Indirect realism

• Tabula Rasa 


  The human mind , especially at birth viewed as having no innate (natural) ideas. Often referred to as a blank state
• John Locke on knowledge

  • All valuable knowledge comes through experience.
  • At birth, the mind is a tabula Rasa
  • Humans gain knowledge/ideas as they experience the world through the 5 senses
  • Locke says we perceive primary and secondary qualities
• Primary qualities (John Locke)


  A power a physical object has to produce an idea on our minds (quality).

  
  

  Properties that are inherent in the object itself

  E.g: a snowball is white, cold and round

  Primary qualities are unchangeable qualities inseparable of the object.
• Secondary qualities (Locke)


  " Qualities that are nothing but powers to produce various sensations in us"

  power of an object to cause sensations in humans

  E.g: taste of coffee

  A quality that only exists once it has been seen/perceived by someone
• Veil of perception

  We're each behind a 'veil' - we receive sense data but never knew what's beyond it. Does the world really exist?
• Indirect realism (Locke)

  The sense data of an object's properties resemble the real object's properties

  • primary qualities (e.g. size, shape , position, features inseparable of the object.
  • Secondary properties, produce a sensation in our minds (e.g. colour, sound, smell they are separable from the object)

  P1: Pounding an almond changes the shape (primary qualities)

  P2: But the colour and taste also changes (secondary qualities)

  C: The changed colour and taste is caused by the shape of the almond
• Direct Realism - Our senses give us direct access to the world around us. When we look at a tree, we see the tree itself, not just a representation of the tree in our minds. Therefore, we can trust our senses to tell us about the world.
• With indirect realism, sense data is not physical but exists in the mind 🤯

  Sense data is caused by and represents mind-dependent physical objects
• Indirect realism is the view 🪟 that the external world 🌎 exists independently of the mind and we perceive the external world 🌍 indirectly via sense data
• Locke's distinction of primary and secondary qualities is used to support indirect realism.

  Similarly to sense data, this distinction between reality (primary qualities) and our perception of it (secondary qualities)
• Criticisms of indirect realism,

  Berkley: mind-independent objects are totally different to sense data 


  Indirect realism says that we perceive sense-data that resembles the mind-independent external world, Berkley argues this cannot be possible.

  • Sense-data constantly changes, but mind-independent objects do not. With perceptual variation, the sense-data of a table may look kite 🪁 shaped, but the next time square ⬛. The sense-data changes but mind-independent objects don't: how can the two things resemble each other?
• Issue with indirect realism

  Scepticism and the veil of perception 


  Indirect realism leads to scepticism about the nature and existence of the external world 🌍

  If we only perceive sense-data and not 🚫 the object itself, how can we know anything about the external world or if there even is one!

  We cannot get beyond the veil of perception, to access the external world behind it, how can indirect realism justly claim there's a mind-independent world 🌍 causing sense-data if we never actually perceive the mind-independent world?
• Indirect realist response to scepticism

  Russel argues that the existence of an external world is the best 🙏 hypothesis.

  We must treat the external world as a hypothesis: imagine you see 🙈 a cat 🐈 sitting on the sofa, you turn for a minute and then cat 😺 is now on the floor. We can consider two hypothesis:

  • The cat 😺 exists mind-independently and whilst you weren't looking, walked from the sofa to the floor
  • The cat isn't mind-independent and stopped existing when you weren't looking, and came back into existence in a new 🆕 position when you looked back
• Russell's best hypothesis 


  Russel argues the first hypothesis, the existence of mind-independent objects is a better explanation than the second 🥈 as it connects the two perceptions (cat on sofa and floor) and also explains why the cat e.g. gets hungry even when it's not being perceived.

  Even though we cannot prove the existence of mind-independent objects, Russel argues we should believe in them since they are the best 😉 hypothesis to explain perceptions
• Locke's response to scepticism

  The involuntary nature 🍄‍🟫 of perception

  Locke argues he is unable to avoid having certain sense-data produced in his mind when he looks at an object. In contrast, memory and imagination allow him to choose what he experience. Locke concludes that whatever causes his perceptions must be something external to his mind as he is unable to control these perceptions - they are involuntary!
• In response to Locke's involuntary nature response, critics may argue even if Locke is successful in proving something external exists, he hasn't proved sense-data is an accurate representation of the external world. The sceptic could argue the external world may be completely different to our perception of it and there's no way we could know 😔
• Locke's response to scepticism

  The coherence of different senses

  Locke argues the different senses confirm the information of eachother.

  • a piece of paper 📜 with writing on it, you can write ✍️ something on the paper and see 🙈 the words. You can get someone to read the words aloud and hear 🙉 the same information via a different source.

  Suggesting the same mind-independent objects cause both perceptions. The fact that the visual senses of reading the paper accompany the auditory perceptions of hearing the writing suggest the same mind-independent object causes both perceptions.
• To Locke's Coherence of different senses response, critics may argue that this doesn't necessarily succeed in defeating the sceptical challenge as the information you hear 🙉 may be equally misrepresentative of the external world 🌍 as the information you see 🙈
• Indirect realism relies on the claim 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.
• An indirect realist can respond that Berkeley assumes that representation requires resemblance. Arguably there are other methods of representation. For example, the symbols we use in language are completely arbitrary, meaning they have no resemblance to the objects they refer to. The word ‘chair’ does not resemble a chair but nonetheless can represent it. So, mind-dependent objects can be ‘like’ mind-independent objects if we take ‘like’ to involve representation without resemblance.