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Is indirect realism a plausible theory of perception? What are you directly aware of whilst reading this passage? Is it the paper and ink that form the words? Or is it something more abstract, something intangible, something internal? According to indirect realism you are perceiving sense data, an 'idea' of this passage which is caused by the paper and ink, a mental image which resembles the material object's properties (primary at least). In the following …

…is not a desirable answer as then we find it gives rise to the question of how we are to perceive an idea, it gives rise to the notion that ideas are independent of a perceiver and it gives rise to the possibility that we can know nothing of our surroundings for sure. It would seem that we need to redefine our theory of perception, as in my view, this is not a plausible one.