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Single Idea 19526

[filed under theme 11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 1. Perceptual Realism / b. Direct realism ]

Full Idea

When I ask myself what I am acquainted with, the physical objects in front of me are far more natural candidates than their appearances.

Gist of Idea

Surely I am acquainted with physical objects, not with appearances?

Source

Timothy Williamson (Knowledge First (and reply) [2014], p.3)

Book Ref

'Contemporary Debates in Epistemology (2nd ed)', ed/tr. Steup/Turri/Sosa [Wiley Blackwell 2014], p.3

A Reaction

Not very impressive. The word 'acquainted' means the content of the experience, not the phenomena. Do I 'experience' the objects, or the appearances? The answer there is less obvious. If you apply it to colours, it is even less obvious.

Related Idea

Idea 19527 We don't acquire evidence and then derive some knowledge, because evidence IS knowledge [Williamson]

The 16 ideas with the same theme [we are in direct contact with reality]:

21337 A knowing being possesses a further reality, the 'presence' of the thing known [Aquinas]
22130 Scotus defended direct 'intuitive cognition', against the abstractive view [Duns Scotus, by Dumont]
3943 If existence is perceived directly, by which sense; if indirectly, how is it inferred from direct perception? [Berkeley]
23662 The existence of ideas is no more obvious than the existence of external objects [Reid]
14866 It always remains possible that the world just is the way it appears [Nietzsche]
21537 I assume we perceive the actual objects, and not their 'presentations' [Russell]
5377 'Acquaintance' is direct awareness, without inferences or judgements [Russell]
22160 Our relationship to a hammer strengthens when we use [Heidegger]
5678 Scientific direct realism says we know some properties of objects directly [Dancy,J]
5681 Maybe we are forced from direct into indirect realism by the need to explain perceptual error [Dancy,J]
6549 I think greenness is a complex microphysical property of green objects [Lycan]
6355 Direct realism says justification is partly a function of pure perceptual states, not of beliefs [Pollock/Cruz]
6643 'Ecological' approaches say we don't infer information, but pick it up directly from reality [Lowe]
19526 Surely I am acquainted with physical objects, not with appearances? [Williamson]
16374 There is a continuum from acquaintance to description in knowledge, depending on the link [Recanati]
8417 Direct realism is false, because defeasibility questions are essential to perceptual knowledge [Galloway]