MENTAL MODEL · M13276

The Problem of Perception

Learn & MetacognitionHigh supportCognitive Science

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Updated 2026-09-10

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INTRODUCTION

English translation pending.

CORE DEFINITION

The problem of perception is a fundamental difficulty for our everyday view: since errors such as illusion and hallucination are possible, how can perceptual experience put us in direct contact with the world, as we ordinarily understand that it does? The main theories of experience are all responses to this challenge.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

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- Test the argument: use the indistinguishability of hallucination from genuine perception to check direct realism for its consistency. - Position the view: ask whether sense data are admitted as the direct objects of experience, and classify the theory accordingly.

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The argument rests on an indistinguishability premise: hallucination and genuine perception are indistinguishable from the subject's side, so the direct objects of both must be of the same kind. If the object of a hallucination is only a sense datum, then the direct object of perception is also a sense datum, and the world is pushed behind the veil of experience, which is what shakes direct realism.

MINIMUM ACTION

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Practice this model in one real situation:

State the everyday intuition that perception presents the world itself. 2. Bring in illusion and hallucination and ask whether they are subjectively distinguishable. 3. Test whether the sameness claim actually holds. 4. Compare what direct realism and sense-datum theory each must pay.

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Source support: Explicit

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plato.stanford.eduhttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem/ZH · Explicit
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