1. Last 4 Lesson Objectives…
Date
Lesson Objectives
Summary
28/09/2017
Identifying what a good philosophy essay looks like and how to plan them.
02/10/2017
Introduce the indirect realist approach to perception.
Understand what is meant by the term sense data.
05/10/2017
To identify weaknesses in essay writing and improve them.
To summarise and recap the direct realism topic.
09/10/2017
To analyse the theory of indirect realism (and in particularly primary and secondary qualities) in more detail.

2. Summarise the 4 main differences between Primary and Secondary Qualities we covered at the end of last lesson…

3. Homework – Key Questions
Using what you found out for homework – can you QUICKLY answer the following key questions on whiteboards?
What does Russell mean when he talks about the distinction between public/physical space and private space?
Why does he think it’s likely that this physical space exists?
What reasons does he give for suggesting that the organisation of objects in our private space must roughly correspond to their organisation in public space?
Why does he identify a similar distinction between public and private time?
What does he think we do need to be aware of when it comes to time though? How does he think we should deal with this?

4. Add any missing annotations to your homework in green pen.
What does Russell mean when he talks about the distinction between public/physical space and private space? Public / Physical space = Real world outside of our perceptions. Private space = The world of our sense data / perceptions.
Why does he think it’s likely that this physical space exists? Since we have sensations of these objects it’s likely that they exist in some real space. We can’t discuss differences in perception unless we assume that the physical space exists.
What reasons does he give for suggesting that the organisation of objects in our private space must roughly correspond to their organisation in public space? It’s backed up by multiple senses / sources (other people, maps, walking distance etc.)
Why does he identify a similar distinction between public and private time? Time moves slower / faster for people on a persona l level but is constant in reality.
What does he think we do need to be aware of when it comes to time though? How does he think we should deal with this? We still need to be aware of time-lag in our perceptions. But usually if we are aware of this, we can accommodate for it.

5. How does Russell’s explanation link to what we’ve discussed about P + S Qualities?

6. Indirect Realism – Continued…
Lesson Objective:
Consider how indirect realism may respond to the criticisms raised against direct realism.
Identify one weakness of indirect realism.

7. The Story So Far…
Indirect Realism - Immediate objects of perception are mind- dependent sense data that are caused by / represent mind- independent objects / the external world.
John Locke – The properties we perceive an object as having (i.e. the sense data) can be split into two groups:
Primary Qualities are properties of an object that exist in the object itself. They are measurable mathematically or geometrically, they are essential to the object and are accessible to more than one sense.
Secondary Qualities are produced by an object due to it’s particular makeup / order of primary qualities and are mind-dependent. They are not present in the object itself and may differ from perceiver to perceiver.

8. Think / Pair / Share – Strengths of IDR…
How might an Indirect Realist respond to each of the problems of Direct Realism?
Illusions
Perceptual Variation
Hallucination
Time-Lag

9. Illusion
Perceptual Variation
Hallucination
Time-Lag

10. IDR Problems
What we have been developing is a ‘two-world’ view of perception.
World Number One – The world as it really is. Here, objects with primary qualities happily obey the laws of physics in their colourless, soundless, tasteless and odour-free world. It is this world, in conjunction with our minds that allows us to perceive…
World Number Two – The colourful, smelly, tasty world of our everyday experience. World number two contains our perception of both primary and secondary qualities and while the latter might not resemble what causes them, our perception of primary qualities give us a fairly accurate picture of reality.
Can you identify any issues with taking this view of reality?

11. IDR Problems 1
What colour is the dress? How would we usually find out who is correct? Could we ever find out if we only had the picture to go off? How does this link to IDR?

12. IDR Problems 1 – The Nature of Mind-Independent Objects
If I cannot have immediate access to reality (world number one) then how can I be sure that anything I am perceiving (world number two) matches up with reality in any way? If we can never perceive an object directly, how can we be sure it has any of the qualities we perceive it to have? This extends to primary qualities as well as secondary qualities.

13. Lesson Summary