Dr Laura Gow gives masterclass on Perception as a Source of Knowledge
I was very pleased to be invited to give a masterclass on Perception as a Source of Knowledge at Queen Anne’s School in Caversham, Reading. On the 13th February, I met with the Sixth form students and we spent an hour thinking about the important role perceptual experiences play in our ability to gain knowledge about the world.
We considered the two main traditional views of perception: direct realism and indirect realism. After being introduced to the two views, the students assessed which view scores better according to various considerations: simplicity, parsimony, compatibility with common sense, and being able to provide us with knowledge about the world. Direct realism came out the clear winner! However, we then did a number of experiments involving illusions and after images, and a test which indicated that we see colours differently from each other.
We discussed why these findings cause significant problems for the direct realist view, and we talked about what proponents of this view can say in response. We realised that the debate is still very much alive!