Indirect Realism In John Locke: A Critical Assessment Of The Representationalist Theory Of Perception.
Chapter 1
Preface
The end of this chapter will include; an attempt to establish the nature of the contestation between direct and circular literalism right from the period of John Locke who had established the foundations for the debate. The rationalists had come to lay a foundation of our knowledge on apparently certain and positive foundations in logic, Locke too, in his empiricism began to enthrall a position appertained to as ‘ circular literalism ’ due to his argument that objects of experience can not be directly perceived. But before also, an attempt shall be made to regard for the nature of the argument of the realists as against the position of theanti-realists ’ divide in epistemology. Going back to the period of the British researchers with our main point of focus on Locke, and Berkeley. Having mentioned before that there’s a peak between direct and circular realists, the difference boiling largely out of how one perceives what one perceives, it’ll be considerate to regard thus for the nature of the debate between the both of them and the attempts of the direct realists to escape the two arguments( arguments from vision and daydream) rendered against it by the circular realists.
Contemporary Realist Arguments
The problem of perception is one that has been in the mind of several doctrines ever since the period before Socrates, where we see proponents like Democritus and Leucippus who claimed that physical objects are really composed of bitsy inseparable patches appertained to as tittles. The problem which is popularly appertained to as ‘ the problem of perception ’ has been given a new expression. Epistemologists concerned with the problem of perception seek to enquire how we come to perceive the contents of the external world. Before going any further, I shall try to define what perception itself entails.
Perception is the process by which we, through any of our five senses- eyes, cognizance, lingo, nose and skin, gain knowledge of the external world. It’s due to this kind of description that one is bound to suppose that it’s commodity pertaining to empiricism alone. It’s indeed a valid assertion, since it seems to lay emphasis upon the senses and the kind of connection they’ve with the world in the shot to acquire knowledge. We should note that in the light of the below description, there’s a distinction between what exists in the world, and what we perceive as being. According to this generality, there are several propositions. These propositions of perception try to answer the question of what and how we can know through sense experience and they include literalism andanti-realism.
Literalismvs.Anti-Realism
The argument of the realists is included in their generality that objects of the world live independent of the mind. For the realists, every physical thing we perceive would live indeed if we weren’t around to perceive them, it could thus be said that for the realists, perception is mind-independent. That’s there doesn’t have to be a mind before the actuality of a physical object could be caught on . This implies that the relation between perceiver and the perceived isn’t of a dependent form. For theanti-realists still, perception is mind-dependent. This means that everything that exists only exists because there’s a mind perceiving them. It may look like they’re saying that perception is a temporal thing because the recrimination will be that what isn’t being at the moment perceived by some mind can not be claimed to live until else perceived.
We should note that the below figure of the peak between realists andanti-realists is that of an old tradition as we shall come to see in the work of John Locke. It isn’t the case that their doctrines have changed, but we shall essay to regard for possible variations in the colorful positions. Our coming contention therefore, shall be to try to articulate the positions of contemporary realists in the problem of perception.
As formerly outlined over, literalism is that epistemological position in the problem of perception that holds that what we perceive in the external world is independent of our perceptive faculties. For the realists, perception is mind independent so that the external world is a endless fixate that our senses only come to apprehend whenever we essay toperceive.Realists claim that physical objects live as effects that are independent of our minds and of our comprehensions of them. A realistbelieves that there’s a world( the “ material ” world) that exists singly of whether or not any conscious mind gests it. A realist believes that if all the minds( internal beings) stopped being hereafter, there would still be a world out there, just one that no bone was conscious of.
An illustration of a realist is John Locke, whose gospel of perception helped define the lines of circular literalism moment. Another is David Hume who’s credited with the saying below
this veritably table, which we see white, and which we feel hard, is believed to live, independent of our perception, and to be commodity external to our minds, which perceives it.
DirectVs. Indirect Realism
Our main end in this section is to bandy contemporary views on literalism, but this won’t be possible if the several views aren’t themselves divided into two other seminaries, the direct/ naïve realists, and the circular/ sophisticated realists.
As important as literalism is the academy that holds that whatever it’s we perceive, its actuality isn’t dependent on the mind, the position of the direct/ naïve realists is that objects of perception are directly restrained, that we’ve a direct access to the physical objects of the external world. Direct realists claim that we perceive the physical objects themselves. When we perceive the world, it clearly appears to us as it’s exactly we directly perceive physical objects that live singly of our minds. Direct literalism claims that the immediate object of perception is the physical object itself. We do n’t perceive it in virtue of perceiving commodity differently that ‘ mediates ’ between our minds and the physical object.
The circular realists still are also appertained to as representative realists. An illustration of an circular realist will be John Locke who claims that what we perceive aren’t the objects but an idea of the object in the world and since an idea isn’t a physical but a internal thing also it means that what we perceive according to circular literalism is just an conciliator between object and perceiver. This means that they endorse for an conciliator between objects of perception and the perceiver.
The contemporary argument of the representative realists is informed in their critic of the arguments against the direct realists. This is using the arguments from vision and the argument from daydream. We shall talk more on this latterly in this chapter. Bertrand Russell is an illustration of an circular realist, another illustration isG.E Moore.
The Empiricism of John Locke
With the end of the international rationalists being erected on the idea of ingrain ideas, which says that every mind is born with ideas, for them whatever it’s we claim to know must have been erected upon the certain ideas that was in our minds at birth. This sounded to make sense, since their end was( Descartes for illustration) to establish a certain foundation from which all knowledge would crop , and they allowed that the mind would be that certain foundation in discrepancy to experience, therefore the doctrine of innatism.
So, in being an empiric, the end of John Locke was to unhinge the former gospel before him, rationalism and their doctrine of innatism, Descartes wanted to give a solid, positive foundation for knowledge, still Locke viewed rationalism as resting upon unquestioned hypotheticals, like the supposition that the mind is born with ideas at birth, and the farther supposition that clarity of generalities can give accurate knowledge of reality.
It sounded to him, like he ’d successfully showed the inadequacy of the rationalist foundations, so Locke progressed to assert that the mind was born at birth blank, empty, this is where his conception of tabula rasa originates. Unlike the innatists, whatever it’s we ultimately come to know isn’t a function of the mind, but that of experience, from the senses. This ultimately exposed the modest and humble onsets of Locke’s epistemology. This is because unlike Descartes who wanted a deductively certain foundation, Locke agreed that the senses aren’t certain source of knowledge( as we shall come to see). This ultimately rendered him a modest empiric.
Since Locke had asserted that unlike Descartes, the foundation of his own empiricism isn’t erected on the conception of a blank slate, also it sounded empirical for him to do how it’s that our sense from the outside world help to imprint ideas in the mind.
Let us also suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and bottomless fancy of man has painted on it with an nearly endless variety? Whence has it all the accoutrements of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from EXPERIENCE. In that all our knowledge is innovated; and from that it eventually derives itself.
So, for Locke, experience is the source from which all of our knowledge arises and not the mind. He described the processes according to which the sense deduced ideas from the external world as the process of sensation. In sensation the senses gets ideas from the physical objects out there, and through reflection the mind is suitable to put its characteristic functions of composition and abstraction on the idea gotten from the external world.
by reflection also, in the following part of this converse, I would be understood to mean, that notice which the mind takes of its own operations, and the manner of them, by reason whereof there come to be ideas of these operations in the understanding.
This is the origin of simple and complex ideas in Lockean epistemology; the eyes for case perceive a simple object of sensation like a man and a steed. But the mind, being suitable to compose and occasionally abstract the simple ideas gotten from sight is suitable to form a farther idea of a centaur which although has no actuality in reality. This process of compounding ideas together is appertained to as ‘ reflection ’, the combination of both processes is what gives us the knowledge that we end up claiming to have, for one without the other isn’t sufficient considering that indeed Locke claimed that in sensation, the mind is unresistant, but in reflection, active.
Lockean Indirect Realism
In perceiving the objects of the external world, Locke claims that what we actually perceive isn’t the object itself, rather we only perceive rates. This will indicate that those rates must in some way or the other retain a sense of reality, a reality they owe to being a part of a material object. This may feel like what follows, but in our distinction between the types of rates there are, we shall come to see the idea take some concrete shape. He defines rates as ‘ the capability of an object to beget ideas in our mind ’. This is to take care of the Cartesian question of whether or not the mind has an accurate representation of the contents of the external world. It’s in his distinction and explanation of the types of rates that we’ve as we shall come to see that the position of Locke as an circular realist is explicitly seen.
Since it is the case that we do not always have an accurate representation of the objects out there, and since Locke had established that what we perceive are not the objects themselves but only an idea of them, then it seemed normal for him to posit that in the object themselves are some qualities, these he called primary and the other are outside of the object, this he called secondary qualities. Primary qualities are the qualities that are inherent in the objects of perception, they are ‘primary’ to the objects and once they are abstracted from the object, then it can never remain the same. They are objective, universal and include: solidity, extension, figure, mobility, bulk, weight, texture – “…are utterly inseparable from body…” The secondary qualities however, are not of the same nature, they do not reside in the object of perception and are not ‘primary’ to it. They are only conceived in the minds of the perceiver, they are subjective and are the representations that the mind perceives in objects. They include color, taste, smell, sound, [felt] temperature and are caused in us by primary qualities. They are why we can claim to have perceptual errors since they are not identical to the object, but are only comprehended by each perceiver. Unlike the primary qualities therefore, they are not universal. They are the reasons Locke is considered an indirect realist today. While the ideas that primary qualities produce in us resemblethose qualities in the objects that caused us to have those ideas, the ideas that secondary qualities produce in us do not resemblethose qualities in the objects that caused us to have those ideas.
Whatever realities we may by mistake ascribe to them, colors, smell sound and taste (secondary qualities) are nothing but qualities produced in us by the primary or real qualities of objects – sensation, which in no way resembles the qualities which exists in the object
This explains how it is that there is a distinction between both primary and secondary qualities as well as the process of perception and the object of perception. If Locke will go by saying that primary qualities are the real qualities of objects in being resident in the object itself, then we perceive much more than these qualities for existence cannot be denied of the secondary qualities either, this renders us with evidence for no other conclusion than that since they differ, they must report separate realities, thus we do not have direct access to the objects of perception. This is how it is that Locke ends up being an indirect realist.
The consequence of this is that the world does not appear to us the way it really is, since secondary qualities are really distinct from the primary qualities which are seen to be in the object itself, and unlike the primary qualities, our ideas of secondary qualities do not resemble the object itself, thus they are only really appearances and are distinct from the object. The modern version of this notion is entailed in the indirect realist’s idea of sense data for which Locke is rightly credited for having established foundations for.
1.5 Representationalist Theory of Perception
Having asserted the intricacies of Lockean indirect realism and how it led us to the conclusion of his being a representationalist in his claim that , we shall now examine the idea behind the representationalist theory itself and what it entails in length. The grounds for the reprsentationalist theory of perception could be found in the arguments that the indirect realists raised against the direct or naïve realists. I however shall desist from rendering an explanation to it in the current section for the next section will be committed to it.
Representationalists say that we perceive ‘indirectly’; what we perceive ‘directly’ is a ‘representation’, a mental image, that exists in our minds but which represents the physical object. The physical object is perceived ‘via’ this representation. The representation is an ‘appearance’; philosophers have called it a ‘sense-datum’. So for the representationalist, they argue that though we do perceive the world, there is a difference between how the world looks like, and how we perceive it. What occurs to our consciousness is different from what ought to occur for it is a mere representation of reality. This might sound like a contradiction, but it is the argument of the indirect realists.
Several philosophers have likened the representationalist distinction between what exists and what we perceive as being similar to that in which Aristotle made between appearance (what appears to exist) and reality (what exists). Since in the representationalist vocabulary, the physical objects differ from the sense datum, perception is therefore incomplete until there is sense-datum. We shall attempt outlining some of the features or characteristics of the sense-datum.
‘Sense data’ was originated by Bertrand Russell, but was first put into use by G.E Moore, they are seen to be the direct objects of perception in the indirect realist’s vocabulary. Sense datum is that which is given directly in perception by the senses, sometimes referred to as the data of immediate awareness. Some would refer to it as the immediate mental effect of brain or neural activities resulting from stimulation of sense organs by the external object. One should however not mistake them for the cause of perception, so that sense data theory does not become a causal theory. It should not be taken as causal especially since we can have instances perceptual relativity, illusion and hallucination which suggests that even if it will be causal; it ought to be an adequate cause.We shall now proceed to outline the features of sense datum.
Sense-data are ‘private’, they are subjective in character. They are the particular data from the senses in a particular consciousness. By contrast, physical objects are ‘public’. One and the same table can be experienced by different people.
Sense-data only exist while they are being experienced. An experience must be
experienced by someone to exist at all. A physical object, such as a table, can exist when no one experiences it. Thus they are temporal.
Sense-data are exactly as they seem. As we said above, they are ‘appearances’. There is no further reality to an appearance than how it appears. Physical objects can appear differently from how they really are (e.g. the stick in water). They have a reality which is not defined by appearance.
It seems however, that the indirect realists, in Humean terms were ‘multiplying entities unnecessarily’ as it does seem like we would have to create a new world for these set of entities called ‘sense data’ since it has been shown that they do not reside in the object, neither do they reside in the perceiver. So the indirect realist faces the problem of being able to account for a comprehensive nature for these new set of entities without contradiction.
1.6 Direct Realism vs. Indirect Realism Theory of Perception
The distinction between the tenets of direct realism and the indirect has so far been clearly defined. We shall make an attempt to account for the argument of the indirect realists, this shall be included in the aim of the present section, besides trying to assert an enquiry into the nature of the divide.
While the argument of the direct realist hinges on the notion of our ability to directly and immediately perceive the objects of perception, the arguments of the indirect realists has been an attempt to render direct realism which of course holds contrary views to them incoherent and thus unacceptable as an adequate theory of perception. The indirect realist uses mainly two ‘severe’ critiques against direct realism, which establishes their own positions as indirect realists. These arguments include: the argument from illusion and the argument from hallucination.
1.6.1 The Argument from Illusion
In visions, we perceive objects, but not as they really are. The most common exemplifications of this kind of a perceptual error is the illustration of the fraudulent stick in water which under normal conditions would not be fraudulent. This kind of argument would feel to undermine direct literalism, as it would also bear an redundant explanation for this kind of perceptual error.
Indirect Realist’s Argument The circular realist still is suitable to accessibly accommodate the notion of a perceptual error given the conception of ‘ sense data ’. The argument is that since all we can really perceive are sense- detail, also whatever we feel to perceive isn’t the object but a sense- detail of it, therefore it isn’t the stick that’s fraudulent in water, but only our sense data of it makes it appear so.
The direct realist would still in an attempt to falsify the circular realist claim that the argument from vision might unhinge his own tenets, but it isn’t sufficient to establish the grounds for circularrealism.However, and if they’re the only objects of perception, also we ought not to be suitable to have visions, If sense data essay to represent the world to us.
The Argument from Hallucination
still, we ‘ misperceive ’, also in visions, If in cases of vision.
Indirect Realist’s Argument For the circular realist therefore, whenever we’ve cases of perceiving when there really is no external object behind the perception, also what we perceive can not be the object since it doesn’t indeed live, but sense detail. Like the former one, the direct realist seems pushed into a corner for the lack of an explanation to this egregious insufficiency in his proposition, so formerly again the circular realist attempts to establish the foundations of his sundries of sense data by claiming that what we perceive that doesn’t live is nothing but sense data for there really is no physical object behind it.
The direct realist would again essay a reply, for them; as much as a interpretation of the argument against the circular realist in the argument from vision can be rendered then as well, one is pushed to consider the idea behind an daydream cases of passing what doesn’t in fact live. But if sense data is a representation of the external object, and since it’s possible to perceive sense data when in fact there’s nothing is represents, also how could we impute acceptable credentials of representation to it? Just as important as to claim not to have an accurate account of perception is to know what exists beyond what appears to us( the sense data).
Conclusion
We see how Locke is justifiably appertained to as an circular realist, due to his distinction between the different kinds of rates. The contemporary arguments for circular literalism and how they introduced the conception of ‘ sense data ’ is also looked into. We also try to establish the boundaries between the arguments of the direct and the circular realists with the nature of the contestation in mind and the possible counter arguments that a direct realist would essay to use to deliver their argument.
References
This is another explanation of his verisimilitude position since what the circular realist claim is that it isn’t the object we perceive, but only agreement, a representation of it.
We should then flash back Locke’s description of the secondary rates as being private and the primary as being objective and universal.
Anthony Kenny A New History of Western Philosophy Volume 1 Ancient gospel. Clarendon Press Oxford. Oxford University PressInc., New York, 2004.p. 50
2) Lacewing, Micheal RepresentativeRealism.p.1
ibidp. 1
ibidp. 1
Hume, David An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding(1748/1772)12.8
Lacewing, Micheal RepresentativeRealism.p.1
Group,T.a.( 2014, 07 06). gospel for AS. Frances and Taylor Group.p. 3
Ibid 3
Anthony Kenny A New History of Western Philosophy Volume 1 Ancient gospel. Clarendon Press Oxford. Oxford University PressInc., New York, 2004.p. 53
Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. In The Researchers. Garden City, New York Anchor Books, 1974, pg. 1.
ibid, pg.2.
Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Book II, Chapter I Of Ideas In General, And Their Original.
Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Book II. Of Ideas in General, And Their Original. Book II
Anthony Kenny A New History of Western Philosophy Volume 1 Ancient gospel. Clarendon Press Oxford. Oxford University PressInc., New York, 2004.p. 53
Ibid 53
Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Book II. Chapter VIII Some farther Considerations Concerning Our Simple Ideas of Sensation. Primary rates of Bodies. Secondary rates of Bodies. Book VIII)
Alfred Weber, The gospel of John Locke, pg. 5
Lacewing, Micheal Representative Realism, pg. 2.
Encyclopedia of Philosophy 7, Sense Data, pg. 478
Lacewing, Micheal Representative Realism,p. 6
20) Ibidp. 6
CHAPTER 2
preface
We’ve in the former chapter tried to regard for the arguments of John Locke and how it’s that we arrive at our conclusion of his being an circular realist from his distinction between primary and secondary rates. The end of the present chapter shall be inthree-folds a critical assessment of Locke’s representative position, a look into the private idealism of Bishop George Berkeley, told by Locke to bounce a thesis that disagrees with common sense, and eventually a notice of the academy of circular literalism as a whole.
A Critical Appraisal of Locke’s Indirect Realism
At the onset, before Locke laid his proposition of empiricism, the veritably first thing he did was to essay to debunk the conception of innatism upon which rationalism was erected, so that he may erect his own empirical proposition upon it. We should note that the claim that the conception of innatism that Locke sounded to radically expostulate against is one that bases its foundations on the metaphysical conception of God. Some contrary interpretation of innatism that doesn’t have itself erected on a metaphysical Being who ‘ puts ’ ideas in our minds at birth is still perceptible in the workshop of Noam Chomsky.( 20)
The contention is that Locke’s critic would only be valid against innatism of the Cartesian frame of mind, those that seek to impute for the ideas we’ve at birth to God as the source. This may not be a critic against Locke’s position, but it’s sure an case of a point for the rationalists, and a sluice of allowed worth pursuing. utmost attempts at censuring Locke’s gospel come from two major aspects against his study. It’s either similar critic seeks to undermine his contention that primary and secondary rates are sufficient to establish the contents of experience, or it’s the case that they seek to establish that Locke’s conclusion in his conception of substratum or substance as a conception that exists but yet is that which we ‘ know not what ’ is unsupported, and could lead to dubitation . It’s an relinquishment of both frames of mind still that the gospel of Bishop Berkeley espoused in his attempt to undermine the basics of Lockean epistemology.
To begin with, we shall first talk about the conception of matter upon which Locke lay the actuality of primary rates. In an attempt to achieve comprehensiveness, and having proffered that there were primary and secondary rates, one being in the object thus of necessary significance to its retaining its identity. The other only produced in the mind of the perceiver by the primary rates and so private to each perceiver, he set up it an essential conclusion to bounce in turn some conception in which these ideas of primary rates( if not the secondary) subsist.
For him, the actuality of similar conception is necessary due to the fact that the mentioned rates must have at least a coherent actuality in the external world. Such a conception in which they would live can not be an idea since it’s supposed to serve as a kind of pillar to primary and secondary rates. The point of Locke’s argument therefore needed the actuality of the material substratum so that it may hold both primary and secondary rates. therefore, following the dictates of his verisimilitude empiricism, Locke argued that the rates we perceive in the objects of the external world can not hang in the air and are in need of a support. He maintained that there must be a substratum or support to which these rates are attached.( 20)
Locke still claimed that similar material thing is that which ‘ we know not what ’ because it isn’t possible to infer the actuality of commodity outside of the primary rates that our senses can perceive. Matter is conceived as an inert, senseless, and unknown substance.
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