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Reality

Against Direct Realism

Paul Griffiths argues that modern metaphysics is taking a wrong turn.

The late twentieth century saw a dramatic rise in the fortunes of direct realism. Up until the middle years of that century, the vast majority of philosophers dismissed theories of direct perception of the world – essentially the common sense understanding – as naïve, but by its close, such theories had become the orthodoxy within analytic philosophy. William Fish, who has written extensively on the philosophy of perception, puts it particularly well: “There was a time when to call a theory of perception a version of ‘direct realism’ was almost equivalent to calling it ‘hopelessly naïve’. Time has told however, that it was this assumption which was naïve, and nowadays the majority of theories on the market see themselves as direct realist” (Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 82 (3), 2004). On the other hand, mainstream cognitive science has been consistent in its rejection of theories of direct perception such as direct realism.

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