Information about Direct Realism
Direct realism is a theory of perception that claims that the senses provide us with direct awareness of the external world. In contrast, indirect realism and representationalism claim that we are directly aware only of internal representations of the external world.
Direct realists might claim that indirect realists are confused about conventional idioms that may refer to perception. Perception exemplifies unmediated contact with the external world; examples of indirect perception might be seeing a photograph, or hearing a recorded voice. Against representationalists, direct realists often argue that the complex neurophysical processes by which we perceive objects do not entail indirect perception. These processes merely establish the complex route by which direct awareness of the world arrives. The inference from such a route to indirectness may be an instance of the genetic fallacy.
Direct realism proposes no physical theory of experience and does not identify experience with the experience of quantum phenomena or with the twin retinal images. This lack of supervenience of experience on the physical world means that direct realism is not a physical theory.
One of Reid's simplest arguments posits that if representationalism is correct, then we are forced to accept either skepticism or phenomenalism. But skepticism and phenomenalism are both absurd, according to Reid; there surely is an external world, and we surely do have knowledge of it. So, by reductio ad absurdum, we must reject any theory that would force us to accept either skepticism or phenomenalism. Accordingly, we must reject representationalism.
To reject representationalism would mean accepting that we do not perceive sense data at all. Someone looking at her hand does not immediately perceive a bundle or series of hand sense-data which represents her actual hand. Rather, she immediately perceives her hand. She does not perceive any hand sense-data at all. So the direct realist view up for consideration is that we perceive the external world immediately and directly.
Direct realism is the view that the immediate (direct) objects of perception are external objects, qualities, and events. It should not be confused with the more naïve view that the world is exactly as we perceive it to be. Obviously, we can misperceive the world. The direct realist does not deny that there are perceptual illusions. But the claim is that when we do perceive something, the immediate and direct object of perception is in the external world, not the mind.
A stick submerged in water looks bent. The direct realist is not compelled to say the stick actually is bent; rather, he can say that the straight stick can, in some unusual circumstances, look bent. To say that it looks bent is to say that light reflected from the stick arrives at one's eye in a crooked pattern. In short, the stick can have more than one appearance. But the appearance of a stick isn't necessarily a sense-datum in my mind, merely a pattern of ordinary light.
A similar argument can be made about the bluish color of distant hills. Hills, like anything, can appear with many different colors; but the color is simply the wavelength of light as it reaches my eye. If the light from the green hills has to traverse many miles, then it may be bluish on meeting the observer's eye. There is no need to posit bluish sense-data: only bluish light, which comes from the hills. The hills would reflect green light to a nearer observer's eyes.
Consider the case of pressing on your eyeball with a finger, creating a double image. Undeniably, such doubled vision implies that there are two of something. But assuming the existence of two sense-data is unnecessary under this paradigm. Instead, the direct realist can say that she has two eyes, each giving her a different view of the world. Usually the eyes are focused in the same direction; but sometimes they are not. Each eye may see things in a different way. It does not imply two visual sense-data in her mind; only that there are two slightly different acts of vision occurring.
Similar things can be said about the coin which appears circular from one vantage point and oval-shaped from another. The same coin can reflect different patterns of light to an eye. It does not imply two different sense-data. Rather, the coin is being perceived in two different ways.
Another potential counter-example involves vivid hallucinations: phantom elephants, for instance, indistinguishable from real elephants. This might be interpreted as the perception of sense-data; although the hallucinator is not perceiving real elephants, she certainly seems to be perceiving something. The hallucination seems to have an object, in some sense; but this object is only in the mind. A direct realist response would differentiate hallucination from genuine perception; in this case, no perception of elephants is going on, only the different and related mental process of hallucination. If visual images are present to those who hallucinate, this does not imply such images are present in actual sense-perception.
However, this may not be a particularly strong reply. If there are visual images when we hallucinate, it seems reasonable to think that there are visual images when we see. Similarly with dreams: if dreaming involves visual and auditory images in our minds, it seems reasonable to think there are visual and auditory images, or sense-data, when we are awake and perceiving things.
Direct realists can potentially deny the existence of any such thing as a mental image, but this is difficult to maintain, since we seem able to visually imagine all sorts of things with ease. Even if it should happen that perception does not involve images, other mental processes, like imagination, certainly seem to.
In the area of visual perception in psychology, the leading direct realist theorist was J. J. Gibson. Other psychologists were heavily influenced by this approach, including William Mace[1], Claire Michaels[2], Edward Reed[3], Robert Shaw[4], and Michael Turvey[5].
More recently, Carol Fowler has promoted a direct realist approach to speech perception.
One considered view is similar to Reid's. It is that, in some sense, we do indeed have images of various sorts in our minds when we perceive, and dream, and hallucinate, and use our imaginations, but when we actually perceive things, our sensory images, or sensations, if you will (that's Reid's word), cannot be considered the objects of perception, or attention, in any sense whatsoever. The only objects of perception are external objects. Even if perception is accompanied by images, or sensations, it is wrong to say we perceive sensations.
This conclusion shows that direct realism simply defines perception as perception of external objects where an 'external object' is allowed to be a photon in the eye but not an impulse in a nerve leading from the eye. Recent work in neuroscience suggests a shared ontology for perception, imagination and dreaming, with similar areas of brain being used for all of these. Based on this work, le Morvan (2004) argues that such a shared ontology is fatal for direct realism.
Representative Theory of Perception, also known as Indirect realism, epistemological dualism, and The veil of perception, is a philosophical concept.
..... Click the link for more information.
Representative Theory of Perception, also known as Indirect realism, epistemological dualism, and The veil of perception, is a philosophical concept.
..... Click the link for more information.
The retina is a thin layer of neural cells that lines the back of the eyeball of vertebrates and some cephalopods. It is comparable to the film in a camera.
..... Click the link for more information.
Direct realists might claim that indirect realists are confused about conventional idioms that may refer to perception. Perception exemplifies unmediated contact with the external world; examples of indirect perception might be seeing a photograph, or hearing a recorded voice. Against representationalists, direct realists often argue that the complex neurophysical processes by which we perceive objects do not entail indirect perception. These processes merely establish the complex route by which direct awareness of the world arrives. The inference from such a route to indirectness may be an instance of the genetic fallacy.
Direct realism proposes no physical theory of experience and does not identify experience with the experience of quantum phenomena or with the twin retinal images. This lack of supervenience of experience on the physical world means that direct realism is not a physical theory.
Examples of the direct realist approach
Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid argued strenuously against the notion that ideas, or sense-data, are the objects of perception at all; to wit, he rejected representationalism.One of Reid's simplest arguments posits that if representationalism is correct, then we are forced to accept either skepticism or phenomenalism. But skepticism and phenomenalism are both absurd, according to Reid; there surely is an external world, and we surely do have knowledge of it. So, by reductio ad absurdum, we must reject any theory that would force us to accept either skepticism or phenomenalism. Accordingly, we must reject representationalism.
To reject representationalism would mean accepting that we do not perceive sense data at all. Someone looking at her hand does not immediately perceive a bundle or series of hand sense-data which represents her actual hand. Rather, she immediately perceives her hand. She does not perceive any hand sense-data at all. So the direct realist view up for consideration is that we perceive the external world immediately and directly.
Direct realism is the view that the immediate (direct) objects of perception are external objects, qualities, and events. It should not be confused with the more naïve view that the world is exactly as we perceive it to be. Obviously, we can misperceive the world. The direct realist does not deny that there are perceptual illusions. But the claim is that when we do perceive something, the immediate and direct object of perception is in the external world, not the mind.
Direct realist responses to criticism
The argument from illusion can be taken as an argument against direct realism because it seemingly shows the need to posit sense-data as the immediate objects of perception. Direct realism might respond by showing that various cases of misperception, failed perception, and perceptual relativity do not make it necessary to suppose that sense-data exist. Those cases might instead be explained without reference to sense-data.A stick submerged in water looks bent. The direct realist is not compelled to say the stick actually is bent; rather, he can say that the straight stick can, in some unusual circumstances, look bent. To say that it looks bent is to say that light reflected from the stick arrives at one's eye in a crooked pattern. In short, the stick can have more than one appearance. But the appearance of a stick isn't necessarily a sense-datum in my mind, merely a pattern of ordinary light.
A similar argument can be made about the bluish color of distant hills. Hills, like anything, can appear with many different colors; but the color is simply the wavelength of light as it reaches my eye. If the light from the green hills has to traverse many miles, then it may be bluish on meeting the observer's eye. There is no need to posit bluish sense-data: only bluish light, which comes from the hills. The hills would reflect green light to a nearer observer's eyes.
Consider the case of pressing on your eyeball with a finger, creating a double image. Undeniably, such doubled vision implies that there are two of something. But assuming the existence of two sense-data is unnecessary under this paradigm. Instead, the direct realist can say that she has two eyes, each giving her a different view of the world. Usually the eyes are focused in the same direction; but sometimes they are not. Each eye may see things in a different way. It does not imply two visual sense-data in her mind; only that there are two slightly different acts of vision occurring.
Similar things can be said about the coin which appears circular from one vantage point and oval-shaped from another. The same coin can reflect different patterns of light to an eye. It does not imply two different sense-data. Rather, the coin is being perceived in two different ways.
Another potential counter-example involves vivid hallucinations: phantom elephants, for instance, indistinguishable from real elephants. This might be interpreted as the perception of sense-data; although the hallucinator is not perceiving real elephants, she certainly seems to be perceiving something. The hallucination seems to have an object, in some sense; but this object is only in the mind. A direct realist response would differentiate hallucination from genuine perception; in this case, no perception of elephants is going on, only the different and related mental process of hallucination. If visual images are present to those who hallucinate, this does not imply such images are present in actual sense-perception.
However, this may not be a particularly strong reply. If there are visual images when we hallucinate, it seems reasonable to think that there are visual images when we see. Similarly with dreams: if dreaming involves visual and auditory images in our minds, it seems reasonable to think there are visual and auditory images, or sense-data, when we are awake and perceiving things.
Direct realists can potentially deny the existence of any such thing as a mental image, but this is difficult to maintain, since we seem able to visually imagine all sorts of things with ease. Even if it should happen that perception does not involve images, other mental processes, like imagination, certainly seem to.
In the area of visual perception in psychology, the leading direct realist theorist was J. J. Gibson. Other psychologists were heavily influenced by this approach, including William Mace[1], Claire Michaels[2], Edward Reed[3], Robert Shaw[4], and Michael Turvey[5].
More recently, Carol Fowler has promoted a direct realist approach to speech perception.
Mental images
The topic of mental images is very complicated and controversial.One considered view is similar to Reid's. It is that, in some sense, we do indeed have images of various sorts in our minds when we perceive, and dream, and hallucinate, and use our imaginations, but when we actually perceive things, our sensory images, or sensations, if you will (that's Reid's word), cannot be considered the objects of perception, or attention, in any sense whatsoever. The only objects of perception are external objects. Even if perception is accompanied by images, or sensations, it is wrong to say we perceive sensations.
This conclusion shows that direct realism simply defines perception as perception of external objects where an 'external object' is allowed to be a photon in the eye but not an impulse in a nerve leading from the eye. Recent work in neuroscience suggests a shared ontology for perception, imagination and dreaming, with similar areas of brain being used for all of these. Based on this work, le Morvan (2004) argues that such a shared ontology is fatal for direct realism.
References
- Fowler, C. A. (1986) An event approach to the study of speech perception from a direct-realist perspective. Journal of Phonetics, 14, 3-28.
- James J. Gibson. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1987. ISBN 0898599598
- Claire F. Michaels and Claudia Carello. Direct Perception. Prentice-Hall. ISBN 01312147912. 1981.
- Edward S. Reed. Encountering the World. Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 0195073010
- Turvey, M. T., & Carello, C. (1986). The ecological approach to perceiving-acting a pictorial essay. Acta Psychologica, 63, 133-155.
- Nicholas Wolterstorff. Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology. Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN 0521539307
See also
External links
- Skepticism and the Veil of Perception, book defending direct realism.
- Pierre Le Morvan, "Arguments against direct realism and how to counter them", American Philosophical Quarterly 41, no. 3 (2004): 221-234. (pdf)
- Steven Lehar, "Gestalt Isomorphism" (2003), paper criticizing direct realism.
- A Direct Realist Account of Perceptual Awareness, dissertation on direct realism.
- "Sense Data", article from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Epistemological debate on PSYCHE-D mailing list
- A Cartoon Epistemology
perception is the process of acquiring, interpreting, selecting, and organizing sensory information. It is a task far more complex than was imagined in the 1950s and 1960s, when it was proclaimed that building perceiving machines would take about a decade, but, needless to say,
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Senses are the physiological methods of perception. The senses and their operation, classification, and theory are overlapping topics studied by a variety of fields, most notably neuroscience, cognitive psychology (or cognitive science), and philosophy of perception.
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awareness comprises a human's or an animal's perception and cognitive reaction to a condition or event. Awareness does not necessarily imply understanding, just an ability to be conscious of, feel or perceive.
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Concept
Awareness is a relative concept...... Click the link for more information.
For representationalism in the arts, see .
Representative Theory of Perception, also known as Indirect realism, epistemological dualism, and The veil of perception, is a philosophical concept.
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For representationalism in the arts, see .
Representative Theory of Perception, also known as Indirect realism, epistemological dualism, and The veil of perception, is a philosophical concept.
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An idiom is an expression (i.e., term or phrase) whose meaning cannot be deduced from the literal definitions and the arrangement of its parts, but refers instead to a figurative meaning that is known only through common use.
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The genetic fallacy is a fallacy of irrelevance where a conclusion is suggested based solely on something or someone's origin rather than its current meaning or context. This overlooks any difference to be found in the present situation, typically transferring the positive or
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quantum mechanics is the study of the relationship between energy quanta (radiation) and matter, in particular that between valence shell electrons and photons. Quantum mechanics is a fundamental branch of physics with wide applications in both experimental and theoretical physics.
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- For the moth genus, see Retina (moth).
The retina is a thin layer of neural cells that lines the back of the eyeball of vertebrates and some cephalopods. It is comparable to the film in a camera.
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supervenience is a kind of dependency relationship, typically held to obtain between sets of properties. According to one standard definition, a set of properties A supervenes on a set of properties B, if and only if any two objects x and y which share all properties in B (are
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Scottish people (Scottish Gaelic: Albannach) are a nation[6] and an ethnic group indigenous to Scotland. As an ethnic group, Scots are a composition of groups such as Picts, Gaels, Brythons, Angles, and Norse.
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Thomas Reid (April 26, 1710 – October 7, 1796), Scottish philosopher, and a contemporary of David Hume, was the founder of the Scottish School of Common Sense, and played an integral role in the Scottish Enlightenment.
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skepticism or scepticism (Greek: skeptomai, to look about, to consider; see also spelling differences) refers to
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- an attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity either in general or toward a particular object,
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In epistemology and the philosophy of perception, phenomenalism is the view that physical objects do not exist as things in themselves but only as perceptual phenomena or sensory stimuli (e.g. redness, hardness, softness, sweetness, etc.) situated in time and in space.
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Absurd can refer to:
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- Absurdism, a philosophy born of existentialism
- absurdity, with small "a", is a form of surreal humour
- Theatre of the Absurd, an artform utilizing the philosophy of absurdism
- Absurd (band), a National Socialist Black Metal band.
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Knowledge is defined (Oxford English Dictionary) variously as (i) expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject, (ii) what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information or
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Reductio ad absurdum (Latin: "reduction to the absurd") also known as an apagogical argument, reductio ad impossibile, or proof by contradiction
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The word theory has a number of distinct meanings in different fields of knowledge, depending on their methodologies and the context of discussion.
In common usage, people often use the word theory to signify a conjecture, an opinion, or a speculation.
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In common usage, people often use the word theory to signify a conjecture, an opinion, or a speculation.
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The concept of sense data (singular: sense datum) is very influential and widely used in the philosophy of perception.
Many philosophers have said that the most immediate objects of perception are mental objects—objects in the mind.
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Many philosophers have said that the most immediate objects of perception are mental objects—objects in the mind.
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object is a thing, an entity, or a being. This may be taken in several senses.
In its weakest sense, the word object is the most all-purpose of nouns, and can replace a noun in any sentence at all.
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In its weakest sense, the word object is the most all-purpose of nouns, and can replace a noun in any sentence at all.
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Quality in everyday life and business, engineering and manufacturing has a pragmatic interpretation as the non-inferiority, superiority or usefulness of something. This is the most common interpretation of the term.
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In philosophy, events are objects in time or instantiations of properties in objects. However, a definite definition has not been reached, as multiple theories exist concerning events.
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In psychology, visual perception is the ability to interpret visible light information reaching the eyes which is then made available for planning and action. The resulting perception is also known as eyesight, sight or vision.
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Psychology (from Greek: Literally "talk about the soul" (from logos)) is both an academic and applied discipline involving the scientific study of mental processes and behavior.
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James Jerome Gibson (January 27 1904–December 11 1979), was an American psychologist, considered one of the most important 20th century psychologists in the field of visual perception.
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Carol A. Fowler is an American experimental psychologist. She is the President and Director of Research at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut. She is also a Professor of Psychology at the University of Connecticut and an Adjunct Professor of Linguistics and Psychology
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Speech perception refers to the processes by which humans are able to interpret and understand the sounds used in language. The study of speech perception is closely linked to the fields of phonetics and phonology in linguistics and cognitive psychology and perception in psychology.
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Philosophy of mind is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness and their relationship to the physical body. The mind-body problem, i.e.
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Consciousness is a characteristic of the mind generally regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and one's environment.
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The philosophy of perception concerns how mental processes and symbols depend on the world internal and external to the perceiver.
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Introduction
Our perception of the external world begins with the senses, which lead us to generate empirical concepts representing the world..... Click the link for more information.
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