By Amelia, Caitlin, Dani and Andrew Direct realism By Amelia, Caitlin, Dani and Andrew i

Criticism 1: Perceptual variation He criticised direct realism using his table as an example – why does the table appear to be different from different perspectives? Direct realists would argue, that you’re seeing everything as it really is (unmediated).

Defence for perceptual variation Just because we perceive something incorrectly, it doesn’t mean that we perceive it indirectly. The science of optics can explain the different shapes of the table at different times.

Criticism 2: Illusion Indirect realists would give the example of the straw bending when in water. We know that this isn’t really happening, so indirect realists jump to the conclusion that it is a fault of sense data.

Defence against illusions Our senses accurately reveal the world to us, but we can misinterpret what it is that we perceive. We misperceive reality instead of perceiving something distinct from reality.

Criticism 3: Hallucinations When we hallucinate we appear to be perceiving something, when in reality, there is nothing there. During this time, it may not be possible to distinguish between what we are seeing from genuine perception.

Defence against hallucinations Hallucinations do not originate from the senses but from the mind, as it is not real light being captured by the eyes so it isnt verified as a ‘real perception’. If we couldn’t tell between reality and hallucinations, we wouldn’t know that we experience hallucinations and therefore the argument wouldn’t exist. So we must be able to distinguish the difference using senses.

Criticism 4: Time lag We are perceiving the crab nebula from the past because it takes thousands of years for the light to reach us from space. Therefore, the crab nebula may not still exist. So it is not a real perception, but an appearance from our sense data.

Defence against time lag We acknowledge that we don’t perceive objects as they are now, but as they were. Even though we recorded the supernova explosion six thousand years after it happened. We still perceived it. We are directly aware of how things were.