12. Perception: 1. Give example of when your experiences have been a misleading guide as to the way the world is: I can only think of one example, when I was about eight years old, my work in school began drastically deteriorating, I could not concentrate or produce work, it turned out that I was developing a hereditary eye problem which activates and gets worse as I grow until I am fully grown due to the size and shape of my eyes, I however, was unaware of this and even more surprisingly I did not even notice visual differences until I was given a routine eye test and was then given spectacles. The way I was seeing the world was being distorted and I was unaware of that, only when my sense of sight was corrected back to its formal ability via glasses was I then aware that my view had been distorted, and thus I was able to see (literally) the difference and how things actually are. 2. What is the argument from illusion?: The argument from illusion is that what we are aware of when we gain such knowledge is a sensory impression -a seeming- then using this we deem how the world is. Meaning whether deceived or not, the perception would still be the same, in the non-deceived case it would be true belief, while in the deceived case it would be false. 3. What is the primary/secondary distinction?: A primary quality is a feature of an object that the object has regardless of anyone perceiving the object, while the secondary quality is a feature of an object that are dependent upon being perceived by something or someone. For example, the shape of the Earth is a primary quality, it is that shape and only that shape, while the colour of the Earth could be seen in many different ways due to the agents grasp of the colour spectrum, making the colour of Earth a secondary quality, it needs to be seen to be a certain colour, while its shape is its shape regardless of being seen or who by (take the idea of Earth being flat as an example, It was wrong, it was wrong via our perception, and then later corrected by our perception, but at both times the Earth was still not actually flat). 4. What is idealism?: Idealism is the view that there is no external world, by this they mean that there is nothing independent of our experiences. So, if something is not experienced, it ceases to exist. An account of how this is possible was put forward by George Berkeley (1685-1753), he said that God is always present and perceives everything, thus the universe doesnt cease to exist anywhere or at any time as it is constantly being perceived, it is a reasonable argument but is unprobable. Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) gave a very interesting view on this that I know of with two examples: 1. If a sheet is placed over a table, fully covering it, then the table is not being perceived and thus does not exist, why doesnt the sheet fall to the ground? 2. If you dont perceive a cat, then it does not exist, so does it just spring into existence in other locations of a room as if it had moved itself, and if it does not exist when I am away, then why does its hunger grow during its lack of existence? My problem with idealism can be put into a very simple and easy to understand example: If youre walking and not looking, you will walk into the lamppost in front of you, whether it be 4am and unperceived by anyone, including you, it will not fail to exist as your unperceiving body collides with it. For me, this points out the absurdity of idealism. Why would anything decay if it does not exist when I am not looking? It would only decay while being perceived? Idealism is blatantly false, but if idealism is in fact true, then God has to exist in order for it to work, and that is not an appealing stance to take. 5. What is transcendental idealism?: Transcendental idealism is a version of idealism proposed by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). He agreed with the simple idealist about their claim that it is impossible to ever experience the external world, that the world is independent of our experience of it. However, unlike the idealist, he argued that we are required to suppose that there is an external world that gives rise to this experience, because without this supposition, we would not be able to make sense of such experiences. Transcendental idealism states that, we cannot gain knowledge of a world that is independent of experience through experience at all, directly or otherwise. 6. What is direct realism?: Direct realism is a thesis about perceptual experience which has ramifications for perceptual knowledge. It states that in non-deceived cases, what we are aware of via our perceptual experience is the external world itself. For example, if youre looking at an object with your correct spectacles on, you will see it as it is, youre looking at an object with no distortion or misrepresentation of it, then youre directly aware of the object itself, thus you can have perceptual knowledge that there is an object before you and that it is how you see it to be. The problem with this is, how and when do you know when youre or arent being deceived by your perceptions?
Posted on: Fri, 25 Oct 2013 09:56:05 +0000
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