Direct Perceptual Realism I: The Refutation of Idealism
Direct Perceptual Realism I: The Refutation of Idealism
This chapter examines Kant's argument for direct perceptual realism. It begins with a negative evaluation of Kant's Refutation and then moves towards a more positive line of analysis. It is argued that although Kant's Refutation of Idealism fails to establish the conceptual correctness and judgmental truth of outer perceptions of distal material objects, it does nevertheless establish the truth of content externalism. And when it is supplemented by some points from ‘Directions in Space’ and ‘What is Orientation in Thinking?’, it also refutes sceptical idealism and establishes direct perceptual realism by means of the quite substantive thesis of the necessity of self-orienting embodiment for all self-conscious creatures sharing our cognitive constitution, as well as the non-inferential warrant of perceptual judgments about some proximal and distal material objects.
Keywords: truth, perception, content externalism, direct perceptual realism
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