Perception, Abstraction and Idealism - General Philosophy (Peter Millican)

In this lecture on General Philosophy, Professor Peter Millican discusses the problem of perception, the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, resemblance, abstraction, and idealism. This comes from a 2010 series on General Philosophy. The slides have been added.

Uploaded 08-06-21

This series of lectures was delivered by Peter Millican to first-year philosophy students at the University of Oxford. The lectures comprise of the 8-week General Philosophy course, delivered to first year undergraduates. These lectures aim to provide a thorough introduction to many philosophical topics and to get students and others interested in thinking about key areas of philosophy. Taking a chronological view of the history of philosophy, each lecture is split into 3 or 4 sections which outline a particular philosophical problem and how different philosophers have attempted to resolve the issue. Individuals interested in the 'big' questions about life such as how we perceive the world, who we are in the world and whether we are free to act will find this series informative, comprehensive and accessible.

More lectures on General Philosophy: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhP9EhPApKE_xo2wvkm6qPZrUlAiRNHXb

Source: https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/general-philosophy

00:00 Intro to Primary and Secondary Qualities
01:04 The Mechanisms of Perception
02:41 What are Objects Like?
04:20 Locke and Corpuscularianism
07:47 Pains, Colours, and Shapes
09:24 A Problematic Text
11:03 In Objects, or Just In the Mind?
14:29 Why Resemblance?
16:01 Can an Idea Resemble an Object?
18:41 Structural Resemblance?
21:44 Solidity
23:42 Hume’s Criticism
25:11 Empiricism and Understanding
26:23 The Attack on Abstraction
29:25 The Case for Idealism
30:26 “Something I Know Not What”
35:16 Locke’s Indirect Realism
36:13 An Unacceptable Interpretation
38:30 Sense Data
39:08 How To Prove the Causal Link?
40:50 Phenomenalism
43:20 Direct Realism
45:59 Is a Lockean View Defensible?
48:29 Explanatory Realism

#philosophy #epistemology #perception #skepticism #philosophyofmind #historyofphilosophy



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