Paweł Zięba
Affiliation: Jagiellonian University in Cracow
Category: Philosophy
Keywords: naïve realism, diaphaneity, perception, consciousness, sensible qualities, self-consciousness, appearance statements
Date: Tuesday 2nd of September
Time: 15:30
Location: Gen. Henryk Dąbrowski Hall (006)
View the full session: Metaphysics of Perceptual Experience
According to naïve realism (a.k.a. relationalism), the phenomenal character of genuine perception (as opposed to hallucination) is at least partially constituted by the perceived items. Some naïve realists argue that perceptual phenomenal character cannot be entirely constituted by the perceived items because it is also partially constituted by the way in which those items are perceived. This amounts to denying diaphaneity, i.e. the claim that sameness and difference in the phenomenal character of perception is exhausted by sameness and difference in the perceived items. Over the last couple of years, diaphaneity has become a hotly debated topic (see e.g. Beck, 2019; French, 2018; French & Phillips, 2020, 2025; Pautz, 2021; Sethi, 2025; Zięba, 2022).
Although diaphaneity is a simple idea, discussions of it are diverse and often quite complex, which makes it impossible to address them all in a single paper. Partially for this reason, the aim of this talk will be limited to a critical assessment of objections to diaphaneity raised by Martin (Martin, 1998, 2010, 2015, 2020, 2024). Even though none of them reaches the target (or so I will argue), they all pose important questions about explanatory tasks that a satisfactory account of perception and perceptual consciousness can be expected to accomplish. So while the status of diaphaneity is mostly relevant to those interested in naïve realism, the arguments presented for and against diaphaneity should be of interest to a larger audience.
Diaphaneity entails two conditional principles:
(PC) Necessarily, if two experiences differ in their presented elements, they differ in phenomenal character.
(CP) Necessarily, if two experiences differ in phenomenal character, they differ in their presented elements.
Martin (Martin, 1998, pp. 174–175) accepts PC because he believes that ‘our awareness of what the experience is like is inextricably bound up with knowledge of what is presented to one in having such experience' (Martin, 1998, p. 173). He rejects CP, however, because he thinks that by attending to one's experience one can learn not only about the experienced object, but also about the way in which one experiences that object (Martin, 1998, pp. 170, 175).
Diaphaneity entails that consciousness does not add anything to objects of perceptual awareness. It follows that the phenomenal character of perceptual experience is solely a matter of which sensible qualities one is perceptually related to. According to Martin (Martin, 2015, pp. 175–176), this means that there is only one distinctive way of experiencing a given color or shape. However, the way an object looks depends not only on its color and shape, but also on the circumstances of perception (e.g. point of view, illumination), which suggests that the same color and shape can be experienced in more than one way (cf. Austin, 1962, p. 29). If so, the phenomenal character can vary without any change in the perceived items, and diaphaneity is undermined.
In response, I will argue that the idea of ways of perceiving, depending on how it is specified, is either incompatible with naïve realism's motivations (Sethi, 2025), compatible with diaphaneity, or explanatorily idle (Zięba, 2022). Either way, it does not constitute a genuine alternative to diaphaneity, at least not if naïve realism is to be maintained.
The second problem that Martin (Martin, 2024, p. 174) sees in diaphaneity is that the latter reduces perception to a pure relation between the perceiver and the perceived items, which conflicts with the common-sensical conception of perception as something the perceiver undergoes, i.e. ‘an aspect of the perceiver's autobiography'. Worse still, the conception of perception as purely relational apparently lacks the resources necessary to plausibly account for the asymmetry of perceptual relation (Martin, 2024, pp. 175–176).
The problem with this objection is that it presupposes that ‘there is a single, unequivocal, finite, and unqualified answer to the question “what is it like for the subject” in a given perceptual experience' (Brewer, 2013, p. 434). If this presumption were a truism, the naïve realist would have to include the sense of ownership of one's own experience in their account of perceptual phenomenal character. But the presumption is far from obvious, and the naïve realist is free to sharply distinguish purely perceptual phenomenology (i.e. what it is like to perceive something) from the phenomenology of one's cognitive and/or emotional reaction to perceptual phenomenology (i.e. what it is like to be someone who perceives something). Just because these two typically co-occur and influence each other does not mean they should be treated as one entity.
Finally, an objection to diaphaneity can be found in Martin's analysis of statements about sensory appearances (especially looks) (Martin, 2010, 2020). Here Martin observes that, apart from appearance statements that refer specifically to the perceived items and their sensible qualities, there are also appearance statements that 'focus in the first instance on how one experiences the scene' (Martin, 2020, p. 113, see also 1998, pp. 168–170). Since statements of the latter kind ‘give expression to an aspect of how our visual systems work' (Martin, 2020, p. 113), they do not pick a feature that one would attribute to the perceived items independently of the kind of experience one enjoys of those items. Insofar as such statements nonetheless refer to what it is like to have that experience, they constitute a counterexample to diaphaneity.
But if my previous reply is correct, the diaphaneity theorist can insist that appearance statements that reflect the point of view one has on one's own experience are not exclusively about one's strictly perceptual phenomenology, in that they also respond to a distinct kind of recognitional and/or emotional phenomenology.
Although much more would have to be said to establish diaphaneity as the best option for the naïve realist, the foregoing shows that diaphaneity is not undermined by Martin's criticism. A more general moral is that one's views on diaphaneity largely depend on what explanatory tasks one sets for a plausible philosophical theory of perception.
Austin, J. L. (1962). Sense and Sensibilia. Oxford University Press.
Beck, O. (2019). Rethinking naive realism. Philosophical Studies, 176(3), 607–633.
Brewer, B. (2013). Attention and Direct Realism. Analytic Philosophy, 54(4), 421–435.
French, C. (2018). Naïve Realism and Diaphaneity. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 118(2), 149–175.
French, C., & Phillips, I. (2020). Austerity and Illusion. Philosophers' Imprint, 20(15), 1–19.
French, C., & Phillips, I. (2025). A Change of Perspective: Naïve Realism and Normal Variation. In O. Beck & F. Masrour (Eds.), The Relational View of Perception: New Essays. Routledge.
Martin, M. G. F. (1998). Setting Things before the Mind. In A. O'Hear (Ed.), Current Issues in Philosophy of Mind (pp. 157–179). Cambridge University Press.
Martin, M. G. F. (2010). What's in a Look? In B. Nanay (Ed.), Perceiving the World (pp. 160–225). Oxford University Press.
Martin, M. G. F. (2015). Moore's Dilemma. In P. Coates & S. Coleman (Eds.), Phenomenal Qualities: Sense, Perception, and Consciousness. Oxford University Press.
Martin, M. G. F. (2020). Variation and Change in Appearances. In K. M. Vogt & J. Vlasits (Eds.), Epistemology After Sextus Empiricus (pp. 89–115). Oxford University Press.
Martin, M. G. F. (2024). Illumination Fading. Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, 98(1), 153–184.
Pautz, A. (2021). Perception. Routledge.
Sethi, U. (2025). A (Qualified) Defense of Diaphaneity. In O. Beck & F. Masrour (Eds.), The Relational View of Perception: New Philosophical Essays (pp. 382–408). Routledge.
Zięba, P. J. (2022). Selectionism and Diaphaneity. Axiomathes, 32(Suppl 2), S361–S391.