Appearance and Reality

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the distinction between appearance and reality is, and always has been, one of principal the focal points of philosophy. The chief question raised by the distinction is epistemological: how can we know the nature of reality when all that we have immediate access to are appearances? Broadly speaking, responses to the question fall into one of three classes: those that argue that we are unavoidably 'cut off' from reality, those that argue that we do have some way of 'getting at' reality through the appearances, and those that reject the distinction. This article will consider some of the most historically influential examples of each type of response.

Motivation for the Distinction

There are both common-sense and historically contingent sources of motivation for the distinction between appearance and reality.

In our everyday experience, we frequently find ourselves in situations where we are presented with appearances that we know are misleading. Some instances of this are dramatic, such as crafted perceptual illusions that immediately come across as unbelievable. In other cases, the knowledge that the appearances are misleading requires more experience and investigation (e.g. rainbows). In general terms, these are cases which we can report in a sentence of the form, "It seemed to me that P, but really, it's not the case that P." Further, we might compare two instances where things seemed to us the same way, whereas there was a difference in reality. One way to report that would be to say that the appearances were the same in both instances, though the 'underlying' reality differed.

Though the above motivations for the distinction are common to all human experience, philosophical discussions of the distinction have been fueled by scientific advances which seemed to yield the result that certain features of our experiences are only 'appearance-deep.' The gradual acceptance of Copernicus' heliocentric model of the solar system in the 16th and 17th centuries came with the realization that the apparent rising and setting of the sun were in fact illusions. This fact made a deep impression, and lead towards a new philosophical picture of the universe in which things like colors and sounds were deemed 'mere appearances,' while only properties susceptible to geometric analysis (such as shape and motion) were kept as part of the picture of true reality.

More recent developments in science have had similar effects. Einstein's theories of relativity, and the advances in quantum mechanics have led some scientists and philosophers to claim that even 3-dimensional space and a universal, uniform temporal structure are mere appearances. Various feminist and postmodernist thinkers have gone so far as to claim, sometimes on the basis of scientific advances, that objective reality itself is, to some degree, an illusion (for an important clash between those thinkers and their philosophical opponents, see the debate ignited by physicist Alan Sokal's 1996 Hoax). The actual argumentative path between the scientific advances and such conclusions is extremely subtle, however. It is a matter of substantive debate whether the fact that a given scientific model has a certain type of explanatory power implies that it tells us something about which objects or properties are real and which are merely apparent.

Skeptical Responses

When faced with the distinction between appearance and reality, and the worry of how we can know reality on the basis of the appearances with which we are presented, the most straightforward response may be to simply deny that we have any reliable access to reality. This sort of position is often described as 'skepticism.'

In the Hellenistic period in ancient Greece, there were two prominent schools of thought which identified themselves as skeptics: the Academics and the Pyrrhonists. The Academics believed that the gap between appearance and reality was, in principle, unbridgable - no claims concerning reality itself, other than its unknowability, were permissable. The Pyrrhonist position was somewhat weaker, for they made no claims to certainty about the nature of the gap. Instead, they aimed for a practical ideal, in which one refrained from all judgments, and so would never affirm something false.

Ancient skepticism exerted great influence on later European philosophy. Descartes and Berkeley proposed philosophical systems aimed at combating skepticism (see below), while others such as Pierre Bayle took on the task of defending it. Skepticism of some form or another remained a central topic in 20th century epistemology, as witnessed by the work of philosophers such as Peter Unger.

Epistemically-Optimistic Responses

Descartes

The canonical expression of the distinction between appearance and reality, and of the ensuing threat posed to knowledge, is found in Rene Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy (originally published in 1641). Descartes highlighted the distinction with a simple but powerful imaginative project. He asked how much divergence there could conceivably be between the appearances he encountered and the world in which he existed. The answer is made vivid by his description of a scenario in which he is the subject of deliberate and near-complete deception by a powerful 'evil genius' (see 'Meditation I'), a scenario which none of his occurrent appearances give him any grounds for ruling out as a genuine possibility.

Descartes eventually concludes that the gap between appearance and reality is surmountable, and that he can rule out the evil genius scenario. He reaches this conclusion by arguing from the fact that he has an idea of an omnipotent, benevolent God to the existence of that God, and then by arguing from the existence of such a God to two claims: (1) since God is responsible for the world and its appearances, it would be incompatible with God's goodness if there were to be a dramatic difference between the two, and (2) since God is responsible for Descartes' own faculties, he must be capable of knowing the truth about the world around him.

Though Descartes' arguments made a massive impact on the philosophical landscape, they were by no means universally accepted. There is a general agreement that his proofs for God's existence are much less compelling than he took them to be. Yet, for those who continued to accept the fundamental distinction in Descartes' terms, it was unclear what else besides a knowable, benevolent God could fill the needed role.

Kant

Over a centruy after the publication of Descartes' Meditations, a more subtle answer to the problem was provided by Immanuel Kant, one which would inspire the tradition known later as 'German Idealism' (to be contrasted with the idealism of Bishop Berkeley, discussed below). Kant appears to accept something like Descartes' distinction, yet he poses the issue in terms of an opposition between 'objects as they appear' and 'objects as they are in themselves.' We have no real knowledge of objects as they are in themselves, Kant claims, but it was a mistake on Descartes' part to think that we ever wanted such knowledge. Properties like spatial extension, temporal duration, and causal connection, Kant argues, properly belong to the realm of appearances. Because appearances are in some sense 'in us,' and we are capable of knowing ourselves, this opens the possibility of knowing whether objects really are spatially extended, causally related, etc. Kant holds that much of reality remains unknowable, yet he takes this to be a desirable result, for it precludes scientific considerations (which only concern the appearance-based properties of objects) from ever ruling out freedom of the will or the existence of God, even while the actuality of the latter two remain unknowable.

In 20th century philosophy, a number of related responses have been considered. One particularly noteworthy suggestion is that, as things are, what we lack is not knowledge of reality, but knowledge that we have such knowledge (for one form of this, see recent discussions of 'dogmatism' in epistemology).

Responses that Reject the Distinction

Berkeley

The Irish Bishop George Berkeley, like Descartes, saw skepticism as a serious, but surmountable, philosophical threat. Unlike Descartes, however, Berkeley believed that it was a mistake to distinguish appearances from reality in the first place. Following his predecessor John Locke, Berkeley puts the discussion in terms of 'ideas,' where these include both the appearances we encounter in sensory perception, as well as the mental entites involved in our thoughts. Berkeley's fundamental claim (developed in his Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) and in his Three Dialogues between Hylan and Philonous (1713)), was that all that exists are minds and the ideas they have. Skepticism about the external world, he argued, arose from a wholly unwarranted positing of 'material substance,' understood as something distinct from ideas and minds, which is somehow represented by ideas and thereby mediately encountered by minds. Once we assume such things exist, and that they are the objects of our knowledge, Berkeley believes that we will inevitably conclude from the mediacy of our awareness of them to a lack of true knowledge on our part.

Yet, Berkeley argued, it was an unwarranted break with common sense for philosophers to assume the existence of material substance, and in doing so to create the distinction between appearance and reality. The objects that populate our world aren't something we access by means of our ideas, rather, they are those ideas. Berkeley has a simple argument for this claim:

1. We perceive objects immediately.
2. The only enties we can perceive immediately are ideas.
3. Therefore, objects are ideas.

Berkeley's system is strikingly elegant. Unsurprisingly, however, he is hard-pressed to account for the phenomena that originally motivated the distinction, such as perceptual illusions and scientific advancement. Ultimately, Berkeley appeals to God, as causal source of the ideas, who maintains a certain order among them that we can only gradually come to understand.

Reid

While Berkeley rejected the appearance/reality distinction by making reality more mental (and so, in a sense, claiming that all there is are appearances), others have rejected the distinction by attacking the notion of 'appearances' or 'ideas' that is in play. Antoine Arnauld argued for such a position in the wake of Descartes' Meditations, but the first sustained attempt to develop the position came from Thomas Reid, a Scottish minister and professor. In the second essay of his Essays on the Intellectual Powers (1785), he specifically attacked the intelligibility of the 'ideas' assumed by Locke and Reid, and attributed philosophical worries about the gap between appearance and reality to the assumption of such mental entites. When we perceive an object, Reid claimed, we do so directly, not by means of any idea or appearance. Such ideas would amount to a veil between us and the world, whereas in truth there is no such barrier. Like Berkeley, however, Reid was hard-pressed to explain away illusions, and ultimately ended up assuming the existence of 'sensations' - mental entities with some similarity to Lockean ideas. Nevertheless, many contemporary philosophers have found his attempt compelling.

References and Further Reading

There are many editions of the classic works. I therefore list some editions that are especially reliable and available.

• Bayle, Pierre. (1991, originally 1696) Historical and Critical Dictionary: Selections, R. Popkin and C. Brush (trans. and eds.). Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing
• Berkeley, George. (1988, originally 1710 and 1713) Principles of Human Knowledge/Three Dialogues, Roger Woolhouse (ed.). London: Penguin Books.
• Descartes, Rene. (1998, originally 1638 and 1641) Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, Donald A. Cress (trans.). Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
• Kant, Immanuel. (2001, originally 1783) Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, James W. Ellington (trans. and ed.). Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
• Long, A. A. and Sedley, D. N. (trans. and eds.). (1987) The Hellenistic Philosophers, Vol. I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Pryor, James. (2000) "The Skeptic and the Dogmatist." Noûs 34, 517-49.
• Reid, Thomas. (1983, originally 1764, 1785 and 1788) Inquiry and Essays, Ronald E. Beanblossom and Keith Lehrer (eds.). Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
• Sokal, Alan. (1996) "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity," in Social Text, Spring-Summer 1996. Some of the fallout from the article is collected in Lingua Franca (eds.), The Sokal Hoax: The Sham that Shook the Academy. University of Nebraska Press (2000).
• Stroud, Barry. (1984) The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Unger, Peter. (1979) Ignorance: A Case for Scepticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.