Open AccessOn the perils of A.D. Smith’s direct realism
Author(s) -
Pamela Ann J. Boongaling
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
discusiones filosóficas/discusiones filosoficas
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 3
eISSN - 2462-9596
pISSN - 0124-6127
DOI - 10.17151/difil.2018.19.33.2
Subject(s) - rebuttal , realism , metaphysics , direct and indirect realism , epistemology , perception , character (mathematics) , philosophy , mathematics , history , geometry , archaeology
A rebuttal of the version of A.D. Smith’s version of direct realism according to which one can directly perceive the purely physical objects in the external world (Smith, 2002) is presented in this article. It is argued that, even if Smith can incorporate a characterization of veridical perception that takes into account the phenomenological character of our perceptual experiences, his theory of perception remains incoherent for it is unable to provide a solution to the inconsistency of the metaphysical and epistemic theses of his theory. For this reason, his version of direct realism is untenable.