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ToolsFischer, Eugen, Allen, Keith and Engelhardt, Paul (2025) Scientific or naïve? Perceptions of Direct and Indirect Realism, and why they matter. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. ISSN 0031-8205 (In Press)
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Abstract
Philosophical debates about the nature of perception are standardly informed by an empirical assumption about folk beliefs: They assume there is such a thing as ‘the’ common-sense conception of vision, and that this conception is captured by Direct Realism. This naïve theory is thought to compete with scientifically informed Indirect Realism. This paper discusses how to render these claims empirically tractable and reports a scientific accuracy rating study whose findings suggest instead that both Direct Realism and Indirect Realism capture pre-scientific conceptions. We discuss two philosophical consequences: ‘Common sense’ is too conflicted about vision to deserve epistemic default status in philosophical debates about perception, and the ‘problem of perception’ needs to be reconceptualised as arising not from a challenge to our ordinary understanding of vision, but from a patent conflict within this understanding. Together, these two upshots facilitate a fresh approach to the problem which can usefully be transferred to further ‘aporetic’ problems that arise from conflicts between beliefs to which we are pre-theoretically attracted.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | naïve and direct realism,,indirect realism,problem of perception,folk conceptions of vision,experimental philosophy,4*,eugen fischer ,/dk/atira/pure/researchoutput/REFrank/4_ |
| Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Politics, Philosophy and Area Studies Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Psychology |
| UEA Research Groups: | Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > UEA Experimental Philosophy Group Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Philosophy Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Wittgenstein |
| Related URLs: | |
| Depositing User: | LivePure Connector |
| Date Deposited: | 12 Sep 2025 15:30 |
| Last Modified: | 12 Sep 2025 15:30 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/100401 |
| DOI: | 10.1111/phpr.70063 |
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