Menu
Home
People
Places
Arts
History
Plants & Animals
Science
Life & Culture
Technology
Reference.org
Naïve realism
open-in-new
<h2 id="overview">Overview</h2> <p>The naïve realist is generally committed to the following views:<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:6" href="#fn:6"><sup>6</sup></a> </p> <ul><li><a href="/facts/Metaphysical_realism/cPo2pK16">Metaphysical realism</a>: There exists a world of <a href="/facts/Materialism/VKAovnPt">material</a> objects, which exist independently of being perceived, and which have properties such as shape, size, color, mass, and so on independently of being perceived</li> <li><a href="/facts/Empiricism/f68IpCeE">Empiricism</a>: Some statements about these objects can be known to be true through <a href="/facts/Experience/1LeXy1DW">sensory experience</a></li> <li>Naïve realism: By means of our senses, we perceive the world directly, and pretty much as it is, meaning that our claims to have <a href="/facts/Epistemology/NsDwpcYH">knowledge</a> of it are justified</li></ul> <p>Among <a href="/facts/Contemporary_philosophy/RTEVF4Gk">contemporary</a> <a href="/facts/Analytic_philosopher/ALSWKaQa">analytic philosophers</a> who defended direct realism one might refer to, for example, <a href="/facts/Hilary_Putnam/ujwAh4Ry">Hilary Putnam</a>,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:7" href="#fn:7"><sup>7</sup></a> <a href="/facts/John_McDowell/vTpysTnW">John McDowell</a>,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:8" href="#fn:8"><sup>8</sup></a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:9" href="#fn:9"><sup>9</sup></a> <a href="/facts/Galen_Strawson/9lqxK094">Galen Strawson</a>,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:10" href="#fn:10"><sup>10</sup></a> <a href="/facts/John_R._Searle/YDMljSH7">John R. Searle</a>,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:11" href="#fn:11"><sup>11</sup></a> and <a href="/facts/John_L._Pollock/a2hVgYYU">John L. Pollock</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:12" href="#fn:12"><sup>12</sup></a> </p><p>Searle, for instance, disputes the popular assumption that "we can only directly perceive our own subjective experiences, but never objects and states of affairs in the world themselves".<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:13" href="#fn:13"><sup>13</sup></a> According to Searle, it has influenced many thinkers to reject direct realism. But Searle contends that the rejection of direct realism is based on a bad argument: the <a href="/facts/Argument_from_illusion/LaxTIt3R">argument from illusion</a>, which in turn relies on vague assumptions on the nature or existence of "<a href="/facts/Sense_data/BSwNwBv0">sense data</a>". Various sense data theories were deconstructed in 1962 by the British philosopher <a href="/facts/J._L._Austin/h9FeyFnP">J. L. Austin</a> in a book titled <i>Sense and Sensibilia</i>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:14" href="#fn:14"><sup>14</sup></a> </p><p>Talk of sense data has largely been replaced today by talk of representational perception in a broader sense, and scientific realists typically take perception to be representational and therefore assume that indirect realism is true. But the assumption is philosophical, and arguably little prevents scientific realists from assuming direct realism to be true. In a blog post on <i>"Naive realism and color realism"</i>, Hilary Putnam sums up with the following words: "Being an apple is not a natural kind in physics, but it is in biology, recall. Being complex and of no interest to fundamental physics isn't a failure to be "real". I think green is as real as applehood."<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:15" href="#fn:15"><sup>15</sup></a> </p><p>The direct realist claims that the experience of a sunset, for instance, is the real sunset that we directly experience. The indirect realist claims that our relation to reality is indirect, so the experience of a sunset is a subjective representation of what really is radiation as described by physics. But the direct realist does not deny that the sunset is radiation; the experience has a hierarchical structure, and the radiation is part of what amounts to the direct experience.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:16" href="#fn:16"><sup>16</sup></a> </p><p><a href="/facts/Simon_Blackburn/PWzn4tYR">Simon Blackburn</a> has argued that whatever positions they may take in books, articles or lectures, naive realism is the view of "philosophers when they are off-duty."<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:17" href="#fn:17"><sup>17</sup></a> </p> <h2 id="history">History</h2> <p>For a history of direct realist theories, see <i><a href="/facts/Direct_and_indirect_realism/HATDapRA">Direct and indirect realism § History</a></i>. </p> <h2 id="scientific-realism-and-nave-perceptual-realism">Scientific realism and naïve perceptual realism</h2> <p>Many philosophers claim that it is incompatible to accept naïve realism in the <a href="/facts/Philosophy_of_perception/6zcv1Sxp">philosophy of perception</a> and <a href="/facts/Scientific_realism/NDVX9pIT">scientific realism</a> in the <a href="/facts/Philosophy_of_science/aonsfhTY">philosophy of science</a>. Scientific realism states that the <a href="/facts/Universe/XbfpnDmM">universe</a> contains just those properties that feature in a <a href="/facts/Scientific/IJoaD7rs">scientific</a> description of it, which would mean that <a href="/facts/Primary/secondary_quality_distinction/fJe5x6dd">secondary qualities</a> like color are not real <i>per se</i>, and that all that exists are certain wavelengths which are reflected by physical objects because of their microscopic surface texture.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:18" href="#fn:18"><sup>18</sup></a> </p><p><a href="/facts/John_Locke/NlpkCxcX">John Locke</a> notably held that the world only contains the <a href="/facts/Primary/secondary_quality_distinction/fJe5x6dd">primary qualities</a> that feature in a <a href="/facts/Corpuscular_theory/8bq1oJym">corpuscularian</a> scientific account of the world, and that secondary qualities are in some sense <a href="/facts/Subjectivity/XVvftgCU">subjective</a> and depend for their existence upon the presence of some perceiver who can observe the objects.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:19" href="#fn:19"><sup>19</sup></a> </p> <h2 id="influence-in-psychology">Influence in psychology</h2> <p>Naïve realism in philosophy has also inspired work on <a href="/facts/Visual_perception/g7Tfaq2l">visual perception</a> in <a href="/facts/Psychology/duoqW7Sz">psychology</a>. The leading direct realist theorist in psychology was <a href="/facts/J._J._Gibson/AbyA4Qkx">J. J. Gibson</a>. Other psychologists were heavily influenced by this approach, including William Mace, Claire Michaels,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:20" href="#fn:20"><sup>20</sup></a> <a href="/facts/Edward_S._Reed/TRJRIThE">Edward S. Reed</a>,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:21" href="#fn:21"><sup>21</sup></a> Robert Shaw, and <a href="/facts/Michael_Turvey/FStwSUeD">Michael Turvey</a>. More recently, <a href="/facts/Carol_Fowler/yEzzHbNl">Carol Fowler</a> has promoted a direct realist approach to <a href="/facts/Speech_perception/E60uV4xh">speech perception</a>. </p> <h2 id="see-also">See also</h2> <ul><li><a href="/facts/Critical_realism_(philosophy_of_perception)/gG6Tp2Su">Critical realism</a></li> <li><a href="/facts/Disjunctivism/Yz3ls6Cs">Disjunctivism</a></li> <li><a href="/facts/Empirical_realism/wAJMxAPB">Empirical realism</a></li> <li><a href="/facts/Qualia/YnwIAg5v">Qualia</a></li> <li><a href="/facts/Phenomenology_(psychology)/Rse4u0LN">Phenomenology (psychology)</a> and <a href="/facts/Phenomenology_(philosophy)/AILzLkKx">Phenomenology (philosophy)</a></li> <li><a href="/facts/Allegory_of_the_cave/5obdAgeT">Plato's allegory of the cave</a></li></ul> <h2 id="sources-and-further-reading">Sources and further reading</h2> <ul><li>Ahlstrom, Sydney E. "The Scottish Philosophy and American Theology," <i>Church History,</i> Vol. 24, No. 3 (Sep., 1955), pp. 257–272 <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3162115">in JSTOR</a></li> <li>Cuneo, Terence, and René van Woudenberg, eds. <i>The Cambridge companion to Thomas Reid</i> (2004)</li> <li>Gibson, J.J. (1972). A Theory of Direct Visual Perception. In J. Royce, W. Rozenboom (Eds.). The Psychology of Knowing. New York: Gordon & Breach.</li> <li>Graham, Gordon. "Scottish Philosophy in the 19th Century" <i>Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy</i> (2009) <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scottish-19th/">online</a></li> <li>Marsden, George M. <i>Fundamentalism and American Culture</i> (2006) <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0195300475">excerpt and text search</a></li> <li>S. A. Grave, "Common Sense", in <i>The Encyclopedia of Philosophy</i>, ed. <a href="/facts/Paul_Edwards_(philosopher)/3bjY5Bed">Paul Edwards</a> (Collier Macmillan, 1967).</li> <li>Peter J. King, <i>One Hundred Philosophers</i> (2004: New York, Barron's Educational Books), <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 0-7641-2791-8.</li> <li><i>Selections from the Scottish Philosophy of Common Sense,</i> ed. by G.A. Johnston (1915) <a href="http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=2044&Itemid=28">online</a>, essays by Thomas Reid, <a href="/facts/Adam_Ferguson/Jfac3x0x">Adam Ferguson</a>, James Beattie, and Dugald Stewart</li> <li>David Edwards & Steven Wilcox (1982). <a href="http://www.math.uga.edu/~davide/Modern_Physics_and_Gibsonian_Psychology.pdf">"Some Gibsonian perspectives on the ways that psychologists use physics"</a> (PDF). <i>Acta Psychologica</i>. 52 (1–2): 147–163. <a href="/facts/Doi_(identifier)/muM9Etpq">doi</a>:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016%2F0001-6918%2882%2990032-4">10.1016/0001-6918(82)90032-4</a>.</li> <li>Fowler, C. A. (1986). <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016%2FS0095-4470%2819%2930607-2">"An event approach to the study of speech perception from a direct-realist perspective"</a>. <i>Journal of Phonetics</i>. 14: 3–28. <a href="/facts/Doi_(identifier)/muM9Etpq">doi</a>:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016%2FS0095-4470%2819%2930607-2">10.1016/S0095-4470(19)30607-2</a>.</li> <li>James J. Gibson. <i>The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception</i>. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1987. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 0-89859-959-8</li> <li>Claire F. Michaels and Claudia Carello. <i>Direct Perception</i>. Prentice-Hall. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 978-0-13214-791-0. 1981. Download this book at <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070621155304/http://ione.psy.uconn.edu/~psy254/MC.pdf">https://web.archive.org/web/20070621155304/http://ione.psy.uconn.edu/~psy254/MC.pdf</a></li> <li>Edward S. Reed. <i>Encountering the World</i>. Oxford University Press, 2003. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 0-19-507301-0</li> <li><a href="/facts/Sophia_Rosenfeld/V1nPCole">Sophia Rosenfeld</a>. <i><a href="/facts/Common_Sense:_A_Political_History/d0Y3pjN5">Common Sense: A Political History</a></i> (Harvard University Press; 2011) 346 pages; traces the paradoxical history of common sense as a political ideal since 1688</li> <li>Shaw, R. E./Turvey, M. T./Mace, W. M. (1982): Ecological psychology. The consequence of a commitment to realism. In: W. Weimer & D. Palermo (Eds.), Cognition and the symbolic processes. Vol. 2, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., pp. 159–226.</li> <li>Turvey, M. T., & Carello, C. (1986). "The ecological approach to perceiving-acting a pictorial essay". <i>Acta Psychologica</i>. 63 (1–3): 133–155. <a href="/facts/Doi_(identifier)/muM9Etpq">doi</a>:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016%2F0001-6918%2886%2990060-0">10.1016/0001-6918(86)90060-0</a>. <a href="/facts/PMID_(identifier)/JlHAvMHt">PMID</a> <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3591430">3591430</a>.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)</li> <li>Nicholas Wolterstorff. <i>Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology</i>. Cambridge University Press, 2006. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 0-521-53930-7</li> <li>Nelson, Quee. (2007). <i>The Slightest Philosophy</i> Dog's Ear Publishing. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 978-1-59858-378-6</li> <li>J L. Austin. (1962). <i>Sense and Sensibilia.</i> Oxford University Press. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 978-0195003079</li> <li>John R., Searle. (2015). <i>Seeing Things as They Are; A Theory of Perception.</i> Oxford University Press. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 978-0-19-938515-7</li></ul> <h2 id="external-links">External links</h2> <ul><li><a href="http://www.rrbltd.co.uk/bibliographies/scottish_v5_bibliog.pdf">James Feiser, "A Bibliography of Scottish Common Sense Philosophy"</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.rdg.ac.uk/AcaDepts/ld/Philos/jmp/Theory%20of%20Knowledge/NaiveRealism.htm">Naïve Realism and the Argument from Illusion</a></li> <li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120905185905/http://sharp.bu.edu/~slehar/Representationalism.html">Representationalism</a></li> <li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120811172229/http://sharp.bu.edu/~slehar/epist/naive-philos.html">Naïve Realism in Contemporary Philosophy</a></li> <li><a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-episprob/">Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Epistemological Problems of Perception</a></li> <li><a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/0708.1536">Physics and Commonsense: Reassessing the connection in the light of quantum theory</a></li> <li><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=-yLkUyCsb7cC">Quantum Theory: Concepts and Methods</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070416/full/070416-9.html">Nature Journal: Physicists bid farewell to reality?</a></li> <li><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=hKrvv35-gcMC">Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness</a></li> <li><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=4nyKP2-KlXAC">Virtual Realism</a></li> <li><a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/969726/">The reality of virtual reality</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/~loomis/Loomis%20presence%20IEEE%2093.pdf">IEEE Symposium on Research Frontiers in Virtual Reality: Understanding Synthetic Experience Must Begin with the Analysis of Ordinary Perceptual Experience</a></li> <li><i><a href="http://www.science.uva.nl/~seop/entries/realism/">Realism</a></i>, article form the <i>Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy</i>.</li> <li><i><a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sense-data/">Sense Data</a></i>, article from the <i>Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy</i>.</li> <li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110514084610/http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/book1.htm"><i>Skepticism and the Veil of Perception</i></a>, book defending direct realism.</li> <li><a href="http://www.tcnj.edu/~lemorvan/DR_web.pdf">Pierre Le Morvan, "Arguments against direct realism and how to counter them"</a>, <i>American Philosophical Quarterly</i> 41, no. 3 (2004): 221–234. (pdf)</li> <li><a href="http://cns-alumni.bu.edu/~slehar/webstuff/bubw3/bubw3.html">Steven Lehar, "Gestalt Isomorphism"</a> (2003), paper criticizing direct realism.</li> <li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110410085941/http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/dis.htm"><i>A Direct Realist Account of Perceptual Awareness</i></a>, dissertation on direct realism.</li> <li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110719154757/http://cns-alumni.bu.edu/~slehar/cartoonepist/EpistDebate.html">Epistemological debate on PSYCHE-D mailing list</a></li> <li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110719154714/http://cns-alumni.bu.edu/~slehar/cartoonepist/cartoonepist.html">A Cartoon Epistemology</a></li></ul> <h2 id="references">References</h2> <ol> <li id="fn:1"><p>"The Problem of Perception". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem/" target="_blank">https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem/</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:2"><p>"The Contents of Perception". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 12 July 2020. <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-contents/" target="_blank">https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-contents/</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:3"><p>Naïve Realism, Theory of Knowledge.com. <a href="http://www.theoryofknowledge.info/naiverealism.html" target="_blank">http://www.theoryofknowledge.info/naiverealism.html</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:4"><p>"The Problem of Perception". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem/" target="_blank">https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem/</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:5"><p>Lehar, Steve. Representationalism Archived 2012-09-05 at the Wayback Machine <a href="http://sharp.bu.edu/~slehar/Representationalism.html" target="_blank">http://sharp.bu.edu/~slehar/Representationalism.html</a> <a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:6"><p>Naïve Realism, University of Reading. <a href="http://www.rdg.ac.uk/AcaDepts/ld/Philos/jmp/Theory%20of%20Knowledge/NaiveRealism.htm" target="_blank">http://www.rdg.ac.uk/AcaDepts/ld/Philos/jmp/Theory%20of%20Knowledge/NaiveRealism.htm</a> <a href="#fnref:6" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:7"><p>Putnam, Hilary. Sep. 1994. "The Dewey Lectures 1994: Sense, Nonsense, and the Senses: An Inquiry into the Powers of the Human Mind." The Journal of Philosophy 91(9):445–518. <a href="#fnref:7" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:8"><p>John McDowell, Mind and World. Harvard University Press, 1994, p. 26. <a href="#fnref:8" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:9"><p>Roger F. Gibson, "McDowell's Direct Realism and Platonic Naturalism", Philosophical Issues Vol. 7, Perception (1996), pp. 275–281. <a href="#fnref:9" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:10"><p>Galen Strawson, "Real Direct Realism", a lecture recorded 2014 at Marc Sanders Foundation, Vimeo. <a href="https://vimeo.com/91346935" target="_blank">https://vimeo.com/91346935</a> <a href="#fnref:10" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:11"><p>John R. Searle, Seeing Things as They Are: A Theory of Perception, Oxford University Press, 2015, p. 15. <a href="#fnref:11" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:12"><p>John L. Pollock, Joseph Cruz Contemporary Theories of Knowledge, Rowman and Littlefield <a href="#fnref:12" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:13"><p>John R. Searle, 'Seeing Things as They Are; A Theory of Perception', Oxford University Press. 2015. p.111-114 <a href="#fnref:13" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:14"><p>Austin, J. L. Sense and Sensibilia, Oxford: Clarendon. 1962. <a href="#fnref:14" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:15"><p>"Sardonic comment". Putnamphil.blogspot.com. Retrieved 9 April 2019. <a href="http://putnamphil.blogspot.com/2015/05/naive-realism-and-color-realism-in-1976.html" target="_blank">http://putnamphil.blogspot.com/2015/05/naive-realism-and-color-realism-in-1976.html</a> <a href="#fnref:15" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:16"><p>John R. Searle, 'Seeing Things as They Are; A Theory of Perception', Oxford University Press. 2015. p.111-114 <a href="#fnref:16" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:17"><p>Blackburn, Simon (2008). Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (Second edition, revised), Oxford University Press ISBN 9780199541430 <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" target="_blank">/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)</a> <a href="#fnref:17" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:18"><p>Michaels, Claire & Carello, Claudia. (1981). Direct Perception Archived 2007-06-21 at the Wayback Machine. Prentice-Hall. <a href="http://ione.psy.uconn.edu/~psy254/MC.pdf" target="_blank">http://ione.psy.uconn.edu/~psy254/MC.pdf</a> <a href="#fnref:18" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:19"><p>Naïve Realism, Theory of Knowledge.com. <a href="http://www.theoryofknowledge.info/naiverealism.html" target="_blank">http://www.theoryofknowledge.info/naiverealism.html</a> <a href="#fnref:19" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:20"><p>"Untitled Document". Archived from the original on 2011-01-28. Retrieved 2011-03-27. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110128215702/http://ione.psy.uconn.edu:16080/~corr/Pages/MichaelsProfile.htm" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20110128215702/http://ione.psy.uconn.edu:16080/~corr/Pages/MichaelsProfile.htm</a> <a href="#fnref:20" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:21"><p>"Oxford University Press: Encountering the World: Edward S. Reed". Archived from the original on 2011-05-25. Retrieved 2011-03-27. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110525184710/http://www.us.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Psychology/Cognitive/?view=usa&ci=9780195073010" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20110525184710/http://www.us.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Psychology/Cognitive/?view=usa&ci=9780195073010</a> <a href="#fnref:21" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> </ol>