AQA A LEVEL PHILOSOPHY Essay Plans - EPISTEMOLOGY
A* Level Essay Plans which are concise and easy to understand.
Written by a student predicted 4A*, with an offer to study Philosophy & Economics at the LSE.
Very helpful to write a top grade essay.
Essay plan: to what extent is direct realism a convincing theory of
perception?
Thesis: theory is a relatively convincing theory of perception, but not the most
convincing due to its flaws.
Explanation and strengths of theory:
- The immediate objects of perception are mind-independent.
- Not mediated by sense data.
- Our perception is entirely constituted by physical processes.
- Mind independent objects
- We do perceive them directly: perception is our openness to reality
- Everything you see is how it actually exists in the real world
- Strengths: common-sense theory
- Seems logical that our perceptions are reliable
- Initially wards off skepticism as our perceptions are reliable
Issue 1: LEAST CONVINCING
- Hallucination: you perceive something which doesn’t exist in the external
world
- The hallucination is subjectively indistinguishable from veridical
perception and can be generalized to all cases of perception: meaning we
always perceive sense-data
Response:
- Disjunctivism: hallucinations are distinct from veridical perception.
- In a hallucination we don’t perceive anything (no cognitive contact with
real world), therefore you’re not connected to the world
- Merely an imagination so argument fails
Issue 2: RELATIVELY CONVINCING
Time-lag: you see an object, and the object may no longer exist in the external
world (due to possibility of it not existing so there’s a chance you’re perceiving
nothing
So what you directly perceive doesn’t exist and direct realism is false
Response:
- Eternalism: we can perceive in the past or present
- Confusion between what we perceive and how we perceive it: we may
perceive the object via light rays but what we are perceiving is still a
mind-independent object we are simply perceiving it in the past
Response to response:
- Presentism: somewhat logical where we can only perceive things in the
present
- Makes sense intuitively
Issue 3: MOST CONVINCING
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