Hello all!
Would anyone mind reading my 25 marker for philosophy? It's kind of urgent I have a mock this week.
PS - could you help me out on the 2nd paragraph (should I swap it for time lag??)
How convincing is Direct Realism? [25]
Direct realism (DR) is the claim that our immediate objects of perception are mind-independent objects. DR is not a very convincing theory of perception because it faces many flaws that it cannot overcome. For example, it is not able to provide a convincing enough reason for why perceptual variation occurs. It also is incoherent with the master argument and the primary and secondary distinction of mind-independent objects.
The strongest argument proving DR to be weak is perceptual variation which was developed by Russel. This is when the same object is perceived differently in different conditions. Russel uses an example of a table; a table may seem to be a darker shade of brown when in a darker room. This proves to be a strong problem for DR because an object cannot suddenly change its properties and therefore our perceptions of it must be wrong. This is a strong argument because it points out a flaw in the way we perceive mind-independent objects and if DR cannot explain it in a convincing manner, it proves to be inconsistent with how we think we perceive objects. A direct realist’s response to this is that our perceptions are not wrong or false, they are just being misinterpreted by us. This seems to appear to solve the issue because they accept that the object doesn’t change properties. However, it is still not a convincing response because if we can doubt our perceptions in this case, surely we can doubt them in all other cases? This is because we would be oblivious to what the true nature of an object actually is. A direct realist could respond to this further and claim that our perceptions change due to relational properties. Relational properties are ones that vary as they are relative to the situations. This means that the object itself does not change but the perceiver does, and therefore they get a different perception. However, this is still not a convincing response because it is repeating the problem. The problem is that if we change the conditions, our perceptions change which is what is echoed through the response. So, it doesn’t actually provide a response to why perceptual variation occurs and therefore, it is not able to stand up to its flaws. Overall, perceptual variation remains a problem for DR and direct realist’s responses are not strong enough to defend the theory.
Another strong argument to portray DR as a weak argument is that perceptions are mind-dependent. Berkeley’s Master Argument challenges us to think of a mind-independent tree. This is impossible because as soon as you think of it, it becomes mind-dependent. Therefore, all our perceptions are mind-dependent as mind-independent perceptions are impossible. This proves to be a problem for DR because the master argument attacks the method in which we perceive things. DR claims our immediate objects of perception are mind-independent objects, whereas the master argument argues that our perceptions are mind-dependent. (Not sure what to write here, please help!)
A reason why DR may seem to be initially convincing is the fact it isn’t susceptible to solipsism and it matches the way in which we think we perceive objects. Solipsism is the claim that only the mind exists because that is all we can be sure of. This means we cannot be sure that other minds exist. This arises because of other theories which do not claim we perceive objects directly. DR however, claims that we do perceive the mind-independent objects directly so there is no room for solipsism as we perceive the world the way it is. This however is a weak claim because as I demonstrated in previous paragraphs, we can doubt the nature of the objects we see. So, although we may be sure that other minds exist, we cannot be 100% sure that what we perceive actually is the nature of the external world. This overall limits how convincing DR can be. A direct realist, again, could respond to this by claiming that relational properties are what causes the change in perception. This, as I demonstrated earlier, is still a weak argument because it doesn’t explain why the perceptions change as we change the conditions. Ultimately, DR does have some strengths however, these do not outweigh its flaws, making it overall not as conniving.
Another argument why DR may initially seem to be convincing is because it describes how we understand perception on a daily basis. For example, when asked ‘what do you see?’ we reply with something like ‘the sun in the middle of the blue sky .’ We do not say things like ‘I see a yellow patch surrounded by blue.’ This demonstrates that our understanding of perception is that we perceive the mind-independent objects and their properties directly with no intermediary. This is a strength for DR as it makes it easy to understand. Also, our language depends on the physical objects anyway; to use words like sun is to understand what a sun is. This strengthens the theory because we all understand what the sun is. This shows that we must all be perceiving the same object directly. This is because we know of the object’’s properties. However, this is still not strong enough to make DR convincing, as the time lag argument is not defeated. Just because we all seem to understand what the sun is, does not mean that we all perceive the sun in the moment. This is because it takes 8 minutes for the sun to reach our eyes. This attacks DR because although it’s still a simple theory, it cannot explain why we don't perceive the objects in the moment. This attack on DR is strong because if DR fails to explain why we have a delay, then the whole theory collapses. A possible direct realist response to this is that the world seems to work fine. This means our world is not chaotic. For example, at a red light, most road users will stop. This must show that even if we have a time lag, it doesn’t impact our life too much. This seems to strengthen DR as it explains the impact of time lag on our day to day lives. However, it’s still not a strong defence.This is because we could all be lagging by different times and that can lead to a problematic world. This is a strong attack on DR because it shows that time lag does impact our lives.A direct realist’s response to this could be that the time lag doesn’t matter because we are perceiving the object as it is at the time we perceive it. This however, doesn’t solve the problem because by the time we perceive it, the object may have changed. Although our time lag doesn’t impact us directly in our lives, it still seems to be a strong problem for DR. This is because it doesn’t match with the definition; that we perceive the mind-independent objects and their properties directly. Therefore, although DR is easy to understand and a simple theory, it is not able to overcome its problems, especially with perceptual variation. This overall makes it a less convincing theory for perception.
In conclusion, asI have demonstrated, DR is not a convincing theory because it fails to stand up to problems such as perceptual variation and time lag arguments. This is because the definition of DR states that we perceive the mind-independent objects directly whereas time lag and perceptual variation show that we do not.
Thanks all in advance!!!