Stuff

Direct realism

The immediate objects of perception are mind-independent objects and their properties

Issues including:

• the argument from illusion

• the argument from perceptual variation

• the argument from hallucination

• the time-lag argument

and responses to these issues.

Indirect realism

The immediate objects of perception are mind-dependent objects (sense-data) that are caused by and represent mind-independent objects.

• John Locke's primary/secondary quality distinction.

Issues including:

• the argument that it leads to scepticism about the existence of mind-independent objects. Responses including:

  • Locke's argument from the involuntary nature of our experience

  • the argument from the coherence of various kinds of experience, as developed by Locke and Catharine Trotter Cockburn (attrib)

  • Bertrand Russell's response that the external world is the 'best hypothesis'

• the argument from George Berkeley that we cannot know the nature of mind-independent objects because mind-dependent ideas cannot be like mind-independent objects.

Berkeley's Idealism

The immediate objects of perception (ie ordinary objects such as tables, chairs, etc) are mind-dependent objects.

• Arguments for idealism including Berkeley's attack on the primary/secondary quality distinction and his 'Master' argument.

Issues including:

• arguments from illusion and hallucination

• idealism leads to solipsism

• problems with the role played by God in Berkeley's Idealism (including how can Berkeley claim that our ideas exist within God's mind given that he believes that God cannot feel pain or have sensations?)

and responses to these issues.

3.1.3 Reason as a source of knowledge

Innatism

Arguments from Plato (ie the 'slave boy' argument) and Gottfried Leibniz (ie his argument based on necessary truths).

Empiricist responses including:

• Locke's arguments against innatism

• the mind as a 'tabula rasa' (the nature of impressions and ideas, simple and complex concepts)

and issues with these responses.