Real direct realism (apparentism)

old_uid11527
titleReal direct realism (apparentism)
start_date2012/06/15
schedule11h-13h
onlineno
summaryDirect realism is true, when properly understood. Descartes and Arnauld are good guides, although their writings are open to different interpretations. (2) The issue of the truth or falsity of direct realism must be kept scrupulously apart from the issue of scepticism regarding an external world: any version of direct realism that permit the refutation of scepticism about the external world—either scepticism about its existence, or about our knowledge of its nature—is ipso facto refuted. (3) No defensible version of direct realism denies the existence of existents that can be correctly called ‘mental representations’ (nb this claim is compatible with Arnauld’s fierce rejection of ‘êtres représentatifs’). (4) Direct realism neither requires nor entails ‘disjunctivism’, and ‘disjunctivism’ neither requires nor entails direct realism. (5) Direct realism does not require the truth of ‘transparentism’, and is incompatible with transparentism when ‘transparent’ is understood in the most natural way. (6) There is some truth in the doctrine of transparentism, but we need to distinguish the Moore version from the Reid-James version. (7) Furthermore, a defensible version of transparentism must acknowledge (i) the sense in which we are aware of our sensations in conscious perceptual experience, and necessarily so, and (ii) the fact that we are in everyday life often aware of our experiences considered specifically as such, even as we are in direct perceptual contact with objects.
responsiblesLesguillons