Mīr Dāmād’s «Dahr» Doctrine; A Way Out of the Time-Lag Objection to the Naïve Realism

Naïve realism is one of the theories of perception that says: while perceiving, we become aware of the very external facts and their properties—not through something else such as sense data nor through something else such as representational mental states. Of the most important objections to this theory is the time-lag argument, which says: because it is possible that an external fact disappears or changes its properties while the light is reaching to the eyes and then to the brain. It cannot be said that we become aware of the very external fact. In this inquiry, we, with an analytical approach—conceptual and systematic analysis—and using Mīr Dāmād’s «Dahr» doctrine, reply to this objection and show that physical objects have a static aspect too, to which we connect when we perceive.