Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Direct and indirect realism" in English language version.
The distinction between direct and indirect realism about perception has an interesting history. There was a time when perception was understood to be of things themselves, not of our ideas of things. This is what we find in Aristotle and Aquinas, who maintain that the mind or understanding grasps the form of the material object without the matter. What we perceive directly, on this view, are material objects. This changed in the seventeenth century with Descartes and Locke. who can be read as saying that the primary objects of perception are not things external to the mind but sense-data. Sense-data are the messengers that stand between us and physical objects such as tables and chairs. While indirect realism was the standard view of early modern philosophers, nowadays direct realism is, once again, in fashion.
The distinction between direct and indirect realism about perception has an interesting history. There was a time when perception was understood to be of things themselves, not of our ideas of things. This is what we find in Aristotle and Aquinas, who maintain that the mind or understanding grasps the form of the material object without the matter. What we perceive directly, on this view, are material objects. This changed in the seventeenth century with Descartes and Locke. who can be read as saying that the primary objects of perception are not things external to the mind but sense-data. Sense-data are the messengers that stand between us and physical objects such as tables and chairs. While indirect realism was the standard view of early modern philosophers, nowadays direct realism is, once again, in fashion.
The distinction between direct and indirect realism about perception has an interesting history. There was a time when perception was understood to be of things themselves, not of our ideas of things. This is what we find in Aristotle and Aquinas, who maintain that the mind or understanding grasps the form of the material object without the matter. What we perceive directly, on this view, are material objects. This changed in the seventeenth century with Descartes and Locke. who can be read as saying that the primary objects of perception are not things external to the mind but sense-data. Sense-data are the messengers that stand between us and physical objects such as tables and chairs. While indirect realism was the standard view of early modern philosophers, nowadays direct realism is, once again, in fashion.
