3.1.2 Perception as a source of knowledge - 5 markers

Question 1

The argument that it leads to scepticism about the existence of mind-independent objects

Answer 1

P1: If we never directly perceive mind-independent objects, our perceptual experience can never give direct evidence that such objects exist.
P2: Any claim that mind-independent objects exist therefore have to be inferred from claims about sense data.
P3: Such an inference cannot be justified
C1: Therefore, the indirect realist cannot know that there is a mind-independent external reality beyond what is directly percieved (i.e. mind dependent sense data)

Question 2

Responses, including: Locke’s argument from involuntary nature of our experience

Question 3

Responses, including: the argument from the coherence of various kinds of experience, as developed by Locke and Catharine Trotter Cockburn

Question 4

Responses, including: Bertrand Russell’s response that the external world is the ‘best hypothesis’.

Question 5

The argument from George Berkeley that we cannot know the nature of mind-independent object because mind-dependent idea cannot be like mind-independent objects.