Concept
Naïve realism
Overview
In philosophy of perception and epistemology, naïve realism (often associated with direct (perceptual) realism, itself metaphysically complemented by manifest realism) is the idea that the senses provide us with direct awareness of objects as they really are. When referred to as direct realism, naïve realism is often contrasted with indirect realism.
According to the naïve realist, the objects of perception are not representations of external objects, but are in fact those external objects themselves. The naïve realist is typically also a metaphysical realist, holding that these objects continue to obey the laws of physics and retain all of their properties regardless of whether or not there is anyone to observe them. They are composed of matter, occupy space, and have properties, such as size, shape, texture, smell, taste and colour, that are usually perceived correctly. The indirect realist, by contrast, holds that the objects of perception are simply representations of reality based on sensory inputs, and thus adheres to the primary/secondary quality distinction in ascribing properties to external objects.
In addition to indirect realism, naïve realism can also be contrasted with some forms of idealism, which claim that no world exists apart from mind-dependent ideas, and some forms of philosophical skepticism, which say that we cannot trust our senses or prove that we are not radically deceived in our beliefs; that our conscious experience is not of the real world but of an internal representation of the world.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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1. Truth and Falsehood properly belong to Propositions, not to Ideas. Though truth and falsehood belong, in propriety of speech, only to PROPOSITIONS: yet IDEAS are oftentimes termed true or false (as what words are there that are not used with great latitude, and with some deviation from their strict and proper significations?) Though I think that when ideas themselves are termed true or false, there is still some…
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1
States what Naïve realism is; the author is tied to Naïve realism in the knowledge graph.
Thus then we may resume, with entire confidence, those realistic conceptions which philosophy at first sight seems to dissipate. Though reality under the forms of our consciousness, is but a conditioned effect of the absolute reality, yet this conditioned effect standing in indissoluble relation with its unconditioned cause, and being equally persistent with it so long as the conditions persist, is, to the…
Herbert Spencer, First Principles
States what Naïve realism is.
These representations, in so far as they are connected and determinable in this relation (in space and time) according to laws of the unity of experience, are called objects. The non-sensuous cause of these representations is completely unknown to us and hence cannot be intuited as an object.
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason
States what Naïve realism is.
Philosophers who discussed Naïve realism
- Thomas Reid
- Michael Huemer
- Gottlob Frege
- Hilary Putnam
- Liang Shuming
- Daniel Dennett
- John Cook Wilson
- John F. X. Knasas
Related ideas
- Empiricism
- Philosophical realism
- John Searle
- Idealism
- Analytic philosophy
- John Locke
- Metaphysics
- Materialism
- Matter
- Philosophical skepticism
- John McDowell
- Visual perception
- Psychology
- Physics
- Sense
- Philosophy of perception
- J. L. Austin
- Sense data
- Science
- Scientific realism
- Space
- Experience
- Universe
- Philosophy of science
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Outline of philosophy.
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