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Realism’s Kick

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The Philosophy of Perception
This chapter is in the book The Philosophy of Perception

Abstract

Samuel Johnson claimed to have refuted Berkeley by kicking a stone. It is generally thought that Johnson misses the point of Berkeley's immaterialism for a rather obvious reason: Berkeley never denied that the stone feels solid, but only that the stone could exist independently of any mind. I argue that Johnson was on the right track. On my interpretation, Johnson’s idea is that because the stone feels to resist our effort, the stone seems to have causal powers. But if appearances are to be taken at face value, as Berkeley insists, then the stone has causal powers. I argue that such causal powers threaten not only Berkeley’s view that only minds are active, but also, and more fundamentally, his central claim that sensible things depend on perception.

Abstract

Samuel Johnson claimed to have refuted Berkeley by kicking a stone. It is generally thought that Johnson misses the point of Berkeley's immaterialism for a rather obvious reason: Berkeley never denied that the stone feels solid, but only that the stone could exist independently of any mind. I argue that Johnson was on the right track. On my interpretation, Johnson’s idea is that because the stone feels to resist our effort, the stone seems to have causal powers. But if appearances are to be taken at face value, as Berkeley insists, then the stone has causal powers. I argue that such causal powers threaten not only Berkeley’s view that only minds are active, but also, and more fundamentally, his central claim that sensible things depend on perception.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Content V
  3. Editorial IX
  4. 1. Objectivity and Realism
  5. Perception: Ground of Empirical Objectivity 3
  6. Objectivity: How is it Possible? 23
  7. Realism’s Kick 39
  8. The Good, The Bad, and The Naïve 57
  9. 2. Content and Intentionality
  10. How to Think About the Representational Content of Visual Experience 77
  11. Structure, Intentionality and the Given 95
  12. Brentano on Perception and Illusion 119
  13. The Problem with J. Searle’s Idea That ‘all Seeing is Seeing-as’ (or What Wittgenstein did not Mean With the Duck-Rabbit) 135
  14. 3. Perception, Cognition and Images
  15. The Perception/Cognition Divide: One More Time, With Feeling 149
  16. Why Verbal Understanding is Unlikely to be an Extended Form of Perception 171
  17. Sound and Image 189
  18. 4. The Cognitive Penetrability of Perception
  19. Bias-Driven Attention, Cognitive Penetration and Epistemic Downgrading 199
  20. Pre-Cueing, Early Vision, and Cognitive Penetrability 217
  21. Predictions do not Entail Cognitive Penetration: “Racial” Biases in Predictive Models of Perception 235
  22. 5. Epistemology of Perception
  23. Boundless 251
  24. The Manifest and the Philosophical Image of Perceptual Knowledge 275
  25. The Co-Presentational Character of Perception 303
  26. Knowledge Without Observation: Body Image or Body Schema? 323
  27. 6. Perception and the Sciences
  28. Scheinbewegungen. Wahrnehmung zwischen Wissensgeschichte und Gegenwartskunst 337
  29. Zur Analogie von Wittgensteins Konzept des Aspektwechsels und der wissenschaftlichen Metapher als Vehikel der Innovation 357
  30. 7. Wittgenstein
  31. The Structure of Tractatus and the Tractatus Numbering System 377
  32. Wittgensteins Welt 399
  33. Index of Names 417
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110657920-003

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Content V
  3. Editorial IX
  4. 1. Objectivity and Realism
  5. Perception: Ground of Empirical Objectivity 3
  6. Objectivity: How is it Possible? 23
  7. Realism’s Kick 39
  8. The Good, The Bad, and The Naïve 57
  9. 2. Content and Intentionality
  10. How to Think About the Representational Content of Visual Experience 77
  11. Structure, Intentionality and the Given 95
  12. Brentano on Perception and Illusion 119
  13. The Problem with J. Searle’s Idea That ‘all Seeing is Seeing-as’ (or What Wittgenstein did not Mean With the Duck-Rabbit) 135
  14. 3. Perception, Cognition and Images
  15. The Perception/Cognition Divide: One More Time, With Feeling 149
  16. Why Verbal Understanding is Unlikely to be an Extended Form of Perception 171
  17. Sound and Image 189
  18. 4. The Cognitive Penetrability of Perception
  19. Bias-Driven Attention, Cognitive Penetration and Epistemic Downgrading 199
  20. Pre-Cueing, Early Vision, and Cognitive Penetrability 217
  21. Predictions do not Entail Cognitive Penetration: “Racial” Biases in Predictive Models of Perception 235
  22. 5. Epistemology of Perception
  23. Boundless 251
  24. The Manifest and the Philosophical Image of Perceptual Knowledge 275
  25. The Co-Presentational Character of Perception 303
  26. Knowledge Without Observation: Body Image or Body Schema? 323
  27. 6. Perception and the Sciences
  28. Scheinbewegungen. Wahrnehmung zwischen Wissensgeschichte und Gegenwartskunst 337
  29. Zur Analogie von Wittgensteins Konzept des Aspektwechsels und der wissenschaftlichen Metapher als Vehikel der Innovation 357
  30. 7. Wittgenstein
  31. The Structure of Tractatus and the Tractatus Numbering System 377
  32. Wittgensteins Welt 399
  33. Index of Names 417
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