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    The flux theorist can preserve the claim that all appeara... — Carmelics
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    Home/Perception
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    The flux theorist can preserve the claim that all appearances are true by treating apparently false appearances as different appearances to different people rather than false appearances to the same person.

    PerceptionTruth & Knowledge
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    2 reasons against

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    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Dreams and waking perceptions appear to conflict, suggesting some appearances are false.
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    • 2.According to the flux theory, a perceiver is individuated by a specific combination of a perception and a perceiving.
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    • 3.If each perception event constitutes a distinct perceiver, then dream appearances and waking appearances are appearances to numerically distinct perceivers, not the same perceiver.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.A single biological organism retains memory and psychological continuity across perception events, constituting a persisting subject despite flux.
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    • 2.If the same organism later judges a prior appearance to have been misleading, this cross-temporal judgment cannot be dissolved by stipulating numerically distinct perceivers.
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    • 3.The flux theorist's individuation of perceivers is ad hoc unless independently motivated, since it is introduced precisely to block falsity rather than to describe experience.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Protagoras himself distinguished better and worse appearances in the Theaetetus, conceding the wise physician produces superior perceptual states in the sick patient.
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    • 2.If some appearances are better than others for the same organism, a normative standard of correctness is implicitly invoked that is incompatible with strict relativism about truth.
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    • 3.Once a normative standard is admitted, the move to deflect false appearances onto distinct perceivers merely relocates rather than eliminates the problem of perceptual error.
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    Topics

    PerceptionTruth & Knowledge

    Key Terms

    Appearances(Kantian transcendental idealism)
    Objects as they are given through sensible intuition and structured by the categories, as opposed to things in themselves (objects as they are independently of human cognition).
    Flux theorist(as the subject of the statement)
    A philosopher who believes that reality is constantly changing and that what we perceive as fixed or stable is actually in flux (always shifting). This view traces back to ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus.
    Relativism (implied by the argument)(as the underlying principle of treating appearances as different for different people)
    The idea that truth or reality might be different for different people depending on their perspective, rather than being the same for everyone.
    epistemology(Contrasted with purely descriptive scientific inquiry)
    A normative enterprise that tells us how we ought to reason from evidence and how we ought to justify our beliefs, as distinct from merely describing how we do reason or justify beliefs

    Connections

    2 topics

    Personal Identity2 linkedSkepticism1 linked

    Related

    A single biological organism retains memory and psychological continuity across ...According to the flux theory, a perceiver is individuated by a specific combinat...

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: plato-theaetetus
    View source passageHide passage
    At 157c–160c Socrates states a first objection to the flux theory. This asks how the flux theorist is to distinguish false (deceptive) appearances such as dreams from the true (undeceptive) appearances of the waking world. The flux theorist’s answer is that such appearances should not be described as ‘true’ and ‘false’ appearances to the same person. Rather they should be described as different appearances to different people. According to the flux theorist, we have the same person if and only i
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Dreams and waking perceptions appear to conflict, suggesting some appearances ar...
    If each perception event constitutes a distinct perceiver, then dream appearance...
    +6 moreShow less
    If no two conflicting appearances are had by the same perceiver, there is no bas...If some appearances are better than others for the same organism, a normative st...If the same organism later judges a prior appearance to have been misleading, th...Once a normative standard is admitted, the move to deflect false appearances ont...Protagoras himself distinguished better and worse appearances in the Theaetetus,...The flux theorist's individuation of perceivers is ad hoc unless independently m...

    Similar

    Preserving the claim that all appearances are true requires that confl...80%According to the flux theory, a perceiver is individuated by a specifi...78%The flux theory's individuation of perceivers by perception-events is ...78%If no two conflicting appearances are had by the same perceiver, there...77%
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit