Blackwell Reference Online

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E pistemology The common sense view of the world held by most ordinary people. According to this view, the external world consists of objects such as rocks and trees and the qualities they possess. The world exists and develops independently of our sensations and thought. Our sensations, like mirrors, reflect this world as it is. Such a view also believes uncritically that we have the ability to know the world. However, upon reflection, philosophers find that the nature of the world and our knowledge about it are both much more complicated and puzzling than naive realism suggests. Many so-called secondary qualities such as color, taste, and smell are inseparable from our senses rather than properties of things independent of us. Our perceptions sometimes deceive us. From here we may derive many fundamental philosophical questions, such as “What is real?” “What is appearance?” “How is illusion possible?” “Is our experience a reliable source of knowledge?” One of the major tasks of philosophy is to uncover the difficulties hidden in the common assumptions of views such as naive realism in order to understand the world better. “Naive realism leads to physics, and physics, if true, shows that naive realism is false. Therefore naive realism, if true, is false; therefore it is false.” Russell, An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth ... log in or subscribe to read full text