Smith on Sense-Data

From George H. Smith's Atheism: The Case Against God, in which he presents an invented dialogue between a Christian who resorts to skepticism to rebut rational arguments against the existence of the supernatural and an atheist antiskeptic. That's right; in Smith's view the Christian is the skeptic, in the philosophical sense of believing that reason is unable to yield knowledge about reality. By attacking reason the skeptic imagines he can clear the way for revelation and other nonrational justifications for his beliefs. He goes so far as to reject the reliability of the senses, which are at the base of our knowledge. Of course, he cannot attack the senses without at least implicitly relying on sensory evidence. Here is an excerpt:

Skeptic: "But don't you agree that all we ever have direct awareness of is immediate sense data?"

Antiskeptic: "No. What we have direct awareness of is reality, and we are given this awareness through perception. Perception is our means of awareness, not the object of awareness. Every perception is perception of something.

"You want to argue that we are aware only of ideas or perceptions in the mind rather than external reality. You then claim that we need to infer the existence of the external world using these perceptions as the starting point. I am arguing that no such inference is necessary. We have direct and immediate contact with reality through sense perception.

"All that the causal nature of perception tells us is that perception necessarily entails a means of perception; certain causal conditions must be present before perception is possible, and once these conditions are satisfied, we have perception. Perception of what? There is only one possible answer: of reality. There is no other alternative. If your perceptions are not of reality, just what are they perceptions of?" 

Skeptic:  "They are perceptions of the interaction between the external world and my senses."

Antiskeptic:  No. The interaction causes the perception; the interaction is not the object of perception, but simply that which makes perception possible. Again, I must ask you, what is it that you are perceiving, if not reality?"