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Single Idea 21337

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

Full Idea

Knowing beings are differentiated from non-knowing beings by this: non-knowing beings have only their own reality, but knowing beings are capable of possessing also the reality of something else, ...a presence of the thing known produced by this thing.

Gist of Idea

A knowing being possesses a further reality, the 'presence' of the thing known

Source

Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologicae [1265], Ia,q.Q14,art 1)


A Reaction

[Quoted by Ryan Meade in a talk at Pigotts] A famous and much discussed remark. Aquinas was a direct realist about perception, so this presence seems to be the thing itself, rather than a 'representation'.


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

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