Assess Representative Realism

One of the main problems with representative realism is that it can argued that if we are only ever experiencing perceptions of objects then what is to say these objects do even exist. All of our experience is of perceptions of objects and never of the real objects themselves. Representative realism gives rise to Idealism. Idealism argues that all qualities are secondary or as Berkley put it; “in my head.” Representative realism seems to have little need for the real world if we never truly experience it. What is to say that all sense experience is not like the pencil in the glass of water and rather an illusion? It is almost impossible to describe what an objective or real experience might consist of because it seems that every experience is relative to a different viewpoint.

There are several criticisms that dispute the idea of representative realism. In the case of secondary qualities they may in fact be genuine qualities of an object. Secondary qualities are said to only exist if there is a perceiver to perceive them. Yet many would argue that some secondary qualities are just matters of fact. A poisonous leaf is poisonous as a matter of fact. This secondary quality is not subjective but rather a genuine property of the leaf. The leaf also remains poisonous whether somebody eats it or not. Another problem with representative realism is that we cannot know whether the sense data we interpret has any relevance to the object. Just because we receive blue sense data it doesn’t necessarily mean that there is a blue object. There could be other life forms that perceive more colours than humans can. The argument is circular in that it argues if there is blue sense data then the object must be blue which therefore means the object must emit blue sense data which therefore means the object must be blue and etcetera until infinity.

Representative realism makes a concerted effort to resolve problems concerning perceptual knowledge. The main issue with the argument is that there is no obvious conclusion that the material world exists. It helps to answer the problems posed by naive realism but not those that idealism suggests i.e. the existence of the material world. Representative realism makes reality unknowable as it is impossible to know what is real and what is not if all our knowledge is merely based upon our perceptions and interpretations of sense data.