knowledge of the external world

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knowledge of the external world

brief overview of each:

DIRECT REALISM:

also known as a common-sense realism because the world is as it is perceived

there’s a world with objects that exist independently of human perceptions. when i perceive them i have direct awareness of them

denies that our experiences are merely subjective and that perceptions are reduced to just sense-data

REPRESENTATIVE REALISM:

sense-data in our minds represents objects in the world around us

objects exist independently of us and are the cause of the sense-data we experience

but, we never have direct awareness of the objects in the world

IDEALISM:

form of anti realism. there is only our mind and their ideas (and God)

all our experiences are experiences of mental representations

no world of material objects as we usually think of them, so no physical objects “out there” in the world to be known

material objects are to be understood as families of experiences

can be seen as a response to the problems of representative realism