You said my view was extravagant in positing an object of awareness in hallucination cases. I don't understand your reply to my reply, for I explained why it is not extravagant and why you are the one who, by not positing an object of awareness in such cases, are saddled with a problem. You do not, so far as I can tell, address this point.

love that, it captures a lot of the necessary nuance, imo, of what it means when someone says "that thing is that colour"

My gripe is with direct realists — Clarendon

Specifically, are you against Phenomenological Direct Realism (PDR) or Semantic Direct Realism (SDR).

The Indirect Realist would agree with SDR that there is an indirect perception of the ship, whilst accepting a direct cognition of it. The term “direct cognition” already presumes a mental state, whether a model, picture or concept. As you say, most SDR are probably Indirect Realists in disguise.

As those who believe in PDR are probably as rare as those who believe in a flat Earth, you may have trouble finding someone willing to defend PDR.
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I think indirect realism is false as an account of what it is that we're perceiving in normal cases of perception. When I look at a ship in the harbour it is the ship, not a 'ship in the harbour-like' mental state that I am seeing if, that is, it is to be true that I'm perceiving the ship. — Clarendon

In what sense can the Direct Realist say we directly see a ship, something that could weigh 100,000 tonnes, be 300m in length, contain 3,000 guests, have restaurants, bars, cafes, an engine room, propeller, etc when all we may be seeing through our eyes is a set of coloured shapes.

When you see a ship in the harbour, what are you actually seeing? You are seeing a variety of coloured shapes, such as a white horizontal rectangle, a smaller central red vertical rectangle and an upper black line.

In our language game, such a combination of coloured shapes is known as a “ship”. This allows us to talk about ships, such as saying “there is a ship in the harbour. Even if we have only seen a ship from a distance, we can still talk about ships, in the same way we can talk about the Sun even if we have never been there.

So in what sense is the Indirect Realist wrong in thinking that a set of coloured shapes that we know as a “ship” is not the same as directly looking at a ship?
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Maybe they could say that the experience - the mental state - is constitutive of the two place perceptual relation between the perceiver and the perceived. — Clarendon

What you say seems along the lines of Kant’s Transcendental Idealism in his Critique of Pure Reason, where he attempts to combine Empiricism with Rationalism. In our case, the Empiricism of the Direct Realists who believe they directly perceive the ship and the Rationalism of the Indirect Realists who believe they directly perceive the concept of a ship.

A transcendental solution is needed, because we cannot know we are looking at a ship without the prior concept of a ship, and we cannot know the concept of a ship without a prior look at a ship.
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So, crudely, I take indirect realists to think we're looking at pictures of the world and (the current crop) of direct realists to think we're looking through windows onto the world. — Clarendon

Indirect Realism makes sense that we are looking at pictures of the world, but a Direct Realist’s analogy that we look at the world as if through a window is hard to justify.

For the Direct Realist, where exactly is this window, in the eye or in the mind? In neither case can the window have no effect on what passes through it. If the eye, on one side is a wavelength of 700nm and on the other side is the colour red. If the mind, on one side is the instantiation of a ship and on the other side is the concept of a ship.
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But it seems to run into problems accounting for hallucinations. — Clarendon

Yes. We see a ship, but if a veridical experience is identical to an illusory or hallucinatory experience, how can we ever know whether our experience is veridical, illusory or hallucinatory. The Direct Realist argues that they do know. But how exactly?

I think you may have a difficulty finding someone who supports PDR, whilst, it seems to me, SDR is Indirect Realism in disguise.

Indirect realism is still realism, so I don’t understand the relevance of those references.

We don’t really know what mental phenomena — or as scientists of perception call them, percepts — are, but they exist, whether reducible to neurological phenomena or as emergent phenomena. They are what occur when we’re awake, when we’re dreaming, when we’re hallucinating, and when having some scientist directly stimulate our brain, and they are what don’t occur when we are unconscious, regardless of how the rest of the body is reacting to stimuli. They and their qualities are neither identical to nor similar to the molecular structure of an apple’s surface or the wavelengths of light that it reflects, firmly showing that positions like naive colour realism are false. Similar reasoning holds for taste and smell and so on. That’s all it takes to support indirect realism as I see it. Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities is well established.

So I think the Wikipedia article is correct when it says “indirect perceptual realism is broadly equivalent to the scientific view of perception”, regardless of whether or not philosophers have “moved past” such labels, because it’s not the label that matters but the underlying phenomenological and epistemological claims.

Ordinary folks don't come across this type of problems in daily life. — Corvus

But then, we are not ordinary folks.
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You have already perceived the colour of the postbox, and it appears "red" to you, and you are making your personal judgement "The postbox is red." — Corvus

In the world is a postbox and within the language game the colour of the postbox has been named “red” in a JL Austin performative utterance kind of way.

Henceforth, everyone playing the same language game agrees that “the postbox is red”.

However, this is regardless of what is in our minds. I may perceive the postbox as green and you may perceive the postbox as orange. But we both agree that in our language game “the postbox is red".
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The colour is not in your mind or in my mind. It is on the postbox — Corvus

How do you know that colour exists in a mind-independent world?

Science tells us that a wavelength of 700nm travels from the postbox to our eyes. Our only knowledge of the colour of the postbox, if it has any, is the information arriving at our eyes, which is 700nm .

In what sense is a wavelength of 700nm the colour red?

If an alien from the Andromeda Galaxy sees a wavelength of 700nm, are you saying that you know that they will also perceive the colour red? How do you know?

..as the content of the mental state is what one is perceiving - and its content is 'about' a ship and this content is satisfied in the right kind of way - then one is directly perceiving it. — Clarendon

That's a misrepresentation, because no direct realist believes that one perceives one's own mental state or some element of it.

The 'content' of a mental state is not a picture nor a sensation. It is the perceiving, not its object. More specifically, the content is formed by the way the brain responds to photo chemical processes in the eyes and the bundle of light rays reflected by the ship under certain conditions of observation. Thus your visual experience of the ship is, literally, the visible appearance of the ship under those conditions of observation.

I'll take a stab at this, since I think that @Richard B's critique is on the right track.

You've introduced "mental images" into your model in order to explain hallucination. This introduces an instability within your position that indirect realists have been capitalizing on for centuries in order to show that direct realism is untenable.

The problem is that you appear to be explaining indistinguishability in terms of identity within phenomenal experience (I.e. identical “appearing object”). This is ambiguous. If by "appearing object" you just mean an object within phenomenal experience - i.e. an object directly present to consciousness - then you've already collapsed into indirect realism since now the direct object of perception in both veridical and non-veridical experience is a phenomenal object.

If, on the other hand, the “appearing object” is not what is directly present to consciousness (i.e. objects within phenomenal experience), then they cannot secure identity within experience at all, and so cannot explain why hallucination and perception are indistinguishable as experiences. In that case the appeal to mental images does no explanatory work.

So, either you must give up on explaining indistinguishability in terms of the identity of "appearing objects" within experience, or you must give up on direct realism.

You've introduced "mental images" into your model in order to explain hallucination. — Esse Quam Videri

Isn’t an hallucination, by definition, a (waking) mental image that does not “correspond to” and is not caused by some appropriate distal object?

And isn’t a dream, by definition, a (sleeping) mental image that does not “correspond to” and is not caused by some appropriate distal object?

I don’t see how anyone can sensibly reject the existence of mental images. We might disagree about their nature, i.e are they reducible to neurological phenomena or are they non-physical emergent phenomena, etc., and we might disagree about their relationship and resemblance to distal objects, but they clearly do exist.

Glad you liked it. I thought that Chirimuuta's account handles the problem of divergent perceptions well - dependence on viewing conditions, interspecies differences, errors and abnormalities. My concern with her naturalizing approach is that it may be answering the wrong question. It is like explaining love by appealing to its biological procreative function. The answer could be perfectly valid in its way, but is this what we wanted to know? Perhaps the thrust of the original question was misguided, but that needs to be argued (and perhaps it is - I haven't read the book).

I think it is a problem for @Clarendon specifically because the way that he leverages them in his model undermines his commitment to direct realism.

More generally, though, I agree with you - I don't think that we can sensibly reject the existence of mental images. But I do think we need to be careful about the epistemological and ontological roles we assign to them.

I can't claim to have this all sorted out, but I am wary of reifying mental images into objects of perception rather than treating them as features of experience that condition our judgments. Once images are treated as perceptual objects, they begin to play exactly the mediating role that indirect realists have historically relied on, which is a move that I am resistant to.

For that reason, I would tend to say that a hallucination is not the perception of an image, but the experience of imagery plus a false judgment.

I would tend to say that a hallucination is not the perception of an image, but the experience of imagery plus a false judgment. — Esse Quam Videri

Then isn't a veridical experience the experience of imagery plus a true judgement? I believe Clarendon is just saying that the imagery (mental phenomena) that occurs when we hallucinate is indistinguishable from the imagery that occurs when we have veridical experiences.

I am wary of reifying mental images into objects of perception — Esse Quam Videri

What does it mean for something to be the object of perception? Because hallucinations are hallucinations of something; voices, faces, monsters, etc.

This is where I think people are letting irrelevant matters of language muddy the issue. Even if you don't like the grammar of the phrase "I hallucinate mental phenomena" it is still the case that the voices I hallucinate — and their qualities like pitch and tone — are mental phenomena, not distal stimuli (else it wouldn't be an hallucination).

By contrast, the direct realist thinks that in the regular case, it is the ship that you are perceiving. They standardly try and keep the relevant mental state in the picture, they just think you're somehow looking through it to the ship. In the same way as if I look at the ship through a telescope I am looking at the ship 'through' the telescope and not looking at a telescope, the direct realist wants to say that some of our mental states - those involved in seeing and touching primarily - are akin to telescopes or windows. They are involved, but they enable one to see through them to the world, rather than themselves being the objects of perception.

So, crudely, I take indirect realists to think we're looking at pictures of the world and (the current crop) of direct realists to think we're looking through windows onto the world.

I’m wondering if you could clarify something as I am not up on the literature, but consider myself a direct realist. In your analogy, what entities are looking through windows, and what are the windows? Because when I look at a perceiver there is nothing between him and the rest of the world. His eyes touch the light and atmosphere “directly”, for lack of a better term.

Because when I look at a perceiver there is nothing between him and the rest of the world. His eyes touch the light and atmosphere “directly”, for lack of a better term. — NOS4A2

But our eyes don’t (usually) touch apples “directly”, yet direct realists claim that we see apples directly. So although there is ambiguity in what the word “direct” means in the context of “direct perception”, it clearly isn’t about our sense organs being in physical contact with the so-called object of perception. If it were that simple then direct realism (at least with respect to sight and hearing and smell) would have never been in consideration at all.

There is, so it is claimed, direct perception of distal objects even though there often is some third physical intermediary (light, air) between our sense organs and said objects.

But then, we are not ordinary folks. — RussellA

We are ordinary folks as far as seeing the postbox is concerned. We are not equipped with some super vision eyes, or we are not aliens from some other galaxies, I am sure.

However, this is regardless of what is in our minds. I may perceive the postbox as green and you may perceive the postbox as orange. But we both agree that in our language game “the postbox is red". — RussellA

I know I perceived the postbox as red, but I don't know what you perceive. The only reason I know you perceive it as red, is because you claim that you perceive it as red.

In what sense is a wavelength of 700nm the colour red? — RussellA

Because some dude invented wave measuring meter, and scaled the numbers for 7000nm for colour red. No other reason than that. It could be 007nm or 2026nm. It is not some apriori idea or concept or number. It is just random reading that some dude attached to it, and published so the other folks would use it for saying the colour red in different way. You could say the Venus is a morning star when saw it in the dawn, or call it an evening star when saw it in the dinner time.

How do you know that colour exists in a mind-independent world? — RussellA

What is a "mind-independent world"? Where is it?

If an alien from the Andromeda Galaxy sees a wavelength of 700nm, are you saying that you know that they will also perceive the colour red? How do you know? — RussellA

If the alien has been surfing the internet, and saw the colour red is wave length of 700nm, and thought it was true, then he would claim that wave length 700nm is colour red.. I know it by inductive reasoning.

But our eyes don’t (usually) touch apples “directly”, yet direct realists claim that we see apples directly. So although there is ambiguity in what the word “direct” means in the context of “direct perception”, it clearly isn’t about our sense organs being in physical contact with the so-called object of perception. If it were that simple then direct realism (at least with respect to sight and hearing and smell) would have never been in consideration at all.

There is, so it is claimed, direct perception of distal objects even though there often is some third physical intermediary (light, air) between our sense organs and said objects.

The “object of perception” is the entire periphery and environment. That is what we see. An apple isn’t an “object of perception” because that would exclude everything else. I’m not sure why people exclude everything else in these discussions but I expect it is to help their arguments.

At any rate, our eyes contact the light that bounces off an apple “directly”. We can touch an apple “directly”, smelll it, taste it, and even consume it entirely. None of that is “indirect”.

The “object of perception” is the entire periphery and environment. That is what we see. An apple isn’t an “object of perception” because that would exclude everything else. I’m not sure why people exclude everything else in these discussions but I expect it is to help their arguments. — NOS4A2

Okay, but it's still the case that almost all of that environment isn't in direct physical contact with my eyeball; only the light is. So clearly "direct perception", if direct realism is to have any merit, isn't so simplistic as direct physical contact between our sense organs and the objects perceived.

At any rate, our eyes contact the light that bounces off an apple “directly”. — NOS4A2

Yes, but our eye isn't in direct physical contact with the apple. If your simplistic interpretation of direct perception were correct then we could only say that we directly see the light reflected by the apple, not that we directly see the apple.

The only reason I know you perceive it as red, is because you claim that you perceive it as red. — Corvus

In our language game a wavelength of 700nm has been named “red. In another language game it could have been named “rouge”.

Therefore, when I look at a wavelength of 700nm, I know that within our language game, regardless of my particular mental perceptions, I can say “I see the colour red”.
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What is a "mind-independent world"? Where is it? — Corvus

All around us.
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If the alien has been surfing the internet, and saw the colour red is wave length of 700nm, and thought it was true, then he would. I know it by inductive reasoning. — Corvus

Yes, in our language game a wavelength of 700nm has been named “red”. Therefore, when you look at a wavelength of 700nm, by inductive reasoning, you know that the name of the colour you perceive is “red”, regardless of what colour you actually perceive in your mind.

Then isn't a veridical experience the experience of imagery plus a true judgement? I believe Clarendon is just saying that the imagery (mental phenomena) that occurs when we hallucinate is indistinguishable from the imagery that occurs when we have veridical experiences. — Michael

Yes, and I agree. Where I would push back is on the idea that imagery itself is the object of judgment.

Take the example of hallucinating a ship. We have (at least) two acts on the part of the subject: sensation and judgment. While the judgment is dependent on the sensory content, it is not about the sensory content.

Furthermore, sensation is not truth-apt: it does not refer, assert, or commit. It does not make a claim about whether anything does or does not exist. That is what judgment does. Insofar as perception makes such a claim, I would say it includes a judgment of existence, and in that respect is distinct from mere sensation.

So it may be that the sensory content is the same in both veridical and non-veridical cases. What distinguishes them is the correctness of the judgment, which is determined by the way the world is, not by the sensory content. In the hallucinatory case, the judgment fails not because it is about a non-existent object, but because nothing in the world satisfies it.

I think the point being made is that the same wavelengths of light can cause different colour experiences in different individuals (e.g. because of different biologies).

This fact wouldn’t make sense if colour terms exclusively refer to wavelengths of light. A term like “red” can refer to 700nm light or it can refer to an object reflecting 700nm light or it can refer to the type of colour experience that 700nm light is typically responsible for in most humans.

As a particular example, consider the photo of the dress that some people see to be black and blue and others white and gold. The colour terms as used in the preceding sentence must refer to some mental/physiological phenomenon, because it’s not the case that some people see one wavelength of light and some people see a different wavelength of light, and it’s not the case that everyone sees the same colours but that a large group of people consistently forget the meaning of the words “black”, “blue”, “white”, and “gold” when asked to describe what they see. I really do see white and gold even though the wavelengths of light that are stimulating my eyes are the wavelengths that typically cause me to see black and blue.

So it may be that the sensory content is the same in both veridical and non-veridical cases. — Esse Quam Videri

I would argue that the fundamental dispute between the direct and indirect realist concerns the relationship between sensory content and distal objects.

Sensory content has properties, or qualities, and we describe these properties using such words as "red" and "sweet" (even if we also use such words to describe other properties, i.e. those that are causally responsible for such sensory content, like reflecting certain wavelengths of light).

Are these properties the properties of the distal object in the sense of token identity? If so then direct realism is true, else it is not. You might not want to describe the latter as "seeing a mental representation" but it would still be the case that sensory content is a mental representation, and I would say that that's all it takes for indirect realism to be true.

We then have an epistemological problem to address. If sensory content is a mental representation then can we trust that it is accurate, in the sense that the sensory content resembles the distal object. If the properties of the sensory content are the same as the properties of the distal object in the sense of type identity, i.e. in a sense that would satisfy realist colour primitivism ("colors are simple intrinsic, non-relational, non-reducible, qualitative properties ... not micro-structural properties or reflectances, or anything of the sort"), then our sensory content is accurate, else it isn't.

And I think the science is quite clear that the properties of sensory content are nothing like the properties that are causally responsible for them, and the fact that we often use the same word to refer to both has led many to equivocate.

then can we trust that it is accurate, in the sense that the sensory content resembles the distal object — Michael

It depends on what you mean by "resemble". At best you'll get, "it's what that object looks like from a particular point of view in a particular context". It may look like one thing to you and something entirely different to a different sort of being, and both of those very different experiences of that object can be equally accurate representations of the object in question despite being very very dissimilar.

The epistemological question concerns the mind-independent nature of the world. For example the chemical composition of an apple and it reflecting certain wavelengths of light has nothing to do with a point of view or a particular context. It just is what it is.

The naive colour realist then goes one step further and says that the surface of the apple is coloured in the simple, non-relational, non-reducible, qualitative sense that we are pre-scientifically familiar with, and that this has nothing to do with a point of view or a particular context, and that our experience of it is veridical if and only if this colour is the one that we see, and that anyone who sees a different colour is seeing it wrong.

I believe most indirect realists believe — Michael

Indirect realism is still realism, so I don’t understand the relevance of those references. — Michael

They're not intenced as such. Your claim concerned what "most indirect realists believe", but there is no evidence on which this might be based.

Here's another account. A direct realist believes that when we, say, look at a veritable ship, what we see is the ship. They hold that light is reflected from the ship, focused by the eye and incites certain neural pathways associated with things of that sort, and that this process is what we call seeing a ship.

An indirect realist, in contrast, holds that what we see is not the ship, but something else, sometimes called a "mental image" of the ship, that is presented to us by the process of light being reflected from the ship, focused by the eye and inciting certain neural pathways associated with things of that sort.

The most obvious difference here is that the indirect realist one way or another relies on a homunculus, a mind being presented with various stimuli, while the direct realist is embedded in the world. (Edit: I've bolded this, since it seems to me to be at the very heart of the issue)

We could, if it were deemed worthwhile, re-write the distinction between direct and indirect realism in terms of Markov Blankets.

Indirect realism effectively treats the Markov blanket as opaque, the system having only access to internal states in the form of the mooted "mental image". External states are inferred, never directly encountered, and what is “perceived” is confined to what is inside the blanket (representations, images, models).

Direct realism treats the Markov blanket as causally, but not epistemically, isolated, the system having access to external states through the mediation of the blanket. Seeing the ship is an interaction, not an appearance, and perception is a skilled engagement with environmental states across the blanket;
there is no inner object that perception terminates on.

Now on this account, I take direct realism as telling the better story.

A direct realist ... holds that light is reflected from the ship, focused by the eye and incites certain neural pathways associated with things of that sort — Banno

As does the indirect realist.

... and that this process is what we call seeing a ship. — Banno

The dispute between the direct and indirect realist isn't just a semantic dispute about whether or not it is proper to describe the preceding chain of events using the English phrase "I see a ship" (or "I see a mental image of a ship"). It concerns the nature of sensory experience and the type of relationship it has to the ship. Both agree that there is a causal relationship, but the direct realist argues that there's a much more substantial relationship; one in which information about the mind-independent nature of the ship is given in the sensory experience, avoiding the epistemological problems that indirect realists claim are there.

The SEP article on the problem of perception, as one of the steps in defining direct realism, says that it requires that "the phenomenal character of experience is determined, at least partly, by the direct presentation of ordinary objects", and I think that this is the important part.

But we must unravel exactly what it means for something to be "directly presented" in the phenomenal character of experience, and as explained here, I think the only sensible interpretation is that there is a token identity between the phenomenal character of experience and the mind-independent properties of the ship. If there is no token identity, only a causal relationship, then it's not direct presentation. Even a type identity would be insufficient, as that simply leaves the phenomenal character of experience being an accurate representation of (i.e. resembling) the object, and this representational realism is still indirect realism; as explained further in the article, "this is why many naive realists describe the relation at the heart of their view as a non-representational relation".

We don’t really know what mental phenomena — or as scientists of perception call them, percepts — are, — Michael

Percepts, in such an account, would be some stage in various layers of Markov blankets, just one of the levels of the internal states within the nested, hierarchical Markov blanket architecture. The perception is inside the Markov blanket, but not disconnected from what it outside. Crucially, The system does not “see” the percept; rather, the system sees by being in that state.

But frankly the percept is an oversimplification of what is going on.

That seems to me, again, to be unnecessarily hanging on to an outmoded presentation of what is going on.

As does the indirect realist. — Michael

Yep. The difference in science is not in the basic physiology. At least you now agree with me here.

...but the direct realist argues that there's a much more substantial relationship; one in which information about the mind-independent nature of the ship is given in the sensory experience... — Michael

Scratch out "mind-independent" and you have it.

"the phenomenal character of experience is determined, at least partly, by the direct presentation of ordinary objects" — Michael

Are you willing to claim that the character of experience is not determined, at least partly, by things in the world? Surely not.

Your ideas of token identity might be interesting, but I wasn't able to follow what you were arguing. Neural nets are not representational, so it might well be that notions of tokens are irrelevant, covered by the Markov blanket, as it were.

You might not want to describe the latter as "seeing a mental representation" but it would still be the case that sensory content is a mental representation, and I would say that that's all it takes for indirect realism to be true. — Michael

I don’t think it’s correct to say that sensory content is a mental representation. Representations, in the epistemic sense relevant here, have a normative valence - they can be accurate or inaccurate, correct or incorrect, better or worse. Sensory content does not function this way within cognition. It does not assert, refer, or purport to get things right. Representation, in that sense, is the job of judgment.

We then have an epistemological problem to address. If sensory content is a mental representation then can we trust that it is accurate, in the sense that the sensory content resembles the distal object. — Michael

You’re right that if sensory content were a mental representation, then we’d face the epistemological problem you describe. But if sensory content is not a representation in that sense, then it’s not the kind of thing that can be inaccurate or misleading to begin with. It is only it judgments that can be accurate or inaccurate. And while those judgments are conditioned and motivated by sensory contents, they are not about sensory contents, but about how the world is.

I don’t see how anyone can sensibly reject the existence of mental images. We might disagree about their nature, i.e are they reducible to neurological phenomena or are they non-physical emergent phenomena, etc., and we might disagree about their relationship and resemblance to distal objects, but they clearly do exist. — Michael

Don't you see how anyone can sensibly reject the existence of fictional characters in a story? Must such supposed entities be either reducible to neurological activity or else non-physical emergent properties?

I suggest not, and yet that doesn't prevent us from talking coherently about their supposed actions in the story. Similarly with mental images.

... we might disagree about their relationship and resemblance to distal objects, but they clearly do exist. — Michael

On reflection, though, we can recast our disagreement as being about the relationship and resemblance of actual images to the objects. Our experience of readiness to project or associate a particular kind (e.g. colour) of actual picture to the object or other picture before us is conveniently and coherently discussed as involving an image in the mind. But not irredeemably so.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jEsYBM6ef1IC&pg=PA83&lpg=PA83&dq=sights+unseen+Nelson+Goodman&source=bl&ots=gdYiFfhX0-&sig=ACfU3U0SSgUWaVAE8yc0Hlu487OgJSdpmg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjPjZOO9p7kAhWMa1AKHb3PCtkQ6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=sights%20unseen%20Nelson%20Goodman&f=false

I am a direct realist too - though I would say that I am a proper one whereas I think most of those who call themselves direct realists are not the real deal. I agree, I think, with what you say as I reject what most direct realists say on the grounds that there isn't real directness there. (Though perhaps there are some direct realists who agree with me - what I am saying may not be true for all direct realists).

The perceiver would be us, the mind, and the window would be the 'mental state with representative contents'. But the analogy doesn't really work. A window is an object, whereas a mental state isn't. So already there seems to be a category error involved in their view. The idea - I think - is that when it comes to these 'mental states with representative contents' we can distinguish between the state itself and its contents (just as we can distinguish between a note itself and its contents). They hold that the big mistake that the indirect realists are making is in thinking that in perception we are only ever aware of the mental states themselves - the notes - whereas in fact because they have contents, there is the possibility of us being aware of the content. They then think this gives them a way of respecting how it is that in perception we are in direct contact with the objects of perception - when the content of the mental state in question matches (and is appropriately caused) by the non-mental object 'out there', then we are perceiving the object itself. We are not perceiving the mental state it is putting us in, but its content - and as the content 'is' in some sense the object of awareness (though really it just mentions it), then we are seeing the object itself by being in that kind of state.

But to my mind this is not direct contact with the object at all. My example would be a painting of a receding corridor placed in a doorway such that if one looks at it, it looks as if the door opens onto a receding corridor. If we imagine that behind the painting there is indeed a receding corridor precisely corresponding to the image on the canvas, and imagine as well that the painting was created by the artist studying the actual corridor, then looking at that painting in the doorway - even if one does not realize it is a painting and so one is focused on what it represents to be the case - will not allow one to perceive the corridor behind it. No matter how accurately its content represents what is really there, at no point does the painting become a window. Matching content is simply not a way in which an object becomes transparent. So the whole idea of transparency is triply confused - first, because it involves a category error and second because even if it didn't, transparency does not come from matching content. And third, because the simple fact is we still have 3 elements to the relation - the perceiver, some mental state, and the object of perception.

A direct relation must, by definition, have only 2 relata, not 3. Thus a direct realist - I would say - is committed on pain of misdescribing themselves to saying that in perception, there is just a perceiver and the perceived. I am currently trying to explain how this can work by relocating the experience - the mental state - and saying that it is constitutive of that relation rather than an relatum within it. Just as a desire is a mental state yet is constitutive of a relation - between the desirer and the desired - likewise the mental state involved in perception can be constitutive of a relation between perceiver and perceived. I think this is a way of making the actual object of perception a part of the experience itself (I earlier dismissed this as being incoherent, but it now strikes me that it is not - for the object can be part of the experience in the same way as an object of desire is part of the desiring relation).

Thank you for your criticisms.

You've introduced "mental images" into your model in order to explain hallucination. This introduces an instability within your position that indirect realists have been capitalizing on for centuries in order to show that direct realism is untenable. — Esse Quam Videri

I'd first want to say that in denying mental images a role to play in the perception of mind-external objects I am not denying their existence. A silly analogy perhaps, but I deny that toffees play any role in perception, but I am not thereby denying toffees exist - I think they certainly exist.

I think mental images most certainly do exist and it would be a problem for a view if it was committed to their denial. They are employed in imaginings, for instance, and - I would say - in hallucinations, including dreams. So my first point would be that nothing in direct realism commits the direct realist to denying the existence of mental imagery - and it would be a grave problem if it did, I think, given the clear existence of such imagery. The issue, as I see it, is not over the existence of such mental imagery, but over what work it can do - can we, by means of it, perceive the mind-external world or not. My answer is a decided no, and that's why I think it is what hallucinations involve perceiving.

The problem is that you appear to be explaining indistinguishability in terms of identity within phenomenal experience (I.e. identical “appearing object”). This is ambiguous. If by "appearing object" you just mean an object within phenomenal experience - i.e. an object directly present to consciousness - then you've already collapsed into indirect realism since now the direct object of perception in both veridical and non-veridical experience is a phenomenal object. — Esse Quam Videri

I do not see this. My view is that in the hallucination case I am perceiving mental imagery, whereas in the good case I am perceiving a mind-external object. I take it that our minds can copy good-case perceptual experiences and store these copies (and we call upon these copies in memory and imagination). And as these are copies, they - these mental images - can create in us an experience indistinguishable from perceiving the object they are depicting. So it is not that both cases are indistinguishable due to having identical objects. On teh contrary, they have radically different objects. In one case the object of the perceiving relation is a mind external object, in the other it is a mental image of a mind-external object.

So I hold that we have perception occurring in both cases - in the hallucination case (which I take just to be a special case of imagining) - we are perceiving mental imagery, whereas in the 'perceiving the mind-external world' case we are perceiving mind-external things. At the moment, then, I do not see how I am collapsing into an indirect realist. I am, to be sure, making use of the same mental imagery that they are employing, but I am saying that it is not involved in perceiving the external world.

Russel's objection was that this is unduly complicated - that there is no need to suppose that hallucinations have an object of perception. But this I do not understand. Without an object of perception, they wouldn't be experiences 'of' anything seeming to be the case.

I would want to stress, the indirect realist does not have a monopoly on believing there is mental imagery - on the contrary, I take the existence of mental imagery to be something we can all agree exists. The issue is whether we are confined to perceiving this mental imagery (or, in some direct realist's case, whether this mental imagery can operate as a window onto the world and allow us directly to see it), or whether perception of the external world requires precisely its absence (my view).