Indirect Realism and Direct Realism I'm not sure that I would even describe seeing a hand in a mirror as seeing it indirectly. — Luke
It's intended as an example; one might differentiate seeing the hand in the mirror as indirect, in contrast to seeing it without the mirror - directly.
Austin, especially in Other Minds, addresses "real".
But is it a real one? When you ask if it is real, what are you sugesting? No, it's a fake; it's an illusion; it's a forgery; it's a phoney, a counterfeit, a mirage... What is real and what isn't is decided in each case by contrast; there is no single criteria.
The wile of the metaphysician consists in asking 'Is it a real table?' (a kind of object which has no obvious way of being phoney) and not specifying or limiting what may be wrong with it, so that I feel at a loss 'how to prove' it is a real one.' It is the use of the word 'real' in this manner that leads us on to the supposition that 'real' has a single meaning ('the real world' 'material objects'), and that a highly profound and puzzling one. Instead, we should insist always on specifying with what 'real' is being contrasted - not what I shall have to show it is, in order to show it is 'real': and then usually we shall find some specific, less fatal, word, appropriate to the particular case, to substitute for 'real'
— Austin — Banno
"Direct" and "indirect" relate in a similar way - You don't see it directly, you see a picture, a reflection, or through a telescope or video screen.
It is the use of the word 'indirect' in this manner that leads us on to the supposition that 'direct' has a single meaning.
Some words get their sense from an almost Hegelian juxtaposition against their opposite.
So when someone claims to see that the hand before them
indirectly, it is reasonable to ask what it would mean here to see it directly? And their answer might well be "as it is in itself" - but this is of course a nonsense, since the hand is aways already an interpretation... Or they might say "we see only the metal model (qualia, sense datum...) directly" and so commit themselves to being forever segregated from the world or to solipsism.