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CONCEPTUALIZING THE  
PROBLEM OF PERCEPTION IN  

THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL ENTERPRISE 
 

 

 

 

Abstract 

Is it possible to discuss perception from the object 

perspective? The much that has been recounted about 

perception has actually centred on the subject experience 

and I fear that such rather one-sided introspection may not 

offer a satisfactory view in the discourse of perception. So, 

the perennial problem of perception is not that we perceive 

differently or that we are trapped in an endless struggle of 

justifying knowledge claims through perception, but that 

proponents of the theory of perception are often guilty of 

silencing the vociferous perspective of the objects of 

perception. My concern, therefore, is how to echo the 

perspective of the object of perception in such a way that its 

relevance in the discourse of perception is not quietened. 

Again, there is an attempt to discover if the objects of 

perception speak and if it does why the discordance 

interpretation of what otherwise is unanimous. Finally, I 

conclude that there are linguistic aspects to the 

disconnection between the subject and the object of 

perception. 

 

Keywords: perception, illusion, hallucination, realism, 

phenomenalism, idealism. 
 

Introduction 

The epistemological enterprise is dotted with knowledge claim and 

the justification thereof. Put differently, it prioritizes the quest for 



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how we come to know and the justification of what we claim to 

know. Little wonder Jürgen Habermas opined that “if we are to be 

answering a question about modern epistemology, it should be about 

the possibility of human knowledge. What can we know? How do 

we know what we claim to know? How are we certain that we know 

what we claim to know?”1 Robert Audi typifies that “Like Rene 

Descartes, we have all asked ourselves at one time or another 

‘couldn’t everything I seem to see, hear, etc. be illusory? Might I in 

fact be dreaming all this? If so what do I really know of the outside 

world?”2 

Worthy of mention is the fact that one of the thematic 

discourse in the epistemological enterprise is perception. Scepticism 

about perception poses a great challenge to the possibility and 

justification of human knowledge by questioning the 

trustworthiness of our senses since avalanche of our knowledge 

claims are premised on the senses. Most of the time, we justify our 

knowledge of the world on our ability to perceive things via the 

senses. Sceptics ask, how reliable are the senses in providing us with 

accurate knowledge of the world? How sure are we that we are not 

actually experiencing a dream? What if we are just merely a brain 

in a vat stimulated to have the experiences and apparent memories 

we now have, what if all knowledge claim is illusionary and mere 

hallucination? 

Consequence upon the above challenges, there are attempts 

to address them by scholars which has been novel. While some parts 

of this paper would relay critically some of the contributions to this 

discourse, the main focus is to explore the possibility of 

championing an object perspective. Moreover, we submit that the 

problem of perceptions has a linguistic implication which is novel 

and worthy of attention.   . 

 

Perception: Meaning and Theories 

The Oxford Companion to Philosophy defines perception as the 

“extraction and use of information about one’s own environment 

(exteroception) and one’s own body (proprioception). The external 

senses sight, hearing, touch,  smell, and taste — though overlapping 

to some extent, are distinguished by the kind of information they 



112      |     Ekpoma Review, Volume. 5 No. 1., 2019   

 

convey (e.g. about light, pressure, sound, and temperature).3 

Perception, put simply is the channel through which we acquire 

information and knowledge about the outside world. 

Perception has also been conceived as the process by which 

we become aware of physical objects, including our own body.4 

According to Robert Audi, perception is a source of knowledge and 

justification mainly by virtue of yielding beliefs that constitute 

knowledge or are justified. Hence, perception is not only regarded 

as how we acquire knowledge of our environment, but also as a 

ground or basis on which our knowledge claims are justified.5 For 

Jimoh Anselm, “perception is of things or facts, that is, the use of 

any of the five senses, seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling, 

to acquire knowledge of the world around us. Through the senses 

we explore the world and gain knowledge of it.”6 

Having examined some of the views of some scholars, it is 

pertinent to submit that perception is not equivalent to knowledge 

although it is crucial for the assertion of knowledge. At this juncture, 

let us examine some of the theories of perception. 

 

Some Theories of Perception 

I share with Michael Huemer the sentiment that a theory of 

perception should answer such questions as: What is it to perceive 

something? What sorts of things does perception make us aware of? 

How does perception enable us to gain knowledge of the world 

around us?7 With these in mind, we shall look at a number of the 

theories of perception.   

 

Representationalism (Indirect Realism) 

It is a realist theory of perception which maintains that in perception, 

we are directly aware of certain internal, mental states or entities — 

referred to by various philosophers as “ideas” (Locke), 

“impressions” (Hume), “mental images,” or “sense data” (Russell) 

— and we arc indirectly aware of’ external things (that is, our 

awareness of them depends on our awareness of the images).8 The 

mental images we perceive are usually said to be caused by external, 

physical objects or events and also to represent them. 



Conceptualizing the Problem of perception in the…       |      113 

 

Representationalism implies a sense experience or collection 

of sense data that apparently picture some aspects of our physical 

world like objects. In other words, we can have knowledge about 

our external world by inferring facts about external objects from the 

character of our mental images. Again, it claims that physical 

objects impact upon our sense organs causing us to experience 

sensations which represent the objects that cause them.9 This theory 

accommodates the opinion that there exists material objects with 

independent properties, but unlike direct realism, maintains that we 

do not perceive these objects directly as they are, rather, that we 

perceive them indirectly through mental representations. 

The proponents of Representationalism are John Locke and 

David Hume amongst others. Jimoh summarizes the general 

framework of this theory when he asserted that representative 

realism hopes to explain away sense deception by using the 

distinction between sensation and the objects we perceive. 

According to the representative realists, deceptions occur when our 

sensations do not match up with the objects of sensation.10 By 

implication, whenever the image or representation I have of an 

object does not correspond to the actual way the object is in the 

world, I might be subject to an illusion, while, in a condition in 

which my sensations do not correspond to anything in the world, I 

am then hallucinating. The pertinent question here therefore is how 

do we account for the actual condition of the object in the world? 

More so, how do we bracket the influence of the subject in 

accounting for the object?  

 

Idealism 

Idealism championed by George Berkeley is epitomised by the 

submission that it is only the mind and its ideas that exist. This is 

was against the backdrop of indirect realism orchestrated by John 

Locke. For Locke, the only thing we are immediately aware of is 

ideas. But Berkeley attempted to draw a connection between ideas 

and the mind which perceive them which is christened in the popular 

dictum, “esse est percipi”, meaning to be is to be perceived, for 

physical objects or things only exist when perceived by the mind. 

He argued that the mind perceives what God implanted in it hence 



114      |     Ekpoma Review, Volume. 5 No. 1., 2019   

 

God is the cause of ideas. For Berkeley, we have no reason for 

believing in the existence of external objects, and we could not have 

any coherent conception of what external objects (things that exist 

outside of the mind) were like. Locke had posited that they 

resembled our ideas, hut for Berkeley, nothing could resemble an 

idea, except an idea. Berkeley thus refutes the concept of an external 

object claiming that it is a contradiction.11 

The problem with Berkeley’s idealism is that it fails to 

resolve the problem of perception, for it does not satisfactorily 

explain the distinction between perceptual error and veridical or 

accurate perception. By implication, everything we perceive could 

be asserted to be a kind dream, if this is so, then, there is no 

difference between perceiving something as it really is and being 

mistaken. Therefore, there is no distinction between hallucination 

and reality. How then, does idealism make sense of perceptual error, 

since it has no representation of a real world? 

 

Direct Realism 

This theory developed by Thomas Reid was a response to Hume and 

Berkeley. The crust of this theory is the claim that we do not 

perceive ideas but we perceive physical objects directly. It maintains 

that objects continue to observe the laws of physics and maintain 

their properties irrespective of their being perceived or not. More so, 

that the senses are windows through which we make contact with 

the world and through which we know the world as it is. That is, we 

come to perceive the world in its most direct way through the senses. 

Reid, furthermore argues that we are justified in believing in the 

existence of external objects without supplying arguments for their 

existence. Another name for this theory is naive realism or common 

sense view of perceptual experience. 

Aligning with the claims of Reid, we find it really 

challenging to make a demarcation between perceptions shredded 

by illusion or hallucination and actual ones. Russell buttressed the 

aforementioned when he observed that the apparent shape and 

colour of a table depend not just upon the properties of the table, hut 

also upon the lighting conditions. 

 



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Phenomenalism 

Phenomenalism maintains that physical objects are not just 

collections of actual sense data but also of potential sense data, 

therefore, they continue to exist even when they are not perceived. 

In other words, physical objects are permanent possibilities of 

sensation and that all talk about them can be reduced to talk about 

actual and potential sense data. Phenomenalists would generally 

opine that “to be is not just to be perceived, but also to be 

perceivable.”12 

There is a variation of phenomenalism, known as linguistic 

phenomenalism. It is essentially a theory of meaning, which tries to 

answer the question of what we mean when we talk about physical 

objects as if they are actual independently existing objects, we 

actually referring to various patterns of’ sense data that we 

experience. For them, talk about physical objects is a short form of 

sense data or phenomena. The argument that the linguistic 

phenornenalists seek to raise is that we can technically avoid talk 

about physical object, since all talk about them can be translated to 

sense data or phenomena, without any loss of meaning. For 

example, the word orange does not refer to any independently 

existing material object, but really means something round, green or 

orange, sweet and juicy and so on; a collection of potential sense 

data. 

Even when it has been argued that if we translate physical 

object language into phenomenal language, physical objects will 

always recur in the translation into phenomenal language. And that 

it is almost impossible to use phenomenal language without 

mentioning physical objects, we feel mandated to explore the 

perhaps narrow possibility of using phenomenal language without 

mentioning physical objects. Talks about physical objects should 

stand uncorrupted and battered by subject interference. We 

proposed that this might offer a viable address to the avalanche 

problems of perception. At this juncture, it is important to relay 

some of the known problems of perception in the history of this 

discourse. 

 

 



116      |     Ekpoma Review, Volume. 5 No. 1., 2019   

 

The Problems of Perception 

When philosophers ask, what is the nature of perception? They are 

not asking purely empirical questions, such as: how do our sense-

organs actually work? What are the mechanisms of smell and taste? 

How do vision and touch actually provide us with information about 

the world around us? On the contrary, they are concerned about how 

perception provides reason for our beliefs about the empirical world. 

For instance, suppose I see a jug before me, and come to believe on 

the basis of this that there is a jug before me. My reason for believing 

that there is a jug is that I can see it. But the question is what makes 

seeing the jug a reason for this belief? Is it not possible that one is 

caught in a web of illusion or hallucinating? 

The problem of perception therefore, is the result of 

attempting to reconcile some apparently obvious truths about 

perception with the apparent possibility of a certain kind of 

perceptual error. The problem of perception is created by the 

phenomena of perceptual illusion and hallucination: if these kinds 

of error are possible, how can perception be what we ordinarily 

understand it to be, an openness to and awareness of the world? Put 

differently, the very fact that it is difficult to identify when an object 

is perceived correctly and when an error occurs in perception spells 

out the problem of perception.  

In an actual instance of perception an object is seen and seen 

correctly or as it is. But in the case of illusion, an object is seen but 

seen incorrectly or as it is not. Instances of illusion can be found in 

eases in which a round object is seen to be oval, a brown object is 

seen to be black, or a tall object is seen to be short. In such cases, 

the subject could be said to be suffering from illusion. Hallucination 

on the other hand is a case in which it seems to the subject as though 

something is seen but where in fact nothing is seen. It is the kinds of 

things that happens in a dream experience. This problem emerged 

from Descartes’s scepticism about experience where he alluded the 

possibility of one been deceived by a demon. Again, the brain in the 

vat illustration by the sceptics point to the fact of the possibility of 

hallucination. The possibility of illusion, hallucination and 

perspectival variation or conflicting appearances are the underlying 

factors of the problem of perception. 



Conceptualizing the Problem of perception in the…       |      117 

 

David Hume, Bertrand Russell and A J Ayer are the major 

proponents of the argument from illusion. Hume posited this 

argument in criticizing direct realism when he observed that the 

character of our sensory experiences often varies even when there is 

no change in the physical object we are putatively perceiving. For 

example, as one moves further away from a table, the table looks 

smaller, but there is no objective change in the physical table. This 

shows that one is not perceiving the real table. Rather, one is 

perceiving an image of the table in one’s mind. 13 

Bertrand Russell offered another versions of the argument 

from illusion when he argued that the “apparent shape and colour of 

a table depend not just upon the properties of the table, but also upon 

the location of the observer and lighting conditions.14 Another 

version of the argument from illusion is expressed by A.J. Ayer. 

Ayer in his famous optical illusion in which a straight stick, when 

halfway immersed in water, appears bent. Ayer claims that in this 

case, what one sees cannot be the real stick. In our ordinary 

conception of perceptual experience, we always assume that we are 

sometimes perceptually aware of ordinary mind-independent 

objects in perceptual experience. However, such awareness can 

come from veridical experiences, cases in which one perceives an 

object for what it is. I3ut it can also come from illusory experiences. 

For we think of an illusion as “any perceptual situation in which a 

physical object is actually perceived, but in which that object 

perceptually appears other than it really is.15 

The argument from illusion has been strongly criticized by 

John Austin, especially when he responded to A.J. Ayer who 

subscribed to the argument from illusion alongside Bertrand 

Russell. In actual fact, Austin “argues that the argument from 

illusion draws plausibility from various misuses of language.”16 He 

criticized Ayer’s optical illusion in which a straight stick looks bent 

when immersed halfway in water, and as such does not amount to 

an experience of a real stick. For Austin, for the fact that the stick 

looks bent, it does not follow that one is seeing something that is 

bent, nor does it follow that one is not seeing the actual stick. Rather, 

for Austin, what one is seeing is a straight stick that appears bent. 

This pre-empts the stance of this paper which is a clarion call for an 



118      |     Ekpoma Review, Volume. 5 No. 1., 2019   

 

evaluation of the relationship between the subject and object of 

perception.  

 

Exploring the Objective Perspective: A Linguistic Approach 

A critical introspection in the discourse of perception showcases that 

it is possible to assert that the entire arguments on the theories and 

problems of perception could be effectively summarized into a 

subject and object perspectives. In other words, positions offered so 

far could be categorized into two main emphasis; either the subject 

or the object. However, a sojourn through the history of the 

discourse of perception suggests that so much emphasis have been 

laid on the subject almost to the detriment of the object of 

perception. The over-imposition of the categories of the subject has 

silence the germane import of the object. This has left us to wonder 

if it is possible to analyse perception from one perspective without 

been erroneous. The claims of Austin seems to corroborate the point 

that so much has to be done to offer a voice to the object of 

perception.  

In a case where a table appears differently to different 

observers troubles a critical mind. The challenge of asserting whose 

account represents the actual status of the table becomes herculean. 

This has been the fate of the philosophers of perception ab initio. 

Worthy of note also is that in all the instances of reports from the 

subjects, the table’s status remains unchanged. We are therefore 

inspired to propose that philosophers of perception by amplifying 

the status of the object would go a long way to addressing the 

pristine and multi-faceted problems of perception. 

 

Conclusion 

Having attempted a conceptual analysis of the theories and problems 

of perception and also demonstrated the positions of various 

proponents in the discourse, it is pertinent to assert that the position 

of this paper is that there a linguistic twist to the discourse of 

perception which offers a viable perspective in addressing the 

problem of perception. We drew from the claims of Austin which 

advocates for a language of report that would not compromise the 

status of both the subject and object of perception.  



Conceptualizing the Problem of perception in the…       |      119 

 

Furthermore, we may ask; how then can we achieve the 

linguistic proposal of Austin? For Austin, a linguistic approach 

which will report the status of the subject as well as the object of 

perception without a compromise is inevitable in addressing 

effectively the problem of perception. Again, how do we construe 

such a language that would guarantee these ambitions? This 

question is dedicated to the future of philosophers of perception. 

However, it is worthy of note to identify that there is a linguistic 

twist to the problem of perception. 

 
ENDNOTES 

1 Sosa, F., Kim, J., Franti, J., McGrath, M., 2008: Epistemology: An Anthology, 

USA: Blackwell Publishing. (Second edition). p. 3 
2 Audi Robert, 1998. Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction to the Theory 

of Knowledge, London: Routledge, The Taylor and Francis Group. p. 14. 

Ted Honderich, 1995. The Oxford Companion to philosophy (Oxford New York, 

Oxford University Press, Inc.) p. 652. 
4 Cardinal, D., Hayward, .J., & Jones, G., 2004. Epistemology: The Theory of 

Knowledge, London: John Murray Publishers Ltd. p. 148. 
5 Audi Robert, 1998. Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction to the Theory 

of Knowledge, London: Routledge, The Taylor and Francis Group. p. 16. 
6 Jimoh Anselrn, 2013. Certitude and Doubt: A study Guide in Epistemology,  

Ibadan: Ebony Books & Kreations. p. 88. 
7 Huemer Michael, 2002. Epistemology: Contemporary Readings, London & New 

York: Routledge, The Taylor & Francis Group. p. 3 1. 
8 Ibid, p. 27 
9 Cardinal, D., Hayward, J., & Jones, G., 2004. Epistemology: The Theory of 

Knowledge, London: John Murray Publishers Ltd. p. 149. 
10 Jimoh Anselm, 2013. Certitude and Doubt: A study Guide in Epistemology,  

Ibadan: Ebony Books & Kreations. p. 97. 
11 Cardinal, D., Hayward, J., & Jones, G., 2004. Epistemology: The Theory of 

Knowledge, London: John Murray Publishers Ltd, p. 149 
12 Jimoh Anselm, 2013. Certitude and Doubt: A study Guide in Epistemology, 

Ibadan: Ebony Books & Kreations. p. 99 
13 Huemer Michael, 2002. Epistemology: Contemporary Readings, London & 

New York: Routledge, The Taylor & Francis Group. p. 29. 
14 Ibid, p. 31 
15 Smith, A.D., 2002. The Problem of Perception, Cambridge, Mass,: Harvard 

University Press. p. 23. 
16 Snowdown, P.F., 2005. Some Reflections on an Argument from hallucination. 

Philosophical Topics,  33.1. p.74. 

                                                           


