (and sound) takes some time to reach us and to be perceived by us, the time lag problem seems to demonstrate that we cannot be directly perceiving objects instantaneously. But the Philosophical Direct Realist only has to make a slight amendment to accommodate this problem: what we are directly aware of in perception is an object as it was. For the majority of cases this temporal gap is so minimal it is scarcely worth observing. For instances of objects of a greater distance, including objects which have ceased to exist, we are directly aware of the object as it was at the time that it reflected light waves toward us.

PDR Response 4: Time-Lag

PDR Response 4: Time-Lag Problem: Due to time-lag in our perceptions we are never perceiving an object as it really is, only as it was. Solution: The PDR can accept there is a time lag in perception, but deny that this means we do not directly perceive physical objects or that we must introduce something distinct from the object we are directly aware of (a mediator). All that follows from time lag is that we perceive objects directly as they were. More specifically as they were when they reflected their light waves / sound waves at us. So yes the PDR may have to take a hit here and admit we don’t perceive objects instantaneously as they are, but this does not completely refute DR - we are still perceiving things directly - just as they were. This fits with the way we talk about the world / universe (consider the example of the crab nebula – we are seeing it as it was 6000 years ago).

Responding to the Criticisms Whiteboard Question: Can the philosophical direct realist successfully respond to the criticisms of direct realism? Give reasons for your answer. Do the responses effectively deal with all the issues of DR? Are there any cases where the criticism can still apply? Are all problems of illusion / perceptual variation to do with how the object interacts with the world around it? Does the fact the time-lag problem forces the DR to concede make it a stronger criticism?

Lesson Summary: