I agree that propositions like “I am experiencing such-and-such phenomenal character” are truth-apt and can function as premises in reflective reasoning. My claim was never that such inferences are impossible.

What I deny is that ordinary perceptual judgments are epistemically justified by inference from such introspective premises. In normal perception, John does not first judge “I am experiencing orange” and then infer “the screen is orange”; he simply judges that the screen is orange. Introspective propositions typically arise later, and for special purposes (disagreement, error-checking, theory-building).

Your reconstruction helps explain how John and Jane might reason about their perceptual differences, but it does not show that perceptual judgment itself is grounded in inference from introspective awareness. Those introspective premises are reflective and ad hoc with respect to perception, not epistemically basic.

So while P2 can play an explanatory role in some contexts, it does not follow that perceptual knowledge of the world is generally inferred from it.

Then I really don't understand what you are trying to argue, or how it relates to the dispute between direct and indirect realism.

Again, the direct realists argued that a) the phenomenal character of experience is the direct presentation of mind-independent objects and their properties, such that b) we can infer (deductively, even) from the phenomenal character of experience that "there are in nature colors, of a distinctive kind that we are all familiar with, i.e., ... simple intrinsic, non-relational, non-reducible, qualitative properties".

Indirect realists argued that (a) is false, and so that because of this (b) is unjustified, and possibly false, i.e. it is possible that the mind-independent nature of the world is radically different to the phenomenal character of experience ("the world isn't as it appears").

Sensory experience supplies data that constrains inquiry, but it does not supply premises from which judgments about the world are inferred. — Esse Quam Videri

Inferences

I see a wet umbrella and infer that it is raining outside. In my senses I am seeing orange and infer that in the world the screen is orange.

I see a wet umbrella and I am seeing orange are conceptual, because both umbrella and orange are concepts.

They are neither truth-apt nor judgements, because if I see a wet umbrella then I see a wet umbrella, and if I am seeing orange then I am seeing orange.

It is raining outside and the screen is orange are truth-apt, because either they are true or they are false. It may be that I see a wet umbrella and it is not raining outside. It may be that I am seeing orange and the screen is not orange.

Premises
Major premise - all humans are mortal
Minor premise - Socrates is human
Conclusion - Socrates is mortal

Major premise - Umbrellas get wet in the rain
Minor premise - I see a wet umbrella
Conclusion - it is raining

Major premise - the screen is orange if I am seeing orange
Minor premise - I am seeing orange
Conclusion - the screen is orange

The major premise is the judgement in the mind using reason, and is truth-apt.
The minor premise is what I sense, and is not truth-apt.
The conclusion is a state of affairs in the world, which may or may not obtain as a fact, and so is truth-apt.

Inference requires premises that are truth-apt — Esse Quam Videri

I agree. In order to infer from seeing orange in my senses that the screen is orange in the world, I need to have the major premise “the screen is orange if I am seeing orange”, which is a judgement based on reason, and is truth-apt

So either stage two is truth-apt, in which case it already is a judgment and your staged model collapses, or it is not truth-apt, in which case the claim that stage-three judgments are inferred from it does not follow. — Esse Quam Videri

In stage two of perception, I am seeing orange in my senses. This is not truth-apt, because if I am seeing orange then I am seeing orange.

My judgement that “the screen is orange if I am seeing orange” is my major premise, and is truth-apt, in that the premise may be true or false.

If I am seeing orange in my senses, and have judged that “the screen is orange in the world if I am seeing orange in my senses”, then I infer that the screen is orange in the world.

What I deny is that mediation entails inferential grounding. — Esse Quam Videri

Seeing orange in my senses mediates between my judgement “the screen is orange in the world if I am seeing orange in my senses”, and my inference that the screen is orange in the world.

In this sense, mediation plus judgement is the ground for inference.

The epistemic work is done at the level of judgement itself, not by moving outward from inner representations. — Esse Quam Videri

Judgement by itself is insufficient to know anything about any mind-external world. The judgement “the screen is orange in the world if I am seeing orange in my senses” tells us nothing about any mind-external world.

If I am seeing orange in my senses then, if my judgement is true, the screen is orange in the world.

As the word “house” in language represents a house in the world, my seeing orange in my senses represents an orange screen in the world. A representation links the mind to any mind-external world.

The epistemic work is achieved by judgements about our sensations, which, if true, enables the mind to represent any mind-external world.

So the disagreement isn’t about whether the “bridge of the senses” must be crossed — it’s about what crossing that bridge amounts to: inferential reconstruction from inner items, or norm-governed judgment constrained by experience but not inferentially derived from it. — Esse Quam Videri

From observing many phenomenal experiences I can derive judgements, such as “the screen is orange in the world if I am seeing orange in my senses”. From the principle of “Confirmation Holism”, each judgement must be supported by other judgements in a coherent whole. If my judgements do become part of a coherent set of judgements, then my confidence in each judgement will necessarily increase. All these judgements require the mediation of the senses. All these judgements require “the bridge to be crossed” if any are to have any validity.

There are no normative judgements about what ought to be independent of phenomenal experiences in the senses. My judgement that “the screen is orange in the world if I am seeing orange in my senses” finds its justification in “Confirmation Holism”, where each judgement must be supported by other judgements in a coherent whole. My judgement that “the screen is orange in the world if I am seeing orange in my senses” cannot find its justification as a normative “because it ought to be”.

However, I can understand that normative judgements of what ought to be could exist within Idealism, where reality is a mental construct and there is no mind-external world. Where reality is a mental construct, then we could construct normative judgements about what ought to be.

I think the recurring confusion here comes from a difference in what we take the core epistemological problem to be.

As you frame it, the dispute between direct and indirect realism concerns whether phenomenal character presents mind-independent properties, and whether skepticism follows if it does not. Within that framework, I agree that rejecting phenomenal presentation pushes one toward indirect realism.

My claim is that both traditional direct and indirect realism share a deeper assumption: that phenomenal character is epistemically primary, and that justification for beliefs about the world must flow from experience outward (whether successfully or unsuccessfully).

I reject that assumption. On my view, phenomenal character neither succeeds nor fails at justifying knowledge of the world; it is not the kind of thing that plays that role at all. Epistemic justification belongs to judgment governed by norms of relevance, sufficiency, and answerability to how things are, not to phenomenal character.

That’s why my position doesn’t fit cleanly into the traditional direct/indirect realism framework. I’m not trying to resolve that dispute on its own terms; I’m questioning whether it’s framed at the right epistemological level to begin with. So the divergence is genuine, but it's aimed at a shared underlying assumption rather than at one side or the other within the traditional framing.

...the blanket is only causally isolating. Information flows across it, but that does not lead to epistemic confinement. The organism’s perceptual capacities are attuned to environmental states across the blanket; perception is an interaction spanning the boundary, not an encounter with an inner surrogate. What is perceived is the ship, not a mental image that stands in for it. — Banno

Indirect realists wouldn't generally disagree with this, except for the last sentence. Both are perceived. Indirect realism doesn't deny perception of distal objects, but direct realists seem to want to brush aside perception's mediation.

When you see a flower on TV, you are seeing a flower (in the veridical case). And, at the same time, you are seeing pixels. These two "seeings" are related: you see the flower by way of seeing pixels. The pixels represent how the flower would look if it were physically in front of you.

This same relationship holds for perception itself. You see the flower in front of you, and you are seeing
its mental representation. "See" here is used in two senses to describe two components of the same act of perception. You see the flower by way of seeing its mental representation. The mental representation is how the flower looks, to you.

refusing to accept a Cartesian picture in which perception must either be inner and certain or outer and inferential. — Banno

Perception is both. You don't know if the flower you are seeing on TV is real, but you know you are seeing a pixel image that looks like a flower. You don't know if you are truly hearing your mom's voice, but you do know that you are hearing something from your phone that sounds like her. You don't know if the mental representation you experience is truly of a flower "out there", but you do know you are experiencing the mental representation.

This does not mean we should all run and be radical skeptics. It does mean that perception is always structured as an immediate/mediated relationship, between representation and represented, between what is multiply realizable and what just is. Everyday tech objects that allow indirect perception (TVs, telephones) mirror the built in indirection intrinsic to perception (and so two layers of indirection are involved in their experience).

Thanks — this is very helpful, because it makes the structure of your view explicit.

I think the disagreement now turns on a single point. You want stage-two contents (“I am seeing orange”) to be conceptual but not truth-apt, and yet to function in inference to stage-three judgments (“the screen is orange”). But inference requires propositional, truth-apt premises.

That leaves you with a dilemma:

• If “I am seeing orange” is truth-apt, then it is already a judgment and your staged model collapses.
• If it is not truth-apt, then it cannot function as a premise, and the claim that stage-three judgments are inferred from it does not follow.

This is why I’ve insisted that perceptual judgments are not inferred from sensory contents. Sensory experience constrains inquiry causally and motivationally, but it does not supply inferential premises.

When you say that “seeing orange represents an orange screen,” you are reintroducing representation at the sensory level — precisely the move I’m resisting. On my view, representation, truth, and epistemic authority belong at the level of judgment, not sensation.

So the issue isn’t whether the senses mediate our contact with the world — I agree they do — but whether that mediation is inferential and representational, or whether judgment is norm-governed and answerable to how things are without being derived from inner items. That is the point at which we diverge.

Then we have two separate questions:

1. Is direct perception required for our perceptual beliefs about the world to be justified?
2. Is perception direct?

Direct and indirect realists likely agree that the answer to (1) is "yes", with direct realists arguing that the answer to (2) is "yes", and so concluding that our perceptual beliefs about the world are justified, and indirect realists arguing that the answer to (2) is "no", and so concluding that our perceptual beliefs about the world are not justified.

You appear to agree with the indirect realist that the answer to (2) is "no" but disagree with both the direct and indirect realist that the answer to (1) is "yes"?

I think you might be misinterpreting (1). It's not supposed to be interpreted as "does the phenomenal character of experience justify our beliefs about the world?" but as "are we justified in believing that the world is as it appears, i.e. that the phenomenal character of experience is (or resembles) the mind-independent nature the world?" (with naive colour primitivism being the exemplar of such a notion).

Thanks, this helps clarify where the disconnect is.

I think the issue is that your formulation of (1) already presupposes a particular conception of justification — namely, that perceptual beliefs are justified if and only if the world is “as it appears”, where phenomenal character is taken to mirror the phenomenal character of the world (as in naïve colour primitivism).

That is precisely the assumption I’m rejecting. I don’t think perceptual justification turns on whether phenomenal character is the phenomenal character of the world, either successfully (direct realism) or unsuccessfully (indirect realism).

So I don’t agree with the indirect realist that perceptual beliefs are unjustified, nor do I agree with the direct realist about why they are justified. On my view, perceptual beliefs are justified by norm-governed judgment answerable to how things are, with experience constraining inquiry but not serving as the justificatory ground.

In that sense, I’m not denying perceptual justification; I’m rejecting phenomenal appearance as the criterion of it. That’s why my position doesn’t line up cleanly with either side of the traditional direct/indirect realism divide as you’ve framed it.

I think the issue is that your formulation of (1) already presupposes a particular conception of justification — namely, that perceptual beliefs are justified if and only if the world is “as it appears”. — Esse Quam Videri

Perhaps, but then by "perceptual belief" I mean "a belief that the world is as it appears". What do you mean by the term?

So to be very explicit, I'll rephrase (1):

1. Is direct perception required for us to be justified in believing that the world is as it appears?
2. Is perception direct?

If you want to argue that our perceptual beliefs (whatever they are) are justified even if the world isn't as it appears then I'm not sure it's relevant to the direct and indirect realist's concerns. This really depends on what counts as a perceptual belief.

But inference requires propositional, truth-apt premises. — Esse Quam Videri

I agree.
The major premise is the judgement = the screen is orange in the world if I am seeing orange in my mind.
The minor premise is the senses = I am seeing orange in my mind.
The conclusion is the inference = the screen is orange in the world.
============================================

That leaves you with a dilemma:
If “I am seeing orange” is truth-apt, then it is already a judgment and your staged model collapses.
If it is not truth-apt, then it cannot function as a premise, and the claim that stage-three judgments are inferred from it does not follow. — Esse Quam Videri

The minor premise “I am seeing orange” is not truth-apt. The major premise is truth-apt.
================================================

This is why I’ve insisted that perceptual judgments are not inferred from sensory contents — Esse Quam Videri

I agree.
The perceptual judgement that the screen is orange in the world is inferred from both sensory content in the mind, I am seeing orange, and the judgement in the mind that “if I am seeing orange in my mind than the screen is orange in the world”
======================================

On my view, representation, truth, and epistemic authority belong at the level of judgment, not sensation. — Esse Quam Videri

As regards representation, the orange I see in my mind represents the screen being orange in the world. As regards truth, my judgement that "if I am seeing orange in my mind then the screen is orange in the world" is true if the screen is orange in the world
========================================

o the issue isn’t whether the senses mediate our contact with the world — I agree they do — but whether that mediation is inferential and representational, or whether judgment is norm-governed and answerable to how things are without being derived from inner items. That is the point at which we diverge. — Esse Quam Videri

I judge evil to be bad because of what I observe in a mind-external world

The normative I ought to judge that evil is bad Is made prior to any observations of a mind-external world, which still suggests Idealism.

Perhaps, but then by "perceptual belief" I mean "a belief that the world is as it appears". — Michael

Thanks for making the definition explicit — that helps a lot.

I don’t accept that a perceptual belief should be defined as “the belief that the world is as it appears.” That definition already builds in the very thesis at issue in the direct/indirect realism debate, namely that phenomenal appearance is the standard against which perceptual belief is assessed.

By perceptual belief I mean something more ordinary and less theory-laden: they are beliefs about objects and states-of-affairs that are formed in ordinary perceptual contexts (e.g. “there is a ship”, “the screen is emitting orange light”, “the umbrella is wet”). Whether the world is “as it appears” is a further philosophical question about how such beliefs relate to phenomenal character, not what makes them perceptual beliefs in the first place.

Once that distinction is in view, my position is straightforward: perceptual beliefs can be justified even if phenomenal character does not mirror the qualitative character of the world. Justification does not turn on the world being “as it appears,” but on norm-governed judgment answerable to how things actually are, with experience constraining inquiry rather than supplying a standard of adequacy.

If one defines perceptual belief by stipulation as belief that the world is as it appears, then of course my view won’t count as addressing that debate. But that would mean the disagreement is about how to frame the problem, not about whether perceptual knowledge is possible.

By perceptual belief I mean something more ordinary and less theory-laden: they are beliefs about objects and states-of-affairs that are formed in ordinary perceptual contexts (e.g. “there is a ship”, “the screen is emitting orange light”, “the umbrella is wet”). — Esse Quam Videri

Okay, so this is where the Common Kind Claim comes in. If we accept that (2) is false (that perception is not direct) then the phenomenal character of an hallucination can be indistinguishable from the phenomenal character of a so-called "veridical" experience.

If my "background knowledge" is the same in both the "veridical" and the hallucinatory case (which surely it must be, unless hallucinations necessarily affect memory), and if the phenomenal character of an hallucination can be indistinguishable from the phenomenal character of a "veridical" experience, then how can I justify my belief that I am not hallucinating? Other than the (questionable?) assertion that I ought assume that all experience is "veridical" unless I have a good reason to believe otherwise, it would seem that I cannot justify such a belief.

Although I personally find these sceptical conclusions to be secondary to the primary issues of (1) and (2), and especially to (2). If the answer to (2) is "no" then indirect realism is correct, even if its further conclusions (and other assumptions) are unwarranted.

This is helpful, because now the skeptical pressure you’re worried about is fully explicit.

I think the crucial step where we diverge is here: you’re assuming that for an ordinary perceptual belief like “there is a ship” to be justified, I must also be justified in believing something like “my current experience is not hallucinatory” — i.e. that I must first justify a claim about how my experience relates to reality before I’m entitled to make any claims about the world.

I reject that requirement.

It helps to distinguish carefully between phenomenal character itself and claims about how things appear. Phenomenal character is not truth-apt; it does not assert anything, and so it is not something that can be correct or incorrect. Claims about how things appear (e.g. “it looks orange to me”) are truth-apt, but they are reflective, second-order claims that arise for special purposes — disagreement, error-checking, theory-building — not as the epistemic basis of ordinary perceptual judgment.

Ordinary perceptual beliefs are not justified by first establishing that one’s experience is veridical rather than hallucinatory. In normal cases, one does not infer “there is a ship” from the premise “it appears that there is a ship.” One simply judges that there is a ship, and that judgment is assessed over time by its coherence with other judgments, its responsiveness to further experience, and its success or failure in inquiry.

This is why the indistinguishability of hallucination and so-called “veridical” experience does not generate skepticism on my view. That skeptical pressure only arises if we assume that perceptual justification requires antecedent justification of claims about how things appear. I deny that assumption.

Hallucinations matter epistemically when they function as defeaters within inquiry, not as a standing possibility that must be ruled out in advance in order for any perceptual belief to be justified at all.

So the disagreement isn’t about whether hallucinations are possible or whether phenomenal character can be misleading. It’s about whether justification for ordinary beliefs about the world depends on first justifying claims about appearance. That is the assumption I’ve been challenging throughout.

One simply judges that there is a ship, and that judgment is assessed over time by its coherence with other judgments, its responsiveness to further experience, and its success or failure in inquiry. — Esse Quam Videri

All of which can happen if we are hallucinating ships. In the extreme sceptical scenario we are brains-in-a-vat. This is not to say that indirect realists argue that this is probable, only that this is possible. You could argue that such scenarios are fantastical and unfalsifiable, and so unworthy of consideration, but I don't see this as refuting the core claims that perception of the external world is indirect and that it is not as it appears.

I agree that everything I described — coherence, responsiveness to further experience, success in inquiry — could in principle occur in a hallucination or brains-in-a-vat scenario.

But I don’t think that concession supports the conclusion you want to draw.

The mere possibility of global deception does not by itself show that perception is indirect, nor that the world is not as it appears. It only shows that perceptual judgment is fallible — something I have never denied.

The step I think you’re taking for granted is this: that if perception were direct, then massive and systematic error would be impossible. But I don’t see why that should be accepted. Directness is a claim about the kind of relation perception bears to the world, not a claim about epistemic guarantees or immunity to skepticism.

In other words, the fact that we could be wrong about everything does not entail that our beliefs are mediated by representations standing in for the world, rather than being judgments answerable to the world itself. Fallibility and answerability are compatible.

That’s why I don’t take brains-in-a-vat scenarios to motivate indirect realism. They motivate epistemic humility, not a particular metaphysics of perception. To get from “global error is possible” to “perception is indirect” you need an additional premise — that direct perception would rule out such error — and that premise is exactly what I reject.

So the disagreement here isn’t about whether skeptical scenarios are conceivable. It’s about whether conceivability alone licenses conclusions about the structure of perception. I don’t think it does.

The mere possibility of global deception does not by itself show that perception is indirect, nor that the world is not as it appears. — Esse Quam Videri

This has it backwards. The indirect realist claim is that because a) perception is indirect b) the world might not be as it appears and so c) there are legitimate grounds for scepticism, and the direct realist claim is that because d) perception is direct e) the world is as it appears and so f) there are no legitimate grounds for scepticism.

I'm not using (c) to justify either (a) or (b). I am:

1. Citing sources that show that in the context of this discussion the meaning of the phrase "direct perception" is such that if (d) is true then (e) is true
2. Arguing that our scientific understanding of the world shows that (e) is false (e.g. naive colour primitivism is false)
3. Concluding that (d) is false and that (a) is true

I can understand you arguing that (c) does not follow from either (a) or (b) and that (f) does not follow from either (d) or (e), but I think this is secondary to the primary issues of (a), (b), (d), and (e).

Thanks — that clarifies your position.

I don’t deny that many historical formulations of direct realism build in the conditional you cite: if perception is direct, then the world is phenomenally as it appears. Nor do I deny that naïve colour primitivism is false.

What I reject is treating that conditional as definitive of direct perception rather than as a substantive thesis adopted by particular theorists. The falsity of naïve colour primitivism shows that the world is not phenomenally structured as it appears, but that conclusion is neutral on whether perception relates us directly to mind-independent objects or only via inner intermediaries.

Your argument depends on defining direct perception in terms of phenomenal mirroring. My resistance has been to that definition. As I’m using the term, directness concerns whether perceptual judgment is answerable to the world itself, not whether phenomenal character reproduces the qualitative character of reality.

So I don’t dispute your historical reconstruction or the science. I’m disputing whether we should inherit that conditional as a constraint on how the problem must be framed.

We ought accept that they do not directly see their shared environment. — Michael

Then work through that. There is a ship X. It sends data via photons and airwaves through the environment that distorts as it moves through space. It hits my retina and eardrum and onward through brain circuitry. I then have phenomenal state Y. X caused Y, but there were billions of variables in the causal chain from X to Y.

If you want to call Y "ship," you can't confirm we're using the term consistently by pointing to your hidden internal state. You can't show me your beetle.

If you want to call X "ship," you can't identify anything about it at all. It's noumenal.

So, what to do? You look to see if we use the term consistently. You attach meaning to use. It's all you've got.

I was referring to the example of the people with visors on their heads, with sensors on the outside and a screen on the inside displaying a computer-generated representation of their environment.

Even if direct realists want to argue that these people directly see the screen on the inside of the visor they must accept that they do not directly see the environment outside the visor. Yet these people can still talk about the environment outside the visor, not only about their screens.

So Banno's argument that if indirect realism is true then we can only talk about our private experiences is evidently invalid. We don't need direct perception of something to talk about it.

Your reply nicely clarifies the remaining disagreement.

You say the minor “premise” “I am seeing orange” is not truth-apt but can still function in an inference. I don’t think that position is stable. Inference is a normative relation between propositions, and only truth-apt contents can play that role. If “I am seeing orange” is not truth-apt, then it is not a premise at all, and the conclusion cannot be inferred from it.

This is why I distinguish constraint from grounding. Sensory contents constrain inquiry by occasioning and shaping judgment, but they do not function as inferential grounds alongside judgments. The epistemic work is done entirely at the level of judgment.

This also bears on representation. To say that “the orange I see in my mind represents the screen being orange in the world” reintroduces normativity at the level of sensation. Representation can succeed or fail, and once sensation represents, it is no longer non-normative. That is precisely the move I’m resisting.

Finally, rejecting empiricist derivations of norms does not imply Idealism. Epistemic norms are conditions for the possibility of inquiry, not constituents of reality. To say that judgment is norm-governed independently of experience is not to say the world is mental, but that knowing has irreducible normative structure.

So the disagreement is not about whether the senses mediate our contact with the world — I agree they do — but about whether that mediation itself does epistemic work by representing and grounding inference, or whether judgment alone bears epistemic authority while experience constrains it non-inferentially. That is where we part ways.

So here's the thing; anyone can mean anything by the words "direct" and "indirect". It is possible that direct and indirect realists each mean different things by the words such that perception is direct in the sense that direct realists mean by the word "direct" and that perception is not direct in the sense that indirect realists mean by the word "direct", and so that the dispute is nothing more than two groups of people talking past each other.

But I don't think that this is the case, at least traditionally. I think that both groups mean the same thing by the words. I think that naive colour primitivism is exactly what was meant by direct realism, with Locke's distinction between primary and secondary qualities being exactly what was meant by indirect realism. This appears consistent with the definition of direct realism as explained here, where one of the stipulations is that "the phenomenal character of experience is determined, at least partly, by the direct presentation of ordinary objects".

You used the phrase "perception relates us directly to mind-independent objects", but what exactly does it mean for perception to "relate us directly" to mind-independent objects? Consider this example of a society of people who wear visors with sensors on the outside and a screen on the inside displaying a computer-generated representation of their environment. Does their perception "relate them directly" to their environment? They certainly can talk about and make judgements about their environment, but must there be more to it? Will you say that these people "directly perceive" their environment, as Banno says? You're more than welcome to define "direct perception" in such a way that such a proposition is true, but I think it very obvious that this is not what is traditionally meant, either by indirect realists or their direct (naive) realist opponents, both of whom will agree that these people do not directly perceive their environment (even if they disagree over whether or not these people directly perceive the screen). Once again, I think it's semantic direct realists introducing a philosophy distinct from phenomenological direct realism, and which is consistent with (phenomenological) indirect realism (as that article argues).

I agree that this is now a question about how the debate has been traditionally framed, not about skepticism or justification.

I don’t deny that many historical direct realists tied direct perception to naïve colour primitivism, nor that Locke-style views are the canonical contrast class. In that sense, my view is revisionary with respect to the traditional dialectic.

What I reject is the claim that phenomenal mirroring is constitutive of directness rather than a substantive thesis adopted by particular direct realists. The falsity of naïve colour primitivism shows that the world is not phenomenally as it appears, but it does not by itself show that perception must proceed via inner representations standing in for the world.

When I say that perception relates us directly to mind-independent objects, I do not mean that any causal or informational link counts as direct. The visor case is instructive precisely because it introduces an epistemic intermediary whose outputs are the immediate objects of assessment. By contrast, in ordinary perception, our judgments are answerable to objects themselves within a shared public environment, not to internal surrogates whose accuracy must be inferred.

So the disagreement isn’t about whether my usage matches a traditional definition — I’m happy to grant that it doesn’t. It’s about whether we should inherit phenomenal mirroring as a constraint on realism about perception at all. That is the assumption I’ve been rejecting throughout.

Yeah, well, I gather you use mind as a distinct "substance" in your theology, so it works for you there. My rejection of the mind/wold divide is methodological, not just convenient. But this:

This is to mean, if you can jettison the distinction between mental states and external states on the grounds it makes reality easier to comprehend, regardless of whether it comforts with actuality, then you've made it no less logical to insert other preferences into this mix. — Hanover

I again was not able to follow. The fact that mind and world interact I hope we both take as granted, and so ought be suspicious of any doctrine of substances that appears to impede this interaction.

I guess we might also acknowledge two variants on silentism; the one that says there is no further explanation, and the one that in comfortable with lack of congruence.

Ok. The point of the direct vs indirect realism debate is precisely about the subject’s epistemic relation to objects, not the causal chain that brings that relation about. The causal chain is agreed.

And while they are seeing the image on the screen and they are seeing the ship and they are talking about the ship, each of these has a slightly differing sense, each is involved in a different activity. The first, they might see the screen and talk about how it fits in to the causal chain that leads to them seeing the ship. The second, they see the ship. The last, they fit the ship in to their epistemic background.

The indirect realist sees the causal chain and says that perception is indirect. The direct realist sees the chain and point out that the chain is how we know about the ship. For the direct realist, the chain is the mechanism by which the world shows itself, for the indirect realist, it is a veil hiding it.

I very nearly missed your post, yet it's the part of the discussion that I think is novel. Much of the rest has been gone over many times in these fora.

I'll try to be clearer about what it is I think that the Markov Blanket shows. It's to do again with the difference between the causal and the epistemic accounts. A Markov blanket can be placed in different parts of the causal chain with similar results. Consider the causal chain flower - camera - screen - eye - brain. Here are four possibilities:

• Blanket boundary: Around the brain
  
  • Internal states: Brain
  • External states: Everything outside the skull
  • Sensory states: Eye signals
• Blanket boundary: Around the eye
  
  • Internal states: Eye + Brain
  • External states: Screen + Camera + Flower
  • Sensory states: Retinal signals
• Blanket boundary: Around the screen
  
  • Internal states: Screen
  • External states: Camera + Flower
  • Sensory states: Screen pixels
• Blanket boundary: Around the camera
  
  • Internal states: everything behind the camera
  • External states: Flower
  • Sensory states: camera signal

In all three of these, the causal chain remains the same. In the first, the brain "sees" the signal from the eye; in the last, the whole apparatus "sees" the flower; now that's oddly reminiscent of the whole direct/indirect fiasco...

And causally speaking, there's where we can rest. The difference is not in the causal chain, but where one spreads one's Markov blanket.

So, and here we can reject much of the account @Michael has promulgated, since causal mediation does not entail indirect perception.

More anon.

Your reply nicely clarifies the remaining disagreement. — Esse Quam Videri

I may perhaps now understand your position.

Rationalism vs Empiricism

In the grand debate between Rationalism and Empiricism, I would tend to position myself with the Empiricists, such as Hume, where knowledge comes from a combination of sense experience and a reflection on such sense experiences.

I am thinking that you would position yourself with the Rationalists, such as Descartes, where there are significant ways in which our knowledge is gained independently of sense experience.

Nothing is fixed, but the Rationalists tend to align themselves with Direct Realism, as they propose a direct relationship with the world through reason, and the Empiricists tend to align themselves with Indirect Reason, as they rely more on sensory input (SEP - Rationalism vs Empiricism)

However, in that nothing is fixed, I also support Kant’s attempt to bring Rationalism and Empiricism together through Transcendental Idealism.

Evil is bad

As an empiricist, I would tend to judge that “evil is bad” from observations of the world, whereas, as you say, such a judgement should be the normative “I ought to judge that evil is bad” independent of any observations of the world.

I agree that such a normative judgement does not infer Idealism.

Epistemic norms are conditions for the possibility of inquiry, not constituents of reality. To say that judgment is norm-governed independently of experience is not to say the world is mental, but that knowing has irreducible normative structure.@Esse Quam Videri

The empiricist would tend to the belief that from observing that evil is bad, their descriptive judgement would be that evil is bad.

The rationalist would tend to the belief that an observation of evil must be bad, because their normative judgement is that evil is bad.

The difference is a direction of fit: the empiricist from the world to the mind, the rationalist from the mind to the world.

Orange screens

The empiricist would tend to the belief that when I am seeing orange in my mind then I can infer that there is an orange screen in the world, and then make the descriptive judgement that “I am seeing orange in my mind because there is an orange screen in the world”

The rationalist would tend to the normative judgement that because “I ought to be seeing orange in the mind because there is an orange screen in the world”, then when I am seeing orange in my mind then there should be an orange screen in the world.

As you say, "That is where we part ways."

Thanks for laying this out so clearly. Unfortunately, I think a couple of confusions have arisen regarding my position. Let me try to clarify.

First, when I speak of normativity, I am not talking about moral norms (e.g. “evil is bad”), but epistemic normativity: truth, falsity, correctness, and justification. To make a judgment is to take on a set of epistemic responsibilities. That normativity is constitutive of judgment, not something inferred from experience or imposed by the will, and it is independent of any moral “ought”.

Second, I don’t think the rationalism/empiricism contrast maps cleanly onto the disagreement between us. I’m not claiming substantive knowledge of the world independent of experience, as classical rationalists did. But neither am I claiming that experience supplies inferential premises from which all other knowledge is derived, as classical empiricists did. What I reject is empiricist foundationalism: the idea that non-conceptual sensory states can function as epistemic grounds or premises.

On my view, experience is indispensable, but it does not do epistemic work by representing or grounding inference. It constrains judgment non-inferentially, by situating inquiry and correcting it, while judgment alone bears epistemic authority. That places my position outside the traditional rationalist/empiricist divide rather than on the rationalist side of it. My position is best described as post-Kantian with a contemporary anaytic twist, and is heavily indebted to thinkers like Peirce, Sellars and McDowell.

This is why the “direction of fit” framing doesn’t quite apply. I’m not saying the mind legislates how the world must be, nor that sensation ought to match reality. Sensation itself is non-normative. The act of judgment is intrinsically normative, not because it is independent of experience, but because it is truth-apt.

So in the orange-screen case: I’m not saying that because there is an orange screen I ought to see orange, nor that seeing orange licenses an inference. Rather, when I judge “the screen is orange,” that judgment is assessable for truth, and experience constrains it without functioning as a premise.

That, I think, is where our views genuinely diverge: whether sensory mediation itself does epistemic work by representing and grounding inference, or whether judgment alone is epistemically authoritative while experience constrains it non-inferentially.

The indirect realist sees the causal chain and says that perception is indirect. The direct realist sees the chain and point out that the chain is how we know about the ship. — Banno

The indirect realist reads the book The Republic by Plato and says that our knowledge about Socrates is indirect. The direct realist reads the book and says that the book is how we know about Socrates.

Both are true.

Our knowledge about the ship is indirect because it has come directly from the causal chain.

The indirect realist is referring to the ship. The direct realist is referring to the causal chain.

First, when I speak of normativity, I am not talking about moral norms (e.g. “evil is bad”), but epistemic normativity: truth, falsity, correctness, and justification. To make a judgment is to take on a set of epistemic responsibilities. That normativity is constitutive of judgment, not something inferred from experience or imposed by the will, and it is independent of any moral “ought”. — Esse Quam Videri

Suppose you make the judgement that if you see an orange screen in your mind then there is an orange screen in the world.

Your judgement is true if when you see an orange screen in your mind then there is an orange screen in the world.

What makes your judgement normative rather than descriptive?

In society, the rule “you should not smoke indoors” is normative because it is controlled by the law.

In life, the rule “evil is bad” is normative because it is part of an innate, human nature.

You say your judgement is not normative because of any phenomenal experiences or will of the mind.

Then what exactly makes your judgements normative rather than descriptive?

This is where I think a crucial distinction is getting lost.

The normativity I’m talking about is not a property of the content judged, but of the act of judging. The proposition “if I see orange, then the screen is orange” is entirely descriptive. What is normative is taking it to be true — committing oneself to its correctness and taking responsibility if it turns out to be false.

That’s why comparisons with laws or moral rules don’t quite apply. Legal and moral norms are prescriptive and externally grounded. Epistemic normativity is neither enforced nor derived; it is imminent and constitutive. To judge at all is to place oneself under standards of truth, justification, and error. No additional rule, institution, or innate principle is required.

So when I say judgment is normative, I don’t mean that it issues an “ought” in the moral sense, or that it is governed by conventions. I mean that to judge is to take a stance that can succeed or fail — that can be correct or incorrect — and that this answerability is what distinguishes judgment from mere sensation or description.

That is also why sensory experience, while indispensable, cannot itself function as an inferential premise. Sensation is not the kind of thing that can be right or wrong. Judgment is. And that difference is where epistemic authority resides.