1. Do we directly perceive objects? (25 marks)
One coherent argument – all the arguments should link together and to the conclusion. No extra points added just for the sake of it. You argument should flow so it is obvious how you have arrived at your conclusion.
Clear intent throughout – although you need to present opposing arguments, you have to argue against them and show why they are weak and why the responses to them are stronger.
Selection of appropriate material and detailed accurate knowledge of it – but don’t spend time explaining the arguments to the examiner without using them to argue FOR something.
Appropriate weight given to each argument – make it clear how strong each argument is. If particular arguments are crucial in your opinion, state why and distinguish them from less crucial ones.

2. Perception: Indirect Realism and Sense Data…
Lesson objective:
Introduce the indirect realist approach to perception.
Understand what is meant by the term sense data.

3. Dropping Direct Realism…
The arguments we’ve considered over the past few lessons have led many philosophers to conclude that direct realism is problematic as a theory. As a result alternative “theories of perception” have sprung up in an attempt to deal with these issues. The first of these alternatives we’ll discuss is Indirect Realism.
If direct realists believe we see the external world exactly as it really is – what do you think indirect realists believe?

4. Indirect Realism…
Indirect Realism (also called representative realism) The immediate objects of perception are mind-dependent objects that are caused by and represent mind-independent objects.

5. Mind-Dependent Objects?
Like direct realists, Indirect realists also believe that the world consists of material objects which occupy a public space and that these material objects possess certain independently existing properties (thus making them realists). However, the disagreement comes when we discuss whether we perceive the properties of matter directly. According to indirect realists what we are immediately aware of is not objects themselves, but rather the way they appear to our minds. This appearance is what we call sense data.

6. Sense Data?
Sense Data (pl.) Sense Datum (s.) Sense data are the immediate objects of perception. They are subjective, non- physical and mind-dependent, and supposedly provide us with knowledge of a mind-independent, physical world.
In other words, the claim is that there is, on the one hand, a mental component – namely the way the object appears to the observer, and on the other, the object as it is in reality. For the indirect realist, sensations are a REPRESENTATION or image of mind-independent objects in the external world.

7. Enter Russell (and his table):
Read through the quote from Russell:
What is he saying about the way we perceive objects?
What types of things does he identify as sense-data?
Why does he think it’s obvious we do not see the object as it truly is?

8. Enter Russell (and his table):
“Let us give the name of ‘sense-data’ to the things that are immediately known in sensation: such things as colours, sounds, smells, hardnesses, roughnesses, and so on… It is plain that if we are to know anything about the table, it must be by means of the sense-data – brown colour, oblong shape, smoothness, etc.- which we associate with the table; but for the reasons which have been give, we cannot say that the table is the sense-data, or even that the sense-data are directly properties of the table.”

9. Enter Russell (and his table):
“It has appeared that, if we take any common object of the sort that is supposed to be known by the sense, what the senses immediately tell us it not the truth about the object as it is apart from us, but only the truth about certain sense-data which, so far as we can see, depend upon the relations between us and the object. Thus what we directly see and feel is merely ‘appearance’, which we believe to be a sign of some ‘reality’ behind.”

10. Sense Data – What type of thing are they?
If we actually perceive sense data instead of the real external world – what kinds of things can we say about it in comparison to physical objects?

11. SENSE DATA PHYSICAL OBJECTS
Mind-Dependent
Mind-Independent
Transient
Permanent
Private
Public
Infalliable
Falliable

12. Indirect Realism in a Nutshell
So, if indirect realists are correct, we have two worlds; the world as it is in itself, and a picture of the world as it appears to our minds. Our perception of reality is mediated by sense data, so that we must infer the existence and nature of the external world on the basis of the way it is represented to us in the mind.
Add a picture illustrating this theory to your notes if you haven’t already done so.

13. Homework – Research!
Find out about the distinction philosophers (particularly John Locke) make between the PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES of objects.
What are primary qualities?
What are secondary qualities?
Why do philosophers distinguish between the two?
Give at least 2 examples for each.
Extension: Do you think Locke (and other philosophers) are right to make this distinction?

14. Back to those criticisms…
Can the indirect realist deal with these issues?
Illusion
Perceptual Variation
Hallucination
Time-Lag

15. Summary Lesson objective:
Introduce the indirect realist approach to perception.
Understand what is meant by the term sense data.