Naive realism

Naive realism claims that people perceive their surroundings directly.

Naive realism (also Classic realism , direct realism or common-sense realism to eng . Commonsense realism ) is in a specific position in the philosophical theory of knowledge , more precisely the theory of perception. According to her, things are essentially as they appear to us. The yellow color, for example, comes from an object itself and is not an effect of our perception. Figuratively speaking, the perceiver assumes a passive, receptive role, while the things to be perceived impose themselves, as it were.

Naive realism in the 20th and 21st centuries

At the beginning of the 20th century, naive realism was hardly represented in philosophy, because u. a. Bertrand Russell , succeeding Berkeley and Hume, had put forward convincing arguments against him.

Variants of Naive Realism were represented by John Dewey , William James , Austin , Searle , John McDowell , and in some cases also Husserl and Wittgenstein and Putnam .

Searle speaks of a genetic fallacy : Many constructivists are of the opinion that a causal explanation for the genesis of perception, which describes complicated brain processes, refutes naive realism. But: “ From the fact that our knowledge / imagination / image of reality is constructed by human brains in human interactions, it does not follow that the reality of which we have knowledge / imagination / image was created by human brains in human interactions is. (There is also a problem with human brains and human interactions themselves. Are they supposed to have been constructed by human interactions too?) The conclusion from the collective neurophysiological causal explanation of our knowledge of the external world to the non-existence of the external world is simply one Non sequitur , a genetic fallacy. "

George Edward Moore is often mentioned as a prominent representative of the current in the new philosophy; he understands naive realism as follows: “ I can now z. B. prove that two human hands exist. How? By raising both hands, making a certain gesture with the right hand and saying, 'Here is a hand' and then adding, making a certain gesture with the left hand, 'Here is another'. And when, in doing this, I ipso facto have proven the existence of external conditions, you will all see that I can do it in a variety of other ways; there is no need to accumulate further examples. "

See also

• realism
• Critical realism
• Moderate realism

literature

• Pierre Le Morvan (2004) "Arguments Against Direct Realism and How to Counter Them" , in: The American Philosophical Quarterly 41 (3), 221-2 (PDF file; 261 kB)
• Moltke S. Gram (1983): Direct Realism. A Study of Perception , Dordrecht: Kluwer.
• David Macarthur (2004): Putnam's Natural Realism (PDF; 126 kB), in: Philosophical Explorations, Vol. 7, No 2
• Douglas McDermid (2004): The Real World Regained? Searle's External Realism Examined , in: KRITERION No. 18 (2004), 1-9.
• David W. Smith (1982): The Realism in Perception , in: Nous 16 (1), 42-55.
• Stephen Wilcox / Stuart Katz (1984): Can Indirect Realism be demonstrated in the psychological laboratory , in: Philosophy of the Social Sciences 14, 149-57.

Web links

• Fodor (2000) Review by H. Putnam: The threefold cord
• Wilhelm Wundt - About naive and critical realism

Footnotes

1. ↑ ^{a b} Dario Corradini: The naive realism , in philosophy Eph 10 , Cologne, 2013
2. ↑ inter alia in Threefold Cord, 2000
3. ↑ Searle, John R .: The construction of social reality. On the ontology of social facts. Reinbek 1997, 166