Studied by 0 people
Looks like no one added any tags here yet for you.
How might a direct realist respond to the arg from hallucinations?
we can tell when we are hallucinating. PERCEPTION AND HALLUCINATIONS ARE NOT SUBJECTIVELY INDISTINGUISHABLE. Another sense organ can confirm that we are having an hallucination.
How could this be responded to?
'what about total hallucinations where all our senses are deceived?' In this case we would not be able to tell that we are having a hallucination by checking the sensations of one sense organ with another.
Why is this flawed?
Total hallucinations would cause a problem for any theory of perception. And, even total hallucinations must be distinguishable from veridical perception because if that were not the case we would not be able to distinguish the two concepts in the first place.
What might a particularly sceptical thinker say about veridical perception vs hallucinations? Why does this fail?
'How do we know that we have correctly identified two different experiences - one hallucinatory and one veridical - perhaps life is all one big hallucination?' There is little empirical evidence. Many things are logically possible, but we typically think that we only have to give consideration to those logical possibilities which have been shown empirically to have some chance of being actual.
What does the direct realist propose instead?
It would be more reasonable to adopt a disjunctive theory of perception. A disjunctive theory claims that hallucinations might be subjectively indistinguishable from veridical perception, but that doesn't mean that they veridical perception and hallucinations are objectively the same kind of mental events. It is not uncommon to for someone to subjectively think/feel something about their own mental life, but to nevertheless be objectively in the wrong.
What does the arg from time lags claim?
That because there is a delay between an event and or senses perceiving it, whatever we perceive is always the mind-independent world as it was. So, we cannot be perceiving the mind-independent world directly, but instead indirectly.
What is the arg from time lags?
1) We cannot perceive physical objects or events unless light is reflected/emitted from them to our visual system.
2) Light travels at a finite velocity, and so there is always some time-lag between the reflection/emission of light from a physical object and the light's reaching our eyes.
3) If something no longer exists, we cannot now perceive it, let alone directly perceive it.
4) Therefore, assuming the distant star no longer exists, we cannot be directly perceiving it when its light reaches our eyes.
5) Therefore, since we are perceiving something when we see a distant star, the object of (direct) perception must be something other than the distant star.
6) Any time lag, however small, between physical objects or events and our perception of them is incompatible with (naïve) direct Realism.
7) All perception is delayed by at least some small amount of time.
8) Therefore, (naïve) direct Realism is false. We do not directly perceive physical objects and events.
