Is direct realism tenable? Has it been successfully defended?

[Eiuol]

I haven't read that book. So I wouldn't know.

[Grames]

On 12/23/2022 at 3:21 PM, Frank said:

How would you both compare this book by Kelley to Michael Huemer's "The Veil of Perception"? Does it add anything new?

Haven't read it.  Amazon reviewers and this academic review give him high marks for writing in an accessible manner, so Huemer would have that over Kelley.  Huemer did not spend time getting grilled by Rand however, so I suspect from what I can glean from the reviews and the sample text at Amazon is too much effort spent on nonessentials and arbitrary principles.  From the Notre Dame Philosophical Review article: 

 

Quote

 

... his principle of phenomenal conservatism (PC):

If it seems to S as if P, then S thereby has at least prima facie justification for believing that P. (p. 99)

 

 

Where does this come from?  Kelley at least spells out and defends axioms, and points out the critical issue of 'primacy of existence' versus 'primacy of consciousness'.  Kelley shows how an apriori commitment to one primacy or the other establishes a framework for the questions asked about perception and the answers that are possible within those frameworks.  In other words, Huemer does not penetrate to fundamentals (from my limited information).

Worse, I think I've read works by this guy discussing Objectivism and Objectivist epistemology.  For him to fail to at least reference Kelley's book is pretty shitty of him even if he doesn't want to base his work on those who were prior to him.