Talk:Direct and indirect realism

Merge suggestion

This page should be merged with representationalism. Any objections? Banno 21:07, Feb 19, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it should. -Unknown

Put a merge request so we can put it to vote. I'm undecided, just got into this. Are they completely identical concepts?Tyciol 05:28, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Not the same?

This is not the same thing as representative realism, which is the idea that our perceptions are direct causes of the intrinsic qualities of objects, and based on these perceptions we can infer things about these objects.

I am confused by this statement, it doesn't explain things directly enough... 'what' is not the same as representational realism? It seems like the prior paragraph might have been explaining the second intangible qualities dependant upon perception, but I'm not sure. Tyciol 05:28, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand what is meant here either. Unless somebody can explain it I think it should be removed Averisk

Representationalism does not have realism as a pre-requisite. Hence, representative realism is not co-extensional with representationalism. Also note that the article appears to be needlessly POV, when it states "nonetheless, it has been... etc", making it sound as if representationalism was something like an obscure dead-end theory, especially since its opponents are clearly representing a small minority in contemporary philosophy.

Merge boldness

With no objections in 6 months, im goin for the merge. There was also a less developped page called Indirect realism aswell, which i merged into this one.
On the name for this page? lets discuss:

• "Representative realism" -861 google hits
• "Representative Theory of Perception" - 517
• "Indirect realism" -876
• "epistemological dualism" -9,650

Spencerk 07:37, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

The problem with this merge is that the article claims that representative realism is "related to" indirect realism, while the redirect suggests that they are the same thing. I think this is a contradiction. Mark Foskey (talk) 03:21, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Biased opening, the rest unnecessarily oppositional

From first paragraph: "Naïve realism is known as direct realism when developed to counter indirect or representative realism, also known as epistemological dualism ..." [ref link non-operable] 1. If this was true, then this wiki article shouldn't exist, since 'direct realism' seems only a substitute label. 2. Naive's first Google definition is "showing a lack of experience, wisdom, or judgment." Though used to define version of realism, it's connotations are distressing. Harry Heft, a leading researcher, uses Ecological or Natural Perception, or Radical Empiricism, never Naive Realism. 3. Direct Realism is not a counter position to Indirect Realism. Whether one agrees or not, leading contemporary texts by Edward S. Reed, James J. Gibson, Heft, and older work by William James, explain a set of concepts primarily with evidence and positive logic.

THE ENTIRE INTRODUCTION, except for the last sentence, defines Indirect Realism only. Given the article is title Direct and Indirect Realism, this is a bizarre asymmetry. The last sentence violates Direct Perception in many ways: "The alternative, that we have knowledge (1) of the outside (2) world that is unconstrained by our sense organs (3) and does not require interpretation (4), would appear to be inconsistent with everyday observation.(5)" (1) Direct Realism concerns ontological immediacy, knowledge is epistemological. Direct Realism does not make knowledge claims, but information ones. (2)Direct Realism describes perception as a relationship between environmental components, the observer and its views. It's evolutionarily consistent: organisms evolve to perceive what they evolve in. Environments select sensory systems that work. The "inside/outside" dichotomy misleads, because it suggests organisms contain something apart from environment. (3) Unconstrained sense organs? That sounds rather sexual, but has nothing to do with perception. (4) Direct perception may or may not require interpretation. Obviously, we don't interpret every moment. (5) It's hard to know what to say, since nothing said has much to do with Direct Realism. But the idea that we trip through 'everyday' experience continuously introspecting about perceptions would seem problematic to anyone driving on a highway. Is that really a car in front of me? Do I know it's about three car lengths? Oh, I've been trained by noting passing cars and counting time, dividing by our relative velocities, then multiplying by my own car length. Really? Or do we adjust speed to keep the car in front roughly the same size, and/or the distance between us the same. That's unmediated perception; safe distance is performed by birds, children, and amoebas. We adjust, through feedback that may be logically considered and forced back into our view of things. But we also adjust to feedback because new information adjusts behavior without thought.

Direct and Indirect Perception (better than Realism) both occur. It's silly to set them up as antithesis. Lehar's claim that "both direct and indirect realism are frankly incredible, although each is incredible for different reasons" is typical philosophical cant. Why not state the affirmative that both direct and indirect realism are credible, for different reasons? Instead, indirect realism is caricatured as anything that goes on 'in our heads' pretending to be a copy of the world, which means our head itself is a copy, ad nauseum. Humans think about the world in ways that try to make sense of it, or change it, or appreciate it, using logic, habit, rules, analogy. Neurologically, this engagement occurs across modules, yet can be isolated in specific neurons. Identity happens ubiquitously, not by self-reference. It's too complicated to fit linear philosophical reasoning.

The article goes to great lengths to oppose the two types of realism. One can ask, is this the only way to proceed in knowledge formation? Although an axiomatic theory must be criticized, establishing them as opposites makes both out to be more than they may really amount to. What if they exist on a continuum, or in a multivalent relationship that includes other unmentioned forms of perception?

- Brian Coyle

The Links Don't Work

The external links at the bottom of the page don't work. One link brings you to a page which says, "Error 404 - The Page Cannot Be Found". The other link brings you to a completely blank page. Can someone please fix this.

Representationalism (fine arts) and Representative realism (philosophy) are not the same.

I would like to ask two major questions. One is why is it that when I type in Representationalism (an artistic movement) I get a philosophical topic which seems to e related, but distictly difrent from what I am looking fp The second thing, is the link in the see also section labeled Representationalism takes you to this page. (circular linking) See the above remark regarding the seperate meanings. [Representationalism]

Related Subjects:
Artistic Realism
Comics
Computer and Video Games

(KickAssClown 08:05, 6 November 2006 (UTC))

Thomas Reid

Thomas Reid is a direct realist pur sang, and fierce critic of the concept of sense data, representationalism and the like. For this reason, I've removed the reference to him from this page.

Stdbrouw 11:53, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Aristotle reference needed!

I am desperate for a reference for 'Aristotle realised this and simply proposed that ideas themselves (representations) must be aware' for my phd. If anyone knows where this came from (if it is actually substantiative), please-o-please let me know at my talk page here. Excellent work on this article! Mark Elliott 01:31, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Aristotle's On the Soul Discusses this

More to the point, "holymorphic" is a 19th century invention that is somehow gifted backwards to Aristotle.

From the article: "In On the Soul he describes how a seer is informed of the object itself by way of the hylomorphic form carried over the intervening material continuum with which the eye is impressed.[5]"

This is wrong. First, the footnote gives a bald rendition of Aristotle's thinking. Second, nothing in On the Soul describes something carried over intervening material continuum to impress the eye. What grotesque babble.

Aristotle's theory of perception is direct. JA Smith's translation: "The activity of the sensible object and that of the percipient sense is one and the same activity..." To make it clear: "when that which can hear is actively hearing and which can sound is sounding, then the actual hearing and the actual sound are merged in one." No holymorphic forms flying across continuums.

Aristotle's direct perception was abandoned for nearly 2000 years. Brian Coyle — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.80.117.214 (talk) 08:21, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Representative realism = Symbolism ???

Is representative realism the same as symbolism in literature? (Darkness symbolizes evil, apple symbolizes water...) Swannie 16:32, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

No. Representative realism simply states that although there is a reality, we do not perceive it directly (we have no "reality detectors"). Instead, what we perceive when we seem to look at an object is the object's representation in our brain. We do not see things "as they really are", but what we make of them. This is consistent with what cognitive science, psychology and neurobiology tell us. We are looking at a philosophical theory of perception, whereas symbolism in literature is no theory, but a certain way of telling a story.

References

Hi! I would like to know some references about the section about references. :) The problem of explaining how reference of expressions works if we accept representationalism interests me, but the text doesn't cite any sources. Can anybody help me (and this article) by mentioning some papers or books that discuss this subject? Mirrmurr (talk) 22:12, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Proposed new section: 'Does the "Scientific Consensus" support Representative Realism?'

We propose something like the following two paragraphs for this section:

At canonizer.com a growing group of grass roots volunteers are developing rigorous ways to collaboratively develop and concisely state 'camps' representing accepted theories. And to also quantitatively measure who and how many people are in each. Everyone is encouraged to contribute, making the survey more comprehensive, and Mind Experts are determined by a peer ranking process which will enable quantitative measures of 'scientific consensus'.

This survey process is just getting started with a topic on theories of consciousness, but already a Consciousness is Representational and Real camp has established a clear early lead at how well it is developed and how much support it has. The members of this camp and the various supporting sub camps believe no other theory of consciousness will ever be able to match the amount of consensus this camp will be able to achieve going forward. And ultimately that demonstrable scientific proof will convert everyone into this camp revealing it to be THE ONE true theory of consciousness. The primary goal of canonizer.com is not to determine truth via popularity, but to simply rigorously measure how much support there is for all accepted theories, especially the good minority ones, and the best terminology to use to describe such, going forward as scientific evidence continues to come in at ever increasing rates. Brent_Allsop (talk) 03:50, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

It appears there is agreement that this would be a good addition, so I'm going to add it. Brent_Allsop (talk) 03:51, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Jw2035 has removed this above section that was proposed. He has also removed similar information from other Wikipedia topics, usually giving different versions of a list of 5 reasons for doing so. Rather than duplicate this discussion in all of these locations, a topic as been created on this issue at canonizer.com The various lists of reasons have been consolidated and a short history provided. So far the growing consensus is that in certain cases references to canonizer.com in wikipedia are appropriate. Since it is an open survey all pints of view are welcomed so we can know concisely and quantitatively what everyone thinks. Brent.Allsop (talk) 23:15, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

After extensive discussion and survey on this issue at canonizer.com, so far, the unanimous consensus is that these types of reference are appropriate. So I'm going to re-add an improved rewrite of the above. Brent.Allsop (talk) 21:03, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

You have got to be kidding. There is no way that web site is a reliable source by the standards here. I removed this nonsense. Please do not restore it without carefully reading WP:V or asking for input e.g. at the reliable sources noticeboard. This article is already bad enough without making it worse with this section. Tim Shuba (talk) 13:13, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Why is this article a magnet for bad ideas?

A popularity contest to determine which side wins? Why not let the Church decide? Why does direct perception strike such fear into, um, some people? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.80.117.214 (talk) 09:21, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Sociology

It seems that this notion is fairly important in the field of sociology, given that it is related to the philosophy of positivism. It is also mentioned in Schopenahuer's book The World as Will and Representation. ADM (talk) 11:31, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Positivism is largely obsolete as regard to sociology, so any connection must then be a kind of critical relation, maybe antagonism. And I've gotten the impression that positivism is an empiricist extreme rejection of knowing the underlying nature of observed thing, up to and including things other humans think they can safely deduce. I'm not sure this relates very strongly to representative realism, except insofar as the doubts of the senses is shared. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 13:42, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

What?

Although Descartes duality of natural substances may have echoes in modern physics (Bose and Fermi statistics) no agreed account of 'interpretation' has been formulated.

I don't think even the author of that sentence knows what they mean.

Descartes thought that there is a physical material world and there is also a soul or a world of the mind, and that the latter is also real but exists on a separate plane and is not composed of the same stuff as anything else is. This has absolutely nothing to do with the how modern physics can classify the components of the physical material world into different categories, such as by the parity of their quantum wavefunction representations. To say otherwise is like saying that vitalism has echoes in the fact that some particles do or do not have rest mass, it shows a complete misunderstanding of the meaning of the philosophical term. (At best, you might try to draw such an allusion for the purposes of explaining the physics, but not for the purposes of explaining the philosophy. It's not as if the brain were made of fermions and everything else of bosons.) I think this is just mysticist trash that has crept into the article, and symptomatic that the article is struggling (failing) to clearly explain the topic. Perhaps it would help if the lead began by contrasting the most extreme characatures of the two positions, leaving the subtle nuance for later in the article? Cesiumfrog (talk) 01:05, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Dualism between metaphysical(?) and physical

The word metaphysical isn't used anywhere else in the article, and I don't think it is being used correctly in the Problems with the indirect theory section in this sentence:

"This also brings up the problem of dualism and its relation to representative realism, concerning the incongruous marriage of the metaphysical and the physical."

Would it be better to say "incongruous marriage of the representational and the physical?" --Golden Eternity (talk) 08:24, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Social Constructivism Paragraph

The paragraph starting with

A more fundamental criticism is implied in theories of this type. The differences at the sensory and perceptual levels between agents require that some means of ensuring at least a partial correlation can be achieved that...

is rather confusingly worded. It might be helpful to clear it up at least grammatically, if not also in terms of meaning. It's a little hard to see for me how a philosophical argument about the nature of perception is linked to social constructivism, but that's just an aside. 79.246.213.187 (talk) 21:26, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Veil of perception

Veil of perception redirects here. In which case, this idea goes way back, before Aristotle. Fethi Benslama is a French psychoanalyst [1] who talks about direct and indirect realism that the prophet Muhammad experienced with an angel and then had his wife interpret for him whether it was real or not. [2] Would anyone like to comment? Would you like "Veil of perception" to be explained in this article or would you like to separate them? USchick (talk) 22:57, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

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Proposed merge

As others have noted before, it seems like the Naïve realism article covers the same subject matter as this material, and I can't see any reason to keep them separate from one another. I'm therefore planning on merging them if there's consensus in favor of it, but I'd like to hear people's thoughts either way. --Drevolt (talk) 08:16, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

As defined in this article, it seems that Direct Realism is just an iteration of Naïve realism - that the former only assumes this form when it is used to counter Indirect Realism. I have also found a text that might illuminate their difference. According to Smythies and French, "while each [form of Naïve realism] entails Direct Realism, Direct Realism does not entail any of them, for one can be Moderate Direct Realist and reject each of these forms of perceptual naivete". Successfully refuting the other does not mean that the other was also refuted. Darwin Naz (talk) 22:29, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Support merge; as Darwin Naz points out, the shades of meaning are sufficient subtle that it seems very reasonable to discuss in one place. Klbrain (talk) 18:09, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Against merge; Aren't these terms that evolve over time, and in the hands of different authors, so that they can't in fact be reduced to versions of each other? Also, as someone who is currently digging into some bits of philosophy, I come across the term 'naive realism' quite a lot, 'direct realism' not at all. The danger with a merge is that you leave the largest part of the audience without an explicit acclount of what naive realism is.Willbown (talk) 07:34, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Oppose because the Naive realism page talks about what naive realism is, while this page only talks about what these philosophical ideas are not. At least, I assume that is why this page only has sections on "problems with" direct and indirect realism without ever having any section on what either of these ideas actually is. NHammen (talk) 05:47, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Closing, given the uncontested objections and stale discussion. Klbrain (talk) 22:22, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

References