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Single Idea 5678

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

Full Idea

The scientific direct realist accepts the directness of our perception of the world, but restricts his realism to a special group of properties, ..not including those which are dependent for their existence upon the existence of a perceiver.

Gist of Idea

Scientific direct realism says we know some properties of objects directly

Source

Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.3)

Book Ref

Dancy,Jonathan: 'Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology' [Blackwell 1985], p.148

A Reaction

Dancy goes on to say that this distinction is a 'close relative' of Locke's primary/secondary distinction. Am I a direct realist or a representative realist about primary properties? Maybe the distinction dissolves as we unravel the true process.

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]