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Illusion, Argument From |
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There are, in philosophy, a number of versions of the argument from illusion. All versions attempt to establish that when one perceives an object, all one can be immediately aware of is one\'s sensory experience as of it, and not the object itself.
One version of the argument from illusion begins with considerations concerning hallucinations. When Macbeth asks whether there is a dagger in front of him, the answer is ‘no’. Macbeth clearly is not perceiving a dagger, because there isn\'t a dagger there. But he is having a visual experience as of a dagger in front of him. When someone hallucinates an object, they have a sensory experience as of an object which is not there. Further, seeing an object is phenomenologically indistinguishable from (that is, feels just the same as) hallucinating it. So even when Macbeth does see a dagger, even when there is a dagger before him and it causes him to have an experience as of it, all he is immediately aware of is his experience as of a dagger, not the dagger itself.
Another version of the argument begins with considerations concerning the perception of distant objects. One can perceive a distant star which no longer exists. The light now striking one\'s retina and causing one to ‘see’ the star left the star millennia ago, and the star has since ceased to exist. So what one currently sees cannot be the star, but a sensory experience as of it. And, more generally, when one perceives an object, all one can be immediately aware of is one\'s sensory experience as of it, and not the object itself.
The claim that all we are ever directly aware of are sensory experiences as of objects and not objects themselves seems to give rise to the problem of scepticism. If one is only ever directly aware of sensory experiences as of objects and not objects themselves, how can one know that the objects really are as they seem to be? AJ
See also idealism; naive realism; representative theory of perception; scepticism.Further reading D. Armstrong, Perception and the Physical World; , A.J. Ayer, The Central Questions of Philosophy. |
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