Representative Realism

Question 1

Argument from perceptual variation

Answer 1

1. The objects I perceive vary under certain conditions
2. external world objects do not vary under the same conditions
3. therefore, the objects I perceive are not external world objects

Question 2

Hume on the table

Answer 2

The table […] seems to diminish as we remove farther from it; but the real table, which exists independent of us, suffers no alteration

Question 3

Austin on barns

Answer 3

not see an immaterial barn, an immaterial church, or an immaterial anything else

Question 4

Locke on perceptions external to the mind

Answer 4

I can’t avoid the ideas that the light or sun then produces in me […] the latter ideas – the ones I have whether I want them or not – must be produced in my mind by some exterior cause

Question 5

Cockburn, and Berkeley response

Answer 5

Since the same object is the cause of ideas by different senses, thence we infer its existence

An idea can be like nothing but an idea