Direct Realism and the Problem of Perception - Epistemology Video 25

This is video 25 in an introductory course on epistemology, the philosophy of knowledge. In this video, we discuss direct realism: the claim that the objects of perceptions, that of which we are aware in perception, are simply the external objects in the world. We also look at the Argument from Illusion and the Argument from Hallucination, which suggest that direct realism can't be true.
Victor Gijsbers teaches philosophy at Leiden University in the Netherlands. You can follow him on mastodon: @[e-mail].
This video is part of a lecture series originally recorded for my students during the 2023/2024 spring semester. The entire playlist is here: • Course in Epistemology

[@Chamillionaire993]

I really enjoy all of your videos, they are super fascinating! I just wanted to say something about the Illusions and Hallucinations. Illusions: We actually never see (perceive) an object as it is presented, as the medium the information travels through towards our sensory organs is always distorting the information, however slightly. Let's use visual perception of the stick for example. The air molecules are also distorting the image of the stick (object) as there are water molecules in the air causing diffraction even though the effect is miniscule. There are other ways a medium could distort the incoming information from an object but you get the point, we are constantly experiencing illusions of the object. Even when seen through a vacuum, the object gets distorted by gravitational lensing and so on. Hallucinations: Let's say it's a perfect all sensory hallucination of an elephant, meaning that I can see it smell it, hear it, feel its warmth or whatever. But if I just try and kick the elephant really hard, my leg will go through it letting me know that it's in fact a hallucination. Of course for far away objects I cannot perform such a test. I'm guessing what you are talking about is a hypothetical "moment' of perception, where we are in a kind of a "perceptual freeze frame" so also no testing is allowed. Sorry about the rambling, great video keep up the good work!

[@Phi792]

looking forward to the video on Kant!

[@VictorGijsbers]

I think it will be worth the wait, and I hope you'll end up thinking so too. 😄 It's already been recorded and I expect to release it within a week or so.

[@cihant5438]

Can you tell the same story about a file in Dropbox rather than a bust of a philosopher

[@VictorGijsbers]

Not sure a file in Dropbox can be perceived, and if it can, whether it can be directly perceived. To decide that, we would have to delve into the ontology of digital objects. (One is at least tempted to say that some kind of window manager and file system manager is mediating between us and the file.)