Indirect realism
Also sometimes called
‘representative realism’
What we’re directly aware of are our sense data.
Remember
• If a tree falls over in a forest, and no one is
there to hear it…
…does it make a noise?
If a tree falls over in a forest, and no one is
there to hear it, does it make a noise?
• Representative Realism; Yes and No.
• We perceive objects indirectly. We are only directly
aware of our sense impressions of them.
• Objects only have some of the properties that appear in
our perceptions of them.
• Variations in air pressure exist independently of our
perceptions. So in this sense of ‘noise’, the answer is yes.
• But the way they sound to us only exists in our
perceptions. So this kind of ‘noise’ only exists when
there is someone there to hear it.
Indirect Realism’s ontology
• Dualist
• Dualism is the idea that there are two kinds of ‘stuff’
in the world; spiritual or mental (thoughts, ideas,
sensations, beliefs, emotions and maybe souls and
God) and physical or material (‘matter’; the stuff
physicists tell us about).
• Indirect realism is a dualist theory. It thinks there are
‘real’, physical objects out there in the external world
(hence ‘realism’). And there are also mental things
(the sense perceptions via which we are aware of the
real world, and any other mental phenomena.)
Make a spider diagram using p.39 of Lacewing of the features of sense-data.
Sense-data
If we are indirect realists, how do we
perceive the external world?
• 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.
Now on your mini white boards either draw an
illustration or write a five line poem explaining
how indirect realists perceive the external
world.
You need to know about three objections to IR
and the replies to them.
But 1st we will look at the idea of properties (this
will help when we do the objections next lesson)
An Intelligent Alien
An intelligent alien lands on earth. The alien has a very different set
of senses from the ones we use to navigate reality. He has a sonic
sense like a bat, and an electric sense like a dolphin. He has no
colour vision & can only see in black and white. When he touches
objects his nerves and brain translate the touches into noises that he
hears in his mind. The alien is about to examine some objects from
earth to see what properties the objects have.
Written Task:
What would the alien write down as the real properties – properties
the alien perceives of the mind-independent object – of the
following:
• A pound coin.
• A cup of coffee.
• A piece of sandpaper.
• Would the intelligent alien be able to discern the
property of value of the pound coin?
• What does this tell us about the properties of physical
objects?
• The example of the alien suggests that some properties
of physical objects are more closely related to our
senses than others.
• Colour, smell, sound, taste and texture depend very
closely on our five senses. Creatures without these
senses would not be able to perceive these qualities.
• Shape, size, motion, position and number don’t depend
so closely on our senses. Creatures with very different
senses could still perceive these qualities.
Therefore there are two types of properties for physical
objects.
Primary and Secondary Qualities
Primary qualities:
• Qualities that exists independently of our perceiving them. In
simpler terms, it refers to properties like shape, size and motion,
that don’t depend on our senses.
Secondary qualities:
• Qualities that require a perceiving mind to perceive them i.e.
experience of the senses. In simpler terms, it refers to properties
like colour, smell and taste, that do depend on our senses.
A good way to remember this: primary qualities are in objects
‘primarily’ (before perceivers come along); secondary qualities
appear only ‘secondarily’ (after perceivers arrive on the scene).
In pairs….
Read through the excerpts and highlight/underline points
that you believe are relevant in helping to
understand/define:
• What are primary and secondary qualities.
• How they are distinguished from each other.
Make sure you have a different colour for each section. i.e.
what is a primary quality will be underlined in red.
A little bit further…..
If you have completed the above create an argument in standard form
using the example of a red rose to illustrate how we perceive objects
indirectly.
Locke – Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II, Chapter
viii
The idea of heat or light, which we receive by our eyes, or
touch, from the sun, are commonly thought real qualities
existing in the sun, and something more than mere powers in it.
But when we consider the sun in reference to wax, which it
melts or blanches, we look on the whiteness and softness
produced in the wax, not as qualities in the sun, but effects
produced by powers in it.
Whereas, if rightly considered, these qualities of light and
warmth, which are perceptions in me when I am warmed or
enlightened by the sun, are no otherwise in the sun, than the
changes made in the wax, when it is balanced or melted, are in
the sun.
They are all of them equally powers in the sun, depending on its
primary qualities; whereby it is able, in the one case, so to alter
the bulk, figure, texture, or motion of some of the insensible
parts of my eyes or hands, as thereby to produce in me the idea
of light or heat; and in the other, it is able so to alter the bulk,
figure, texture, or motion of the insensible parts of the wax, as
to make them fit to produce in me distinct ideas of white and
fluid.
Descartes – Meditation 6
And although in approaching fire I feel
heat, and in approaching it a little too near
I even feel pain, there is at the same time
no reason in this which could persuade me
that there is in the fire something
resembling this heat any more than there
is in it something resembling the pain; all
that I have any reason to believe from this
is, that there is something in it, whatever it
may be, which excites in me these
sensations of heat or of pain.
Read pages 44-45 on Locke and
primary/secondary qualities – read up to ‘Locke
on primary qualities
A good way to remember this: primary qualities
are in objects ‘primarily’ (before perceivers
come along); secondary qualities appear only
‘secondarily’ (after perceivers arrive on the
scene).
Characteristics of primary and secondary
qualities
Primary Qualities
Secondary Qualities
Explain how physical objects
interact with each other.
Can be described precisely
and mathematically.
Explain how physical objects
interact with us.
Can’t be described with this
precision.
Are ascribed to objects by
science.
Are (arguably) essential to
physical objects
Exist independently of the
perceiver, in the objects
themselves.
Are not ascribed to objects by
science
Are (arguably) not essential to
physical objects
(Arguably) Exist only in the
mind of the perceiver and not
in the objects themselves.
OK, so what does this distinction have
to do with Indirect Realism?
Secondary qualities are
what we perceive
through sense data as
they are minddependent properties of
the object.
Task:
Use what we have learnt in
today’s lesson and the image
above to explain indirect realism.
Refer to the distinction between
primary and secondary qualities!
Helpful hint: Remember
sense data is what we are
immediately aware of in
perception i.e. the colour and
shape of the desk as I see it
now. (the mental
representation)
The secondary quality argument
R1.
When I look at a rose, I see something that is
red.
R2. The red thing cannot be the rose itself (since
redness is a secondary quality which exists in
the mind of the perceiver rather than the objects we
perceive).
IC.
So it must be a mental image of the rose – a
sense datum.
C. But this means I see the rose indirectly, by
seeing its sense-datum- in which case direct
realism is false.
In a nutshell
• Indirect realism, through primary & secondary qualities,
develops a ‘two-world’ view of perception.
• World No. 1 = the world as it really is. Objects with
primary qualities obey the laws of physics here in a
sense-less world i.e. no colour, taste or smell.
• But it is this world, in conjunction with our perceptual
system, that causes us to perceive ‘World Number 2’.
• World No. 2, the world we directly perceive, is a
representation of World No. 1, the world as it is.
Written task:
Create an analogy to help explain the distinction between primary and
secondary qualities and how it explains how we perceive the external world.
How convincing is this distinction?
• Is it really possible to imagine an object with
no secondary qualities? Can you really
imagine an orange as colourless, odourless
and without texture?
Homework
• Read pages 22 – 26 in Hayward, Jones &
Cardinal.
• Make notes on how philosophers draw the
distinction between primary & secondary
qualities. They must be put into your own
words!
• Due in next lesson.
16. Flame is called ‘hot’ and ‘light’; snow ‘white’ and ‘cold’; and manna ‘white’ and
‘sweet’—all from the ideas they produce in us. [We know that Locke sometimes calls
qualities ‘ideas’, but that seems not to be enough to explain the oddity of the next
sentence down to its first comma. The passage as given here is almost verbatim Locke;
all of the oddity is there in what he wrote.] Those qualities are commonly thought to
be the same in those bodies as those ideas are in us, the one perfectly resembling the
other; and most people would think it weird to deny this. But think about this: a fire at
one distance produces in us the sensation of warmth, and when we come closer it
produces in us the very different sensation of pain; what reason can you give for
saying that the idea of warmth that was produced in you by the fire is actually in the
fire, without also saying that the idea of pain that the same fire produced in you in the
same way is in the fire? Why are whiteness and coldness in snow, and pain not, when
it produces each idea in us, and can do so only through the size, shape, number, and
motion of its solid parts?
17. The particular size, number, shape, and motion of the parts of fire or snow are
really in them, whether or not anyone’s senses perceive them. So they may be called
real qualities, because they really exist in those bodies; but light, heat, whiteness or
coldness are no more really in them than sickness or pain is in manna. Take away the
sensation of them— let the eyes not see light or colours, or the ears hear sounds; let
the palate not taste, or the nose smell— and all colours, tastes, odours, and sounds
vanish and cease, and are reduced to their causes, i.e. size, shape, and motion of
parts.