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    Positing species as intermediaries generates an infinite ... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→Humans have no direct access to things in the external world and immediately perceive only mental likenesses (species) of those things.

    Positing species as intermediaries generates an infinite regress: we would need further species to perceive the original species.

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    Reasons For

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    Reason for
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    • 1.If species are required to bridge subject and object, then perceiving those species requires another intermediary, creating infinite recursion.
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    • 2.Infinite regresses undermine explanatory theories by preventing any foundational account of how perception actually occurs.
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    • 3.Direct realism avoids this problem by positing unmediated perception, making species metaphysically unnecessary and implausible.
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    Reasons Against

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    Reason against
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    • 1.Species function differently than objects: they enable perception rather than requiring perception themselves, breaking the regress logic.
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    • 2.Infinite regresses are problematic only if each step requires the same type of explanation; species may terminate the chain structurally.
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    • 3.Direct realism faces its own difficulties explaining illusions, hallucinations, and the phenomenological gap between world and experience.
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    Related

    Direct realism avoids this problem by positing unmediated perception, making spe...Direct realism faces its own difficulties explaining illusions, hallucinations, ...Humans have no direct access to things in the external world and immediately per...If species are required to bridge subject and object, then perceiving those spec...
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    Infinite regresses are problematic only if each step requires the same type of e...Infinite regresses undermine explanatory theories by preventing any foundational...Species function differently than objects: they enable perception rather than re...

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