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Old 04-10-2004, 05:34 PM   #1
Specforces
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Default Representationalism

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Idealism is too subjective, direct naïve realism is too objective while representationalism is the middle-ground. Unlike idealists, representationalists believe objects continue existing when they are not perceived (that is the nature of physical objects) and some of the properties perceived really do belong to the object, e.g. an object's extension. Unlike direct realists, not all of an object's properties perceived belong to the object itself, e.g. an object may appear green to one person yet red to another--physical objects are after all colorless.

Representative theorists typically distinguish between primary and secondary qualities. Primary qualities are supposed to be the ones that are shared by the mental representation and the physical object it represents. The shape of an object, for instance, is represented (sometimes misrepresented) by the shape of the visual image that results from our seeing that object. Colors, sounds, tastes, and many other properties, on the other hand, are secondary qualities: these are properties of the sensory experience that do not resemble the objective powers in objects that cause us to experience these qualities. The greenness of grass is in the perceiver, not in the grass.

Thus representationalism is a theory maintaining that in ordinary perception one is directly, and most immediately, aware of subjective representations (sense-data, percepts, sensations) of the external world. Our knowledge of objective (mind-independent) reality is, thus, derived from (based on) knowledge of facts about one's own subjective experience. Typically this view is contrasted with both naïve direct realism and idealism.

A representative theorist need not (and typically does not) maintain that our knowledge of objective conditions is reached by a conscious inference from premisses describing the effects on us of this external reality. In seeing that there are cookies in the jar (an objective state of affairs), I do not arrive at my belief that there are cookies in the jar by a conscious inference from premisses describing my experience of the cookies. Nonetheless, the belief about the cookies is based on a knowledge of a subjective condition (the sensation the cookies cause in me), in the same way that one's knowledge of a distant football game (being watched on television) is based on knowledge of what is happening on the nearby TV screen. Even if there is no conscious inference, there is a dependency of one piece of knowledge on another.

Arguments for a representative theory of perception typically appeal to hallucinations and illusions. Seeing a white rabbit is (or can be) the same from a subjective standpoint as hallucinating or dreaming of a white rabbit. The causes may be different, but the experiences are the same. Since (it is argued) one is aware of a mental representation or image in the case of hallucinations and dreams, it is reasonable to infer that in ordinary perception one is also aware of something subjective. The only difference between seeing a white rabbit (veridical perception) and hallucinating one is the cause of the sensation. In veridical perception, the effect (the internal image of which one is directly aware) represents the cause - the white rabbit - in some more or less accurate way. In the case of hallucination the cause - drugs in the bloodstream, maybe - is misrepresented.

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