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

That was not what I claimed. The point was that one cannot, by perceiving the content of a mental state thereby perceive a mind-external object. And that is certainly something some direct realists - or people who call themselves such - claim. They talk of the content of the mental state - so it is 'of' that mental state, then. (You say "The 'content' of a mental state is not a picture nor a sensation. It is the perceiving, not its object" - I'm afraid I don't know what that means; the content of a painting would be what it depicts, the content of a note would be what it's about....it's not clear to me how 'content' can mean 'is the perceiving' as opposed to the means by which the perceiving occurs).

There is a painting of corridor. Now, whether one sees it as a painting or whether one doesn't notice and thinks, that by looking at it one is looking at a corridor, one cannot perceive a corridor by means of that painting.

So, crudely: the indirect realist thinks we're in a mental art gallery looking at paintings of the world. Some direct realists think we're looking at what the paintings depict (and they're emphasizing - quite pointlessly, I think - the difference between seeing a depiction as a depiction and looing at what it depicts). What I'm saying is that you're only perceiving the real world when you're not in the mental gallery at all.

What I'm saying is that you're only perceiving the real world when you're not in the mental gallery at all. — Clarendon

That suggests that our thoughts about perception are an impediment to perception. I accept that they are speculative but against what measure can they said to be false?

But I'm addressing all the issues you raise, or take myself to be doing.

I do not know the literature well enough to know if my view is already in it. No doubt it is. But it is what it is.

Direct perception has to be - by definition - a relationship that has two relata: the perceiver and the perceived.

No one can deny that - even the indirect realist must accept that this is the relationship we stand in to our own mental states, else we would not be aware of anything whatever.

My point is that when we perceive a mind-external ship, the perceptual relationship has that mind external ship as one of its relata and the mind - the perceiver's mind - as the other. There literally can't be anything else involved in the relationship. There can be no question that, if this is coherent, it constitutes direct perception of the mind-external ship. Perhaps it is not coherent. But I think it is.

By analogy, a desire is always for something. Only minds can have desires. But to have a desire - which is to be in a certain sort of mental state - is to desire 'something'. That something doesn't have to itself be something mental. If I desire a ship, then that relationship has two relata: me and a mind external ship.

That analogy is supposed to show how a person can be in a mental state and being in it can constitute a relationship between the mind - the one in the mental state - and some object that may not be a mental state at all.

I am then saying that this is what is going on in perception. There is a perceptual experience - that's a mental state. But it is not involved in the relation that it creates - at least not as a relatum within it, anymore than my desire is 'in' the relation between me and the ship when I desire the ship.

And so in this way the actual mind-external object is directly perceived - the perceiving relationship is constituted by the mental state, and in the good cases that relationship puts the perceiver in direct contact with a mind external object, and in the bad cases it puts the perceiver in direct contact with a mental image of one.

To return to my desire analogy: let's say I desire a $10 note and there is a $10 note on the table. Well, then that $10 satisfies my desire. But imagine it is not a genuine $10 note but a perfect forgery. Well, then it does not satisfy my desire, even though I might well think it does as a perfect forgery is indistinguishable from the real deal. What is phenomenologically indistinguishable from having a genuinely satisfied desire for a $10 note? Receiving a perfect forgery of one.

As I see it, what you're saying is that there is no need for me to posit forgeries and that in doing so I am introducing unnecessary extras. But this seems to me to be untrue on both fronts. First, if in hallucination cases there is no object of perception, then that's not going to be a seeming at all. Second, forgeries exist - they're not exotic extras that others do not have to posit. By analogy: mental imagery exists and any plausible view about what reality contains is going to have to make room for them. So I am not helping myself to anything that is not already there. That indirect realists appeal to the same material is irrelevant given they're doing something very different with it.

I am sorry, but I do not follow your point. Mental imagery can sometimes be mistaken for the objects of which they are images. But even then, there would be perception occurring, albeit of the mental image rather than of the object it depicts.

I was responding to you saying:

What I'm saying is that you're only perceiving the real world when you're not in the mental gallery at all. — Clarendon

In your statements so far, that limit is self-evident for you. Pointing out that is not the same for others is not an argument against your thesis.

Now we are well into all the usual muddle that the idea that what we see isn't the thing but a mental-image-of-the-thing brings with it.

Folks, when you look at a ship, you see the ship, not some mental image of the ship.

And when you hallucinate, you don't see anything - that's kinda the point.

Those half-baked philosophical ideas of things-in-themselves and mental images are leading you up the garden path.

Austin sorted this stuff out int he middle of last century.

You remind me of Searle too.

Thank you for the clarifications with regard to the existence of mental imagery. I think this will help us hone in on the core issue.

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. — Clarendon

Thanks for confirming your view on these matters. You say that in cases of hallucination we perceive a mental image; in cases of veridical perception it is the external object itself that we perceive. So the difference between hallucination and veridical perception is the object of perception, not the perceptual relation itself. This makes sense.

Where I think you may still have an issue is in your treatment of indistinguishability. Your account requires that an external object and a mental image can lead to the same phenomenal experience. So what we have is:

Step 1: Hallucination case
Object of perception = mental image
Phenomenal experience = X

Step 2: Good case
Object of perception = mind-external object
Phenomenal experience = X

So on your own account, the same phenomenal experience (X) can be generated by both a mental image and an external object. The indirect realist will ask: "if hallucination achieves X via a mental image alone and veridical perception adds an external object without altering X in any way, then mental images are sufficient to explain X in all cases. If mental images are sufficient to explain X, what explanatory work is the external object doing in producing X?".

In other words, your account of direct realism does not rule out indirect realism or the "improper" forms of direct realism you were concerned to distinguish your view from, since the these others can leverage your own explanation of indistinguishability in support of their model.

Now, this doesn't show that your account is incoherent, nor does it show that you are forced to accept indirect realism. It only shows that the indirect realist can happily accept your account and, if they wish, eliminate direct perception in the veridical case on grounds of parsimony.

Yep, spot on. Searle was Austin's student, but took Austin's ideas in an interesting although perhaps overly formal direction in the interest of making them clear.

's account is fair. Searle might downplay conditions of satisfaction in favour of intentionality as the way content is "fixed". When one looks at a ship, the intentional content (what the looking is about) is not an image-of-ship; it's a ship. Overstressing “content” risks sliding back into precisely the mental-image / representationalist picture that both Searle and Austin reject.

Right, of course we are looking at a ship not a mental image of one― this is shown by the fact that we can maintain a clear (but constantly changing) view of the approaching ship as it docks, and while we then in turn approach it and step on board. One cannot board a mental image.

Direct perception has to be - by definition - a relationship that has two relata: the perceiver and the perceived. — Clarendon

It seems to me that all the defenders of Direct Realism in this thread are Semantic Direct Realists rather than Phenomenological Direct Realists. There is a strong overlap between SDR and Indirect Realism.

As an Indirect Realist, I cannot deny that direct perception is the relationship between perceiver and perceived. However, for me the perceived is internal to the perceiver rather than external to the perceiver.

Many supporters of “Direct Realism” also place the perceived internal to the perceiver as intensional content rather than external to the perceiver as a mind-external object.
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My point is that when we perceive a mind-external ship, — Clarendon

This is the problem. How do you know that what you perceive is a mind-external object rather than intensional content, when the perception of a mind-external object will be identical to the perception of intensional content?

As you say:

To return to my desire analogy: let's say I desire a $10 note and there is a $10 note on the table. Well, then that $10 satisfies my desire. But imagine it is not a genuine $10 note but a perfect forgery. Well, then it does not satisfy my desire, even though I might well think it does as a perfect forgery is indistinguishable from the real deal. What is phenomenologically indistinguishable from having a genuinely satisfied desire for a $10 note? Receiving a perfect forgery of one.

If the genuine $10 note is identical to a forged $10 note, and the genuine $10 note satisfies your desire but the forged $10 does not, how do you know that one note is genuine and the other is a forgery?

How do you know you perceive a genuine note when the perception of a genuine note will be identical to the intensional content of a forged note?
===================================================

Only minds can have desires. But to have a desire - which is to be in a certain sort of mental state - is to desire 'something'. That something doesn't have to itself be something mental. If I desire a ship, then that relationship has two relata: me and a mind external ship. — Clarendon

In the mind are desires and beliefs. As you say, only minds can desire something. Also, only minds can believe something.

Suppose the content of my desire, the intension of my desire, is a ship.

Suppose the content of my belief, the intension of my belief, is that there is a mind-external ship.

Then my desires and beliefs coincide, and can then act on them, such as moving a leg or raising an arm.

You have moved from a belief that there is a mind-external ship to knowing without doubt that there is a mind-external ship.

If your belief in a veridical mind-external ship is identical to your belief in an illusory or hallucinatory mind-external ship, on what grounds do you justify that your belief is veridical rather than illusory or hallucinatory?

You might argue that you not only see the ship, but you might also smell it, hear it, touch it and taste it. It is true that you can reinforce your belief that there is a mind-external ship using sensations through your five senses. But this not take away from the fact that sensations through your senses only exist in your mind. You may combine all these sensations through your senses and reason that there is a mind-external ship, but again, reason, as with belief and desire, only exists in the mind.

Ultimately, everything we know about any mind-external ship exists in the mind, meaning that there is only an indirect link from our mind to any mind-external object. This is why the concept of Indirect Realism is more satisfactory than Direct Realism, which ignores the fact that everything we know about any mind-external world can only come through our five senses, of necessity introducing an indirectness between the mind and any mind-external world.

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”. — RussellA

Yes, you can. But I don't know what you are actually seeing in your mind. I can only guess you are seeing same colour as when I see "red".

What is a "mind-independent world"? Where is it? — Corvus
All around us. — RussellA

Why do you call it "mind-independent"? Why is it not just a world?

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. — RussellA

I am not in the language game, but I know what red colour means. I am not sure about "wave length 700nm". I know what it means, but I don't feel it is very meaningful to me unless I am working on some optical technology projects or studying clinical psychology. In daily life, no one will understand what you mean by wave length 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. — RussellA

I didn't mean I know the colour red by inductive reasoning. I meant that I know the alien will know colour red is same as wave length 700nm by reading the internet info. Because I have seen many folks acquire knowledge from the internet, and believe they are all true.

For knowing colour red as red is not reasoning. It is a direct perception and knowledge from the visual sensation.

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). — Michael

Sure, I know what he means. But my point was that I don't know how other folks would perceive red post officebox, or wave length 700nm at all. All I know is that other folks perceive red, when they say that they see red. What is in their perception or mind, I have no clue whatsoever.

From inductive reasoning, under the same condition of lighting, and when the same red was seen by ordinary folks, it should appear the same red to all of them. Otherwise the traffic light system wouldn't work.

But I don't know what you are actually seeing in your mind. I can only guess you are seeing same colour as when I see "red". — Corvus

:100:
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Why do you call it "mind-independent"? Why is it not just a world? — Corvus

There is the world (Wikipedia - The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that exists) and within this world are minds. Whatever exists between these minds must be mind-independent.
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In daily life, no one will understand what you mean by wave length 700nm. — Corvus

Hopefully on this thread they do.
===========================

I meant that I know the alien will know colour red is same as wave length 700nm by reading the internet info. — Corvus

:100:

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

These are two different claims:

1. The phenomenal character of experience is determined by distal objects
2. The phenomenal character of experience is determined by the direct presentation of distal objects

Direct realism, as defined in that article, asserts (2). The addition of "the direct presentation of" is important. It's the defining aspect of direct realism. (1) can be satisfied by a simple causal relationship, and is consistent with indirect realism (and even Kant's transcendental idealism, with the mind-independent nature of distal objects (noumena) being otherwise unknowable, entailing the exact kind of epistemological problems that direct (naive) realists are trying to avoid). (2) requires something more; something that indirect realists argue doesn't obtain.

The "direct presentation of" is a substantial claim about phenomenology, and requires a scientific study of the body, the brain, the environment, and phenomenal experience (whatever such a thing is, whether reducible to neurological phenomena, emergent non-physical phenomena, or something else). It cannot be deflated by a semantic analysis of English grammar.

Making sense of this "direct presentation of" is the trickier part, but I think two paraphrased assertions taken from here and here provide a starting point — as they are consistent with the direct (naive) realist's goal of avoiding epistemological problems:

a. There are in nature colours of a distinctive kind that we are all familiar with, i.e simple intrinsic, non-relational, non-reducible, qualitative properties ... not micro-structural properties or reflectances, or anything of the sort
b. The character of your experience is explained by an actual instance of the apple's colour manifesting itself in phenomenal experience.

This, to me, seems to be arguing that there is a token identity between redness as a property of my phenomenal experience and redness as a mind-independent property of the apple. (Incidentally, if (a) is true but (b) is false then we might argue that, in the veridical case, there is at least a type identity between the properties).

But whatever so-called "colour" properties the apple has, they are not colours in the "intrinsic, non-relational, non-reducible, qualitative" sense (they are, at best, micro-structural reflectances), and nor do they manifest in phenomenal experience (they only causally determine phenomenal experience). So naive colour realism fails on both counts.

Redness as a property of phenomenal experience (which is an "intrinsic, non-relational, non-reducible, qualitative" property) is nothing like any of the apple's mind-independent properties (e.g. its molecular structure). If you don't like the grammar of saying that we see this redness then by all means don't, although I don't know how you then make sense of a sentence such as "some see a white and gold dress and some see a black and blue dress" because it's quite clear to me that in the context of this sentence the colour terms are referring to the phenomenal character of each person's experience (which differ between individuals) and not the pixels on the screen or the wavelengths of the light (which are the same for everyone). But that's a tangent to the philosophically (and scientifically) relevant point that (a) and (b) are both false.

From inductive reasoning, under the same condition of lighting, and when the same red was seen by ordinary folks, it should appear the same red to all of them. Otherwise the traffic light system wouldn't work. — Corvus

Suppose, when the top light is illuminated, I perceive the colour green and you perceive the colour orange, will the traffic light system still work?

Why not, as long as we both know that when the top light is illuminated we stop.

The traffic light system will successfully operate regardless of whether the driver is an Indirect or Direct Realist.

This is a largely irrelevant semantic point but I don't think representation requires intention. If John and Jim are identical twins (or lookalikes) then I see no problem in saying that John's facial features are an accurate representation of Jim's facial features. It's not just a judgement we might make but also a (presumably) mind-independent geometric fact.

If you don't like the phrase "sensory content may or may not represent the environment" then perhaps the phrase "the sensory content's features (shape, size, distance, orientation, colour, etc.) may or may not resemble the environment's features".

The point I am making is that even if the environment has properties that resemble the properties that manifest in sensory experience, and even if English grammar describes the interaction between the body and the environment as "seeing the environment", if there is such a thing as sensory content distinct from the environment then it's still indirect realism. It is the features of this sensory content that inform our intellect and with which we make judgements about the environment, but given the distinction between this sensory content and the environment we cannot use sensory content alone to determine that it accurately resembles the environment (at best we can only determine that it is causally determined by the environment) leading to the exact epistemological problems that direct realists are trying to avoid — and in the extreme case to Kant's transcendental idealism.

We somehow need to "look past" sensory content to determine if it accurately resembles the environment. Some say that this is impossible in principle, whereas others say that modern technology has allowed us to do this, with such things as the Standard Model describing the mind-independent nature of the environment — but the picture of the world as described by the Standard Model (matter and energy as excitations of a quantum field) is very different to the world we are familiar with, proving, I think, that the original sceptical fears concerning the epistemological problem of perception were accurate.

The point I am making is that even if the environment has properties that resemble the properties that manifest in sensory experience (as naive colour primitivists would claim), and even if English grammar describes the interaction between the body and the environment as "seeing the environment", if there is such a thing as sensory content distinct from the environment then it's still indirect realism. — Michael

I see what you are saying, but I would argue that indirect realism has traditionally claimed something a bit narrower than that. I don't think indirect realism follows from the mere fact that "something" mediates the connection between mind and world. It seems to also require that this "something" has the following characteristics:

(1) It represents some aspect of the world
(2) It is itself the direct object of perception

In other words, this "something" needs to act as an epistemic intermediary rather than a merely causal intermediary, irrespective of how that epistemic role is theoretically cashed-out (e.g. representation, resemblance or something else).

For my part, I would deny both (1) and (2). Inherent to my denial of (1) is the denial that sensory qualities as-such ("redness", "sweetness", "loudness") represent or resemble features of the world. I don't think they need to. Instead, I would say that sensory qualities simply need to provide enough data for the intellect to grasp the structures, patterns, unities and dependencies that exist in the world. These are relational rather than qualitative, and the point is that the very same relations grasped by the intellect are instantiated in the world itself. That is my understanding of what it means for the mind to make direct contact with reality.

To push this a little farther, we could argue that this is what makes science possible. It enables us to accept that sensory qualities are not "out-there" in any naive sense while still maintaining that science has some theoretical purchase on the world.

The traffic light system will successfully operate regardless of whether the driver is an Indirect or Direct Realist. — RussellA

It won't work at all, if the driver thinks that the red colour is in his mind, not in the traffic light. Because he thinks that the red colour is in his mind, he will not stop causing tragic accident.

The red light is always in the traffic light, not in the drivers' mind in reality. Hence indirect realists are wrong, and shouldn't be allowed to drive? :D

The red light is always in the traffic light, not in the drivers' mind in reality. Hence indirect realists are wrong, and shouldn't be allowed to drive? — Corvus

Doesn’t the fact that a driving licence makes no reference to the driver’s belief in either Indirect or Direct Realism show that an Indirect Realist (phenomenal experience is indirectly determined by mind-external objects) can function in ordinary life just as well as a Direct Realist (phenomenal experience is directly determined by mind-external objects).

In other words, this "something" needs to act as an epistemic intermediary rather than a merely causal intermediary, — Esse Quam Videri

So let's take the dress that some see to be white and gold and others black and blue. Let's simplify it for ease to a computer screen that some see to be red and some orange.

Do you accept that it is possible that all three of these statements are true:

1. John sees a red screen
2. Jane sees an orange screen
3. The screen emits only a single wavelength of light

I would say that it is possible that all three statements are true; the photo of the dress and the worldwide reaction to it suffices to prove this. So even though there is a sense in which John and Jane see the same thing (the screen) there's another sense in which they see different things (a red screen and an orange screen respectively).

In the context of (1), (2), and (3) all being true, it must be that the words "red" and "orange" are not referring to the wavelength of light emitted by the screen (which for the sake of argument I will say is 630nm, within what we would consider the "red" range). It is true that Jane sees an orange screen but it is not true that Jane sees a screen emitting a wavelength of light between 590nm and 620nm.

In the context of (1), (2), and (3) all being true, the words "red" and "orange" are referring to the phenomenal character of their experience. This phenomenal character is the "epistemic intermediary" from which they infer some mind-independent fact about the screen, with Jane (incorrectly) inferring that it is emitting a wavelength of light between 590nm and 620nm and John (correctly) inferring that it is emitting a wavelength of light between 625mn and 750nm.

Doesn’t the fact that a driving licence makes no reference to the driver’s belief in either Indirect or Direct Realism show that an Indirect Realist (phenomenal experience is indirectly determined by mind-external objects) can function in ordinary life just as well as a Direct Realist (phenomenal experience is directly determined by mind-external objects). — RussellA

Driving licenses are issued under the untold presumption that the drivers will think the colours of the traffic lights are in the traffic lights, not in the drivers mind. Indirect or Direct realism doesn't come to the issue.

Driving licenses are issued under the untold presumption that the drivers will think the colours of the traffic lights are in the traffic lights, not in the drivers mind — Corvus

They're issued because someone was convinced this person behaves safely in a car, not because of metaphysical reasons about where they think perception happens or where colours exist.

I agree with you that (1), (2), and (3) can all be true, and I also agree that in that context “red” and “orange” refer to phenomenal character rather than wavelength. Where I part company is with the claim that phenomenal character thereby functions as an epistemic intermediary.

On the view I’m defending, "phenomenal character" is not what John or Jane are making inferences about. Phenomenal character does not assert anything about wavelengths, nor does it justify any belief. What does the epistemic work is their background understanding of light, screens, and illumination conditions, together with a judgment about what is the case. Jane’s mistake is not located in her sensory experience - it is located in a false judgment about wavelength.

If phenomenal character were itself an epistemic intermediary, then error would have to be traced back to it as being inaccurate or misleading. But in your own example, nothing is wrong with the experience as such; what is wrong is the judgment made on its basis. That’s exactly why I resist treating phenomenal character as representational in the epistemic sense. It conditions inquiry, but it is not what our judgments are about.

On the view I’m defending, "phenomenal character" is not what John or Jane are making inferences about — Esse Quam Videri

I agree; they are making inferences about something in their environment. But they are using the phenomenal character of their experience to make this inference, much like someone might use a thermometer to make an inference about the temperature of a pot of water. If this isn't what you mean by "epistemic intermediary" then I don't really know what you mean by the term, and I'd argue that whatever you mean isn't a requirement for indirect realism to be true.

To put it in overly simple terms, the epistemic question that gave rise to the dispute between direct and indirect realism is "can we trust that the world is as it appears?", with direct realists answering in the affirmative and indirect realists answering in the negative.

To refer back to and extend my post to Banno above, the naive colour realist justifies their affirmation of the epistemic question by arguing that:

P1. Colours as manifested in phenomenal experience are of a distinctive kind that we are all familiar with, i.e simple intrinsic, non-relational, non-reducible, qualitative properties
P2. The character of phenomenal experience is explained by an actual instance of the apple's colour manifesting itself in phenomenal experience
C1. Therefore, apples are coloured in the distinctive kind that we are all familiar with, i.e simple intrinsic, non-relational, non-reducible, qualitative properties (... not to be conflated with micro-structural properties or reflectances, or anything of the sort)

Both the direct and indirect realist believe P1. The direct realist believes P2, and so deduces C1. The indirect realist rejects P2, and so cannot deduce C1, legitimising scepticism about the mind-independent nature of the world (i.e. C1 might be false).

So direct realism is true if and only if P2 is true and indirect realism is true if and only if P2 is false. My comments regarding resemblance or representation were just to say that indirect realism can be true even if C1 is true, although if modern science is to be accepted then it's clear that C1 is false, and so P2 must be false (hence why the Wikipedia article says "indirect perceptual realism is broadly equivalent to the scientific view of perception").

Driving licenses are issued under the untold presumption that the drivers will think the colours of the traffic lights are in the traffic lights, not in the drivers mind. Indirect or Direct realism doesn't come to the issue. — Corvus

In a traffic light what is important is as much the relationship between the lights, top, middle, bottom, as the colours of the lights, red, amber, green. The rule to stop if the top light is on is as useful to the driver as the rule to stop when the red light is on. Perhaps more useful, as even if some people may not be able to distinguish red from green they are unlikely not to be able to distinguish top from bottom.

Our judgements are often based more on the relations between things than the things themselves. The sun is hotter than the Earth, a car is larger than a bicycle, an apple is sweeter than an avocado, a mountain is heavier than a hill, etc.

If there were no relations of any kind between our perceptions we would be unable to make any judgements. For example, spatial relations, temporal relations, causal relations, relations of colour, relations of texture, relations of sound, etc.

Causal relations are central in our judgements about our perceptions. Mary Shepherd 1777 to 1847 developed this idea as part of her Structural Realism. As an Indirect Realist, she justified her belief in realism through an “inference to the best explanation”, accepting that we are denied direct sensory access to mind-external objects. From observations about our sensibilities we can reason about causal relations within any external world. Not only causal relations within such an external world, such that when the wind blows a tree moves, but also causal relations between an external world and us, such as when the wind blows we feel the sensation of coolness.

In Structural Realism, the Indirect Realist makes judgements as much from relata as from relatum.

(Edit) In a similar vein, in linguistics, closely related to both Indirect Realism and Semantic Direct Realism, Jacques Derrida developed the concept of "différance", which explored how meaning comes from the relationship between signs, as much as the signs themselves (Wikipedia, Jacques Derrida). Using reason, we can discover meaning from the relationships within our sensibilities.

I think your reply helps make the divergence between us very clear. You’re treating phenomenal character as something like an epistemic instrument - a reading from which we infer how the world is, much like a thermometer reading. To be fair, this is how many direct realists treat it as well. My point is that the thermometer analogy already builds in the representational role that I’m denying. On the view I’m defending, phenomenal character is not a “reading” at all. It is not truth-apt, not accurate or inaccurate, and not something whose reliability is assessed independently of judgment.

That’s why I don’t think the epistemic question is “can we trust that the world is as it appears?” Appearances don’t make claims, so they aren’t candidates for trust or distrust. Judgments make claims. Error and skepticism arise at the level of judgment, not at the level of experience as such.

For that reason, I don’t accept the biconditional tying direct realism to P2. My view doesn’t require that phenomenal character be explained by an object’s qualitative property manifesting itself in experience. What matters for my approach to realism is that the intelligible structures grasped in understanding and affirmed in judgment are the very structures instantiated in the world. Once that is in place, rejecting P2 doesn’t entail indirect realism - it entails the rejection of a particular kind of direct realism that is based on (what I consider to be) a faulty account of how experience secures knowledge.

In other words, I'm rejecting one of the key assumptions that the traditional dilemma is based on.

You’re treating phenomenal character as something like an epistemic instrument - a reading from which we infer how the world is, much like a thermometer reading. — Esse Quam Videri

On the view I’m defending, phenomenal character is not a “reading” at all. It is not truth-apt, not accurate or inaccurate, and not something whose reliability is assessed independently of judgment. — Esse Quam Videri

These are not contradictory positions.

It is both the case that (a) the phenomenal character of experience is not truth-apt and the case that (b) we use the phenomenal character of experience to make inferences about the environment. (b) is exactly what John and Jane do in the example I gave; their assertions about the wavelength of light emitted by the screen are not made apropos of nothing — they derive their conclusion from the phenomenal character of their experience (coupled with their knowledge of the wavelengths of light that are usually responsible for such an experience).

My view doesn’t require that phenomenal character be explained by an object’s qualitative property manifesting itself in experience. — Esse Quam Videri

But the naive realist does make this claim, and it is this claim that indirect realists reject. The naive realist believes that the phenomenal character of experience isn't just the phenomenal character of experience but also the phenomenal character of the environment. They believe that "there are in nature colors, of a distinctive kind that we are all familiar with, i.e., that colors are simple intrinsic, non-relational, non-reducible, qualitative properties ... not micro-structural properties or reflectances" and that our colour perception is veridical if and only if the phenomenal character of our experience is the same as the phenomenal character of the environment.

And I can sympathise with this naive view. It's tempting to imagine the world as literally being coloured in the exact same way that my experience is coloured (i.e. not just in the sense of reflecting certain wavelengths of light). I think even the non-naive realist thinks something similar with respect to geometry, i.e. shape, size, distance, orientation, etc.

But at least with respect to colour (and other secondary qualities, à la Locke), the world just isn't this way. Any inference about the mind-independent nature of the world from these secondary qualities is open to scepticism. That's really all there is to indirect realism. Often this goes hand-in-hand with the semantic claim that it's appropriate to say that we see and hear and feel and taste and smell these secondary qualities — something which those like Banno seem to object to — but I don't see this as philosophically relevant (e.g. this grammar doesn't entail anything like a homunculus).

Folks, when you look at a ship, you see the ship, not some mental image of the ship.

And when you hallucinate, you don't see anything - that's kinda the point. — Banno

Am I to take this in a purely analytic way? That is, are we speaking in tautologies and not of metaphysics at all, meaning you are saying nothing about how eyes works, brains work, or perceptions occur, but we are involved in wordplay, grammar, and usage?

I say this because there is a reading to what you say that leaves us with a whole lot of nothing. There are two things here: (1) seeing and (2) objects. If you say that you can only "see" "objects," then should I have a phenomenal state of something that is not contained in the object, then what I'm doing is not "seeing," but it's something else (perhaps hallucinating).

So, should I have a phenomenal state of a ship, but there is no ship, I don't "see" the ship (as object). If I see a blur of what is a is far out at sea, I don't "see" a ship to the extent that blur is not a ship (but is instead a distortion). What that means then is by definition the ship I see is the ship because if it's in variance from the object, I am not seeing the ship.

And then the million dollar question: Is the perception I have the actual ship that is? Well, what is isn't part of this analytic inquiry. What "is" is the topic of metaphysics and cannot be spoken about. What this means is that the ship you see is the ship by tautology, but it does not mean to say the ship is precisely what it is within your phenomenal state.

To the extent you debate someone who claims certain objects have certain properties independent of perception and that certain properties are imposed upon objects by the subject, you miss your own point. You can't argue with a metaphysician or even a scientist for that matter, or at least if you do, it's all irrelevant. You're arguing grammar.

This is not to say that it's folly to engage in the scientific inquiry of figuring out which parts of the ship are attributable only to the imagination and which react to external stimuli, but it is to say that that isn't what you're talking about.

And when you hallucinate, you don't see anything - that's kinda the point. — Banno

Arguing that schizophrenics don't hear voices, only hallucinate voices, is such a pointless argument that fails to address the actual philosophical substance of both direct and indirect realism. The phrase "the schizophrenic hears voices and sees faces in the walls" is a perfectly ordinary and acceptable phrase in the English language; it is meaningful, true, and does not entail anything like a homunculus.

This attempt to avoid the important phenomenological and epistemological issues by deferring to grammar or the dictionary, splitting hairs over the "one true" meaning of the verbs "see" and "hear", is hopelessly misguided.

You might want to use the phrase "I see X" only if there's the right kind of physical interaction between your body and some distal X, whereas others might want to use the phrase "I see X" whenever their visual cortex is active in the right kind of way, regardless of what, if any, distal causes there are. Even if it were a misuse of language to use the phrase "I see X" in this latter way, it does not follow that direct realism is true and indirect realism is false, because their dispute is far more significant (explained in my previous comment) than a dispute over which kinds of events are described by the phrase "I see X" in ordinary, everyday language.

And "I see X" ought not be conflated with "I directly see X". The philosophical term "directly" matters. Indirectly seeing distal objects is still seeing distal objects. So you appear to be guilty of equivocation in arguing that if you see the ship then you directly see the ship.