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Philosophy

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  • Direct realists would argue that your perception of the table involves an immediate awareness of its properties, such as its shape, texture, and solidity, without the need for intermediary sense-data. They would contend that your perception of the table is not merely a reconstruction of sense-data but rather a direct apprehension of the table itself. See sense data: . More recent opposition to the existence of sense data appears to be simply regression to naïve realism... sense-data theories tend towards solipsism...
    – Double Knot
    Commented Mar 31 at 20:00
  • @DoubleKnot But is that experience of those qualities not just the sense-data (or experience thereof) itself?
    – edelex
    Commented Mar 31 at 20:56
  • Indeed and this is exactly the weakness of sense data theory which is no longer popular among contemporary philosophy of mind as evidenced by my above quote 'the existence of sense data appears to be simply regression to naïve realism'. For a more detailed analysis see this post...
    – Double Knot
    Commented Mar 31 at 21:11
  • @DoubleKnot but if my message is correct, then why wouldn't the direct realist just accept sense data but say it's not distorted?
    – edelex
    Commented Mar 31 at 21:52
  • 1
    @DoubleKnot There are many approaches, but I'm not here to defend naive realism. I'm trying to understand how one could deny sense-data, because it's through sensation, which your brain obviously has to process, that we access the world
    – edelex
    Commented Mar 31 at 22:19