@Banno @J @Ludvig @Corvus @javi2541997 @Ciceronianus @frank @wonderer1@Janus

Sec V: I’m going to point out again the importance here to Austin of context and standards.

[With a blue imagine and blue wall, or bent pencil in water or just a bent pencil] we may say the same things ('It looks blue', 'It looks bent', &c.), but this is no reason at all for denying the obvious fact that the 'experiences' are different. — Austin, p. 50

This is going to be confusing for some of you maybe as he is not using “experience” as something only we have (thus putting it in quotes, as if Ayer would say this is some process of the mind), but these are two different situations (the "context" is different), and that we would judge them separately based on the different associated standards, and not simply by “direct or not”. Philosophy wants to treat everything the same without regard for the surroundings, or, as Austin puts it, the “extraneous” and “attendant” “concomitants” (accompaniments).

Next Ayer and Price try to argue that, if we are deluded, two things must be indistinguishable (that we have no way of judging between direct or indirect, thus why they claim we can only see sense data). But this is to ignore that we might not be using, or aware of, criteria to differentiate, as with tea experts, art critics, or eloquence.

Perhaps I should have noticed the difference if I had been more careful or attentive; perhaps I am just bad at things of this sort (e.g. vintages); perhaps, again, I have never learned to discriminate between them, or haven't had much practice at it. — Austin, p. 51

And so philosophy is jumping to conclusions without even investigating our various standards and not taking into account any kind of context. “[The] conclusion [we always see sense-datum] is practically assumed from the very first sentence of the statement of the argument itself.” p.47 “[We are asked to] concede the essential point [‘perceptions’ are always present] from the beginning.” Id.

Why would philosophy want an answer that only fits two standards and is abstracted from any context? Why would it want "perception" and "sense data" to come between us and the world? (These are rhetorical questions.)

Yeah, I think there is something in this, especially the idea of philosophical problems being "manufactured" by philosophers. Cynically, they have to do that in order to justify their stipend.

The confusion, if there is any, stems from the fact that we often fail to disambiguate perception-words like "see" — J

Yes, and then there is the broader methodological point that this failing leads to broad philosophical theories - such as Ayer's logical positivism - built on misunderstandings of language.

And this is to my eye what is absent from, say, Ernest Gellner's supposed rebuttal. When i read his book, I don't see him addressing the Austin or the Wittgenstein I understand. It strikes me as an instance of Banno's rule: It's easier to critique someone if you begin by misunderstanding them.

As I see it, the problem is only "manufactured" if we buy into the idea that there is only one correct way to think about it. Otherwise, you just have different ways of thinking and talking about perception. — Janus

I'm saying, along with Austin, that there is no correct way to consider "perception" because philosophy did not think about it, as in look into how it would work and whether anything else was actually resolving those issues. Philosophy created a boogyman to slide in the only kind of answer it would accept, certain knowledge. The book is attached above in one of my posts if you care to discuss.

I had thought you had seen what Austin shows: that "direct" gets its use from "indirect". It seems that needs reinforcing.

If asked how does smelling works, I would refer to the standard scientific account - I'm doing philosophy, so I don't know anything those scientists don't also know. But those accounts do not talk of direct and indirect smelling, except when they adopt a philosophical stance.

:up:

The book is attached above in one of my posts if you care to discuss. — Antony Nickles

I was the one who found the PDF for Banno. However, I don't have time to read and discuss the book at the moment.

My point was that, in thinking about perception in different ways, using different criteria for what would count as 'direct' and 'indirect', perception can be considered to be either direct or indirect.So my question is, given there is no fact of the matter regarding which is the case. what is the problem?

If asked how does smelling works, I would refer to the standard scientific account - I'm doing philosophy, so I don't know anything those scientists don't also know. But those accounts do not talk of direct and indirect smelling, except when they adopt a philosophical stance. — Banno

I think Corvus was just pointing out that science shows that perception involves representation and interpretation. It's just weird to insist that that's direct (as someone in the thread was doing).

Hard to make an argument without the text but I would say my reading here of Chapter IV is a start—basically Austin is saying philosophy made up the idea of perception (as an assumption to fill a place in an argument based on our errors and mistakes), and we have other ways of judging everything that is supposed to do.

V continued
The argument from illusion has two parts. In the first, already addressed, it is argued that in certain abnormal situations we must admit that what we see is not a material thing, but a sense datum. We've already seen how this is wrong. In the second part this false contention is supposed to be extended to all cases, such that all we ever see is sense data.

Ayer claims that there is "no intrinsic difference in kind between those of our perceptions that are veridical in their presentation of material things and those that are delusive" (p.44). The objections follow.
1. A bogus Dichotomy. There's a certain question-begging in the use of "perceptions", which are already in the place of sense data, and so presume them from the very start.
2. An exaggerated frequency. The implicit, unjustified presumption is that perceptions are all either veridical or delusive.
3. An exaggerated similarity. It is just not true that veridical and delusive perceptions are 'qualitatively indistinguishable". We do understand the difference between dreaming and being awake; seeing stars at night and seeing stars after a concussion; seeing an after-image and seeing a colour patch; seeing a blue wall and a white wall through blue glasses; seeing pink rats and suffering dementia tremens. "In all these cases we may say the same things ('It looks blue', 'It looks bent', &c.), but this is no reason at all for denying the obvious fact that the 'experiences' are different"(p.49-50)
4. An erroneous suggestion. Why should we expect, when we see two different things, that they should appear different? Why shouldn't two different things appear much the same?
5. If one fails to make a distinction, it does not follow that there is no distinction to be made. If we fail to make a distinction between delusive and veridical perceptions, it does not follow that there is no such distinction to be made. We are fallible.
6. What, exactly, a "perception" consists in remains obscure. This allows the goals to be moved - "Inevitably, if you rule out the respects in which A and B differ, you may expect to be left with respects in which they are alike" (p.54).

...representation... — frank

I guess that's right. @Isaac and I had some lengthy chats about what "representation" consists in, in a neural network. What we did agree on is that in so far as there are such representations, it is clear that they are not symbolic, but found in the weightings of various connections.

My point was that, in thinking about perception in different ways, using different criteria for what would count as 'direct' and 'indirect', perception can be considered to be either direct or indirect.So my question is, given there is no fact of the matter regarding which is the case. what is the problem? — Janus

It makes more sense to me to think that there are a great many facts of the matter, only some of which we know, but some of those facts can be fairly well understood.

I guess that's right. Isaac and I had some lengthy chats about what "representation" consists in, in a neural network. What we did agree on is that in so far as there are such representations, it is clear that they are not symbolic, but found in the weightings of various connections. — Banno

Corvus was directing attention to what we know about the eye, which is that an image is transduced to electrical signals, which the brain subsequently does something with.

When pressed, Isaac would admit that his "weighting" scenario is merely theory. We don't actually know how having a brain allows for the cohesive experience of perception.

OK.

My point was that, in thinking about perception in different ways, using different criteria for what would count as 'direct' and 'indirect', perception can be considered to be either direct or indirect. So my question is, given there is no fact of the matter regarding which is the case. what is the problem? — Janus

Philosophers... always finding problems where there are none.

That's right. Austin was a classicist. He was drawn into philosophy by puzzlement at the things philosophers said. He brought his method over from Classics. — Banno

In his time, it was not at all uncommon, so I assumed he was. Perhaps that's why I feel so at home with him. It's curious, though, to see how much more complicated his reliance on ordinary language is than it seemed to be at the time.

We should try to avoid the interminable discussions that so often proceed from such differences. I take it that we agree there is a church, and that it looks like a barn, and that "I see a church" is OK, and so is "I see a barn", but that their conjunction needs some additional information - the fact of the camouflage - to avoid contradiction. — Banno

The camouflaged church is more complicated that Austin presents it, and the discussion above was an excellent dissection of it, particularly since it avoided the trap of thinking that the look of the church was something distinct from the building which could be peeled off it in the way that the camouflage could be peeled off it.

However, I think that does not take account of what is sometimes called the success logic of "see" (and "perceive"). So, for me, it is perfectly clear that no-one sees a barn, even though some people think they see a barn. Everybody sees a church, but some people do not realize that it is a church. However, in the context of this discussion, I don't have a conclusive argument for objecting to the idea that we see whatever we think we see, even though, for my money, that gives far too much to sense-data.

But what is neglected here is the context in which people may wish to communicate with each other about it - say, for the purpose of organizing a service, or even for the purpose of storing stuff. Call the people who see a church group A and the people who see a barn group B. One might say "Turn left into Hoe Lane and you will see the church half a mile down on the right". This would not work for those in group A who do not know about the camouflage and it would hopelessly mislead group B.

So I need to add "It looks like a barn." for the church-goers. But even if the aim is to find a barn to store stuff, I still need to explain to avoid large quantities of inappropriate stuff turning up at the church. In other words, "I see a church" and "I see a barn" are both inadequate (but not false) because of what they omit. (It's a sort of suppressio veri) So I would say that neither is OK. Only "I see a church camouflaged as a barn" is true.

Side-note. I'm fascinated to find this example in this context. I'm sure other people are aware that it has
a prominent place in discussions of the Gettier problem. I was aware that philosophical examples circulate in the literature, but not usually as widely as this.

I get that. But we are perceiving light, not electrical signals. We are our eyes, the signals, the brain, etc. We cannot be both perceivers and mediums. — NOS4A2

:up:

I think Corvus was just pointing out that science shows that perception involves representation and interpretation. It's just weird to insist that that's direct (as someone in the thread was doing). — frank

I realize that is the usual way of describing certain phenomena of perception. But both "representation" and "interpretation" are usually applied in very different circumstances - when the original is also available to us. But in perception, the original is not available to us. So we end up bewailing the veil of perception which cuts us off from the world. But the point of the senses is to give us information about the world, and they do this quite successfully, on the whole. So these models are a trap.

While I agree with Austin's complaint that the delusive/veridical argument is a gross over-simplification of perception, I think that he is does not quite identify the source of the "problem". Indeed, it could be argued that he shares an important mistake with his opponents. Consider this:-

"Again, it is simply not true to say that seeing a bright green after-image against a white wall is exactly like seeing a bright green patch actually on the wall; or that seeing a white wall through blue spectacles is exactly like seeing a blue wall; or that seeing pink rats in D.T.s is exactly like really seeing pink rats; or (once again) that seeing a stick refracted in water is exactly like seeing a bent stick. In all these cases we may say the same things ('It looks blue', 'It looks bent', &c.), but this is no reason at all for denying the obvious fact that the 'experiences' are different. (p. 49)

He is here making a move that he makes earlier, in the context of the argument from illusion:-

"The straight part of the stick, the bit not under water, is presumably part of a material thing; don't we see
that? And what about the bit under water ? - we can see that too. We can see, come to that, the water itself. In fact what we see is a stick partly immersed in water." (p.30)

The problem is simply this, "experience" is not a count noun, but more like a mass term. There's no criterion for individual experiences, barring such informal criteria as we apply in context when we discuss them. (I suspect that all the empricists assume an atomic account of experience, which is simply a misunderstanding.) Austin's move is simply to widen the scope of "experience" to include the various ways we distinguish veridical from delusive. The argument gets its force from the narrow focus that is silently adopted, and a wider context allows Austin to rebut the claims.

Austin's argument is not best framed as an objection to wrongly describing a given experience. The problem is that Ayer and Price are selectively ignoring inconvenient circumstances by focusing on a narrow version of certain experiences. As Austin says:- "Inevitably, if you rule out the respects in which A and B differ, you may expect to be left with respects in which they are alike" (p.54). So Austin is right to insist that attention to a wider context will (often) correct such mistakes. But framing this as a disagreement about what the experience is is not helpful.

This is typical of what you find when you go looking for secondary information on Austin's overall agenda:

Austin’s Sense and Sensibilia (1962) generates wildly different reactions among
philosophers. On the one hand, some allow that the text offers acute criticisms of the
argument from illusion for sense data, but see little further value in the work.1 Some
dispute that the lectures achieve even this much, and claim that Austin and sense
data theorists simply talk past each other.2 On the other hand, some have decidedly
positive reactions but differ over the text’s main purpose: some see far-reaching
ramifications for the philosophy of perception;3 others see the work as a prime
instance of an ordinary language philosopher offering us therapy;4 while still others
find a substantive anti-skeptical agenda supported by complex argumentation.5
Philosophers will disagree of course, but the extent of disagreement about Austin’s
contribution is remarkable, with the main arguments, methodology, and the whole
point of the lectures under dispute. — Krista Lawlor

So there's no single view of him that represents a consensus.

6. What, exactly, a "perception" consists in remains obscure. — Banno

I agree with Austin that using veridical vs. illusory as way into the question isn’t promising. The insight from James that I quoted earlier seems much more on target. There are phenomenal experiences – let’s call them perceptions – and these same experiences can refer to, or be of, objects in the world which have names and, often, are constituted in interesting ways by smaller, more fundamental components.

James wants to say that neither names nor fundamental components are perceived, in the sense given above. So it’s a handy and reasonable distinction to make: We can give the term “perception” a job to do by letting it refer to the phenomenological experiences, but not the names or the components. If we want to refer to them, it’s easy: The direct object in the sentence “I see the red patch on Jupiter” is “the red patch on Jupiter,” a name which clarifies our perceptual experience of “I see red,” but isn’t synonymous with it. The direct object in “I see red” is the color red. Since we don’t see names, the distinction must be a valid one. And surely it conforms with our ordinary talk about these things? We know the difference between “I see a tree” and “I see a tree which I also happen to know is called an elm”. Indeed, James would say that we could take it all the way back, and say, "I see 3-dimensional colored object of a certain shape which I happen to know is called a tree."

I had thought you had seen what Austin shows: that "direct" gets its use from "indirect". It seems that needs reinforcing. — Banno

My understanding was that "directly" was used to emphasise the fact that we don't perceive material things "directly", but perceive indirectly via sense-datum in Austin's book page 2. Austin gives out the classic general account of indirect perception, and says the issue is not trivial matter, and some people find it even "disturbing" on the account.

I was understanding that Austin dismisses the distinction between direct and indirect perception as not
meaningful, because he thinks perceptions are direct, although some perceptions are indirect such as when using binoculars or telescopes in visual perception.  I might have misunderstood the point. If so, please correct me, and confirm what is the case.

From my view, direct perception does not exist. All perception is indirect via sense data and sense-organ which carries the sensed information into the brain via sense organs.  Indirect or direct are just linguistic terms to mean that activities or motions are one to one link without any medium or stop off place between the subject and object, or there are ( in case of indirect processes).  Direct and indirect are not some essential properties of existence or entities as some folks seem to think.  We could easily have used "mediated" or "medium-less" instead of direct or indirect.

If I speak to you via phone, then I am speaking to you indirectly via phone.  If I speak to you face to face over a table, then I am speaking to you directly.  But we wouldn't even talk that way unless someone asked you "was your conversation direct or indirect i.e. via phone or video link?" No one would ask that type of questions in ordinary daily life of course. :)

Plane from London to Sydney is a direct flight, if it flies without stopping anywhere during flight, takes off from London and lands in Sydney then it is a direct flight.  If it stops in some other airports such as Dubai or Singapore, then it would be an indirect flight.

If asked how does smelling works, I would refer to the standard scientific account - I'm doing philosophy, so I don't know anything those scientists don't also know. But those accounts do not talk of direct and indirect smelling, except when they adopt a philosophical stance. — Banno

Scientists would definitely start with the sense organ Nose for their account of how smelling works. I am not sure if they would be interested in talking about direct or indirect smelling. I only gave my ideas on indirect smelling, because you asked for it. And that was just out of my impromptu reasoning on the indirect smelling case.

Smelling is different from visual perception, and it is more vague to think in terms of direct or indirect smelling.

But it tells you that smelling is definitely indirect perception because the object is the body, and what you are perceiving is the body scent. The body is a physical existence with mass and weight in space. The scent is a property emanated from the body with no physical properties at all. Your nose is inhaling the air mixed with the sense data of the body scent. If the perception was direct, then you couldn't smell it from the underwear on the floor, when you picked it up and sniffed it off, as the body was either in the shower or making breakfast in the kitchen.

So there's no single view of him that represents a consensus. — frank

Yes, that's to be expected. Paradoxically, that's also why it pays to read the original text. There's room for a large discussion there. I'm not sure that the range of different reactions is greater in his case than in others.

Does that mean there's something wrong with my finding a flaw in what he says, even though I'm very much in sympathy with the project? Aren't we supposed to think these things through for ourselves - with the help of the commentators?

There are phenomenal experiences – let’s call them perceptions – and these same experiences can refer to, or be of, objects in the world which have names and, often, are constituted in interesting ways by smaller, more fundamental components. — J

That sounds interesting. But I don't want to adjourn to another thread to pursue it right now. I wouldn't want to dismiss James out of hand, but for now I would like to stick to Austin. Your summary bristles with ideas that need further explanation and articulation.

All perception is indirect via sense data and sense-organ which carries the sensed information into the brain via sense organs. — Corvus

Doesn't this imply that perception of sense data or perhaps "the sensed information" is direct perception?

Direct and indirect are not some essential properties of existence or entities as some folks seem to think. — Corvus

That's intuitively correct. But doesn't that just mean that direct and indirect are not properties, but relations (or perhaps properties of relations)?

We could easily have used "mediated" or "medium-less" instead of direct or indirect. — Corvus

I think that, together with the idea of "raw" or "unabstracted" and "certain", that is exactly what proponents of sense-data mean by direct. Whether those ideas make sense is another question.

Plane from London to Sydney is a direct flight, if it flies without stopping anywhere during flight, takes off from London and lands in Sydney then it is a direct flight.  If it stops in some other airports such as Dubai or Singapore, then it would be an indirect flight. — Corvus

Yes. The meaning of "direct" and "indirect" is determined by the context. The sense-datum theorist is like someone who insists that what we call the direct flight is actually indirect because it follows a route on the journey. That's a problem.

Doesn't this imply that perception of sense data or perhaps "the sensed information" is direct perception? — Ludwig V

It implies that it is indirect.

Yes. The meaning of "direct" and "indirect" is determined by the context. The sense-datum theorist is like someone who insists that what we call the direct flight is actually indirect because it follows a route on the journey. That's a problem. — Ludwig V

Direct and indirect are just words i.e. adjectives and adverbs describing how perception worked. One can say, I can see it directly, indirectly, clearly, dimly, sharply, indubitably, lucidly, positively, distinctly, manifestly, conspicuously, translucently, unmistakably, evidently, or precisely, .... etc etc.

Good post. While what you say here is quite valid, our practices override such considerations. Folk might quite successfully agree to "meet at the barn".

I had the same thought regarding Gettier, and supposed there were some connection. Austin was probably aware of Russell's stuck clock, an early Gettier problem. Doubtless Gettier had read Austin.

It makes more sense to me to think that there are a great many facts of the matter, only some of which we know, but some of those facts can be fairly well understood. — wonderer1

I agree there are many facts about perception, including scientific observations about how it works, but that wasn't my point: the point was that whether it is 'direct' or 'indirect' is a matter of looking at it from different perspectives, using different definitions of 'direct' and 'indirect'. Perhaps the terms 'mediate' and 'immediate' would be better alternatives. Phenomenologically speaking our perceptions certainly seem immediate. On the other hand. scientific analysis show perceptions to be highly mediated processes. Which is right? Well, they both are in their own ways.

Philosophers... always finding problems where there are none. — javi2541997

I think it's more a matter of philosophers finding new and novel ways to imagine things; the "problem" only arises when the demand that there be just one "correct" way of viewing things is made.

I'm not onboard with the James quote, for two reasons. First, what counts as a simple is down to context, and here I'm thinking of the later Wittgenstein: and second, I'm not certain of the implied physiology - that we build our sensorium up from patches strikes me as overly simplistic. Do you see the red patch and the bands and build Jupiter from them, or do you see Jupiter and then by being more attentive divide off the patch and the bands? Or some combination? These are questions for physiology, not philosophy.

I'm not sure where this leaves us.

Not a bump, swear.

I was understanding that Austin dismisses the distinction between direct and indirect perception as not meaningful,because he thinks perceptions are direct, although some perceptions are indirect such as when using binoculars or telescopes in visual perception.  I might have misunderstood the point. If so, please correct me, and confirm what is the case. — Corvus

I don't think the bit I bolded is right. Indeed, Austin is at pains to make the point that our perceptions are sometimes direct, sometimes indirect, and that neither is always the case. And this is one of his arguments against the sense data view that all our perceptions are indirect.

Again, it now seems to me that you have missed a rather important part of the argument against sense data.

@Banno @J @Ludvig @Corvus @javi2541997 @Ciceronianus @frank @wonderer1@Janus

In Sec. VI Austin is full of so much vitriol and sarcasm it’s hard to gather what the argument is. I had to go back to Ayer, who says "having described the [ empirical ] nature of the evidence that is ordinarily thought to be sufficient to establish [mirrors, bent sticks, and mirages]... I wish to consider what would be the position of one who, though he acknowledged the particular facts about our experiences that constitute this evidence, still chose to deny the propositions about material things that these facts are supposed to prove." (Ayer p. 17 emphasis added) And here I can imagine is where Austin goes ballistic, and rightly so. Why would anyone imagine someone who ignores evidence?

Nevertheless, Ayer postulates someone (I'll call them the philosopher) who says that, although there are facts they do not dispute, say, that we are seeing the same coin, that that "does not prove that he really is seeing the same object" (Id. Emphasis added) One reason why the philosopher might say they "really" don't see the same object is because they want to claim that each of us has our own "perception", as in: "Where we say that two observers are seeing the same material thing, he prefers to say that they are seeing different things which have, however, some structural properties in common." Even worse, Ayer here does not even try to reconcile the two positions, but simply chalks them up to "a choice of language". (Ayer p. 18) Instead of attributing that the philosopher is wrong, Ayer chooses that "it is to be inferred that he is assigning to the words a different meaning from that which we have given them." Id. This is why Austin keeps saying that Ayer’s philosopher can agree to the facts, but then say "whatever [they] like" Austin p. 59

I finally realized what is going on. This is Plato’s (projected straw-man) problem with the Sophists; he thought they believed there was nothing like knowledge except persuasion by rhetoric (of beliefs, as he framed it). Here it is the fear of that skeptical moral world transferred to our best case scenario, a physical object. Our failure even to come up with a standard for (all of) the physical world leads to the assumption that the resolution must be metaphysical, like sense-data (and not that our desire for one standard and one context is wrong). From Ayer we could say one reason is that we would like to maintain our own perspective as a fixed, given of human nature (that you and I (always) see our each coin, even though we agree they are the same). Ayer resigns himself to only be able to be sure of facts about sense-data (to thus be certain by one, fixed standard because only one type of object, without the need of any talk of context).

Direct and indirect are just words i.e. adjectives and adverbs describing how perception worked. One can say, I can see it directly, indirectly, clearly, dimly, sharply, indubitably, lucidly, positively, distinctly, manifestly, conspicuously, translucently, unmistakably, evidently, or precisely, .... etc etc. — Corvus

"Direct" and "indirect" are antonyms. The Cambridge dictionary defines "antonym" as "a word that means the opposite of another word" and provides, by way of example "two antonyms of "light" are "dark" and "heavy". The opposite of "antonym" is "synonym".

Folk might quite successfully agree to "meet at the barn". — Banno

Well, yes. But then, they could equally well agree to meet at the church. Always subject to the proviso there is a the context of a mutual understanding of where to meet. But in the context of a church-barn or barn-church, that understanding is harder to presuppose.

Doubtless Gettier had read Austin. — Banno

I would like to think so. Though the Stanford Encyclopedia cites Alvin Goldman as the source, in 1976. But he might easily have read Austin as well.

Phenomenologically speaking our perceptions certainly seem immediate. On the other hand. scientific analysis show perceptions to be highly mediated processes. Which is right? Well, they both are in their own ways. — Janus

I think that's right. It could be argued that we cannot expect "ordinary language" to be adapted to cater for this (relatively) new kind of knowledge - yet. This does seemm to open up the possibility of a technical account. However, talk of "perceptions" could easily encourage us to think of our perceptions as the end stage of a process. But they aren't pictures - or at least anything like an internal picture or model leads immediately to the question how we perceive that, and an infinite regress.

Here it is the fear of a skeptical moral world transferred to our best case scenario, a physical object. — Antony Nickles

I'm inclined to attribute Ayer's approach to Cartesian scepticism, rather than to any ethical question. However that may be, it is interesting that Ayer seems to back off the radical implications of his theory by denying them; Berkeley does exactly the same thing, in his rather different way. Surely that must show some sort of unease about the theory. (I didn't find the same thing in Hume.)

I would suggest that the reason Austin goes ballistic at this point is because any possibility of successfully refuting the theory is closed if each of us can say whatever we like and deny that we were asserting the consequences. I can sympathize with that. More soberly, it at least trivializes the theory.

I think it's more a matter of philosophers finding new and novel ways to imagine things; the "problem" only arises when the demand that there be just one "correct" way of viewing things is made. — Janus

It is possible that more than one way of thinking about things is valid, in one way or another. But surely some sort of selection will be needed sooner or later.