I thought that was a little jab at me. It was a good one, by the way. But I think my question still stands. How many contexts would be necessary to appease someone like Austin?

I played it longer and it follows the one sentence you’ve quote.

“ You can’t do that, you can’t go after people. You know, when you’re president, and you’ve done a good job and you’re popular, you don’t go after them so you can win an election.”

That sounds pretty explicit to me.

I should like to emphasize, however, how fatal it always is to embark on explaining the use of a word without seriously considering more than a tiny fraction of the contexts in which it is actually used.

I suppose we should wonder how fatal it is. Certainly he doesn’t mean one will die if the philosopher never lists the correct amount of contexts, or uses less accounts than Austin or Banno finds appropriate. Sure, Ayer’s limited account does not help us at all with real pearls, real ducks, real cream, real watches, real novels, but what about the topic at hand? It seems the worst thing to come of it is that some word-concerned philosopher, who never raises his head from the text, might have to quibble about it.

The quote I gave is in the ensuing remarks, but suspiciously missing from your context.

The media was kind enough to quote him out of context, frame it, and you were silly enough to fall for it and defend it. Shameful.

“You can’t do that, you can’t go after people. You know, when you’re president, and you’ve done a good job and you’re popular, you don’t go after them so you can win an election.”

Why wouldn’t you include this in there?

Exactly. He’s saying that because he is being indicted then if he wins the election then he will indict his opponents if he sees that they are doing well and beating him.

And you think he’s going to do this in the 2028 election, even though he can’t and won’t run in 2028? Utter nonsense.

He's literally saying that.

He’s literally not.

He wasn't just explaining why it was wrong. He was explaining that he would commit that very same wrong that he is falsely accusing others of.

All I have to do is look at the preceding context (which you suspiciously leave out) and see that you’re wrong.

“They have done something that allows the next party — I mean, if somebody, if I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say ‘Go down and indict them.’ They’d be out of business, they’d be out of the election.”

No it's not.

But you thought he was saying it allows him to terminate the constitution, which is an absolute lie.

He's planning to weaponize the justice department in response to legitimate cases against him.

False. He was explaining why it was wrong.

A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.

This is true. A fraud at that level allowed for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles of the constitution. That’s why it was wrong.

If I happen to be president, and I see somebody who is doing well and beating me very badly, I'll say, 'go down and indict them.'

He was explaining why it was wrong to weaponize the justice department, because doing so sets the precedent.

The Durham report was damning, and completely lost on those who followed blindly the false reporting around that time. The involvement of the Clinton campaign, the dismissal of exculpatory evidence, the confirmation bias, and the corrupt hearts and minds of those involved in that investigation is found not only the central actors to that scam, but also in their true believers. The problem is, these corrupt hearts and minds still run the show, and the true believers still follow along.

Jim is Jim. Jim acts. He’s not a set of anything. We tend to abstract Jim into states of Jim. We name the states we have abstracted, make of them a set, and so on. It is at this point we have stopped considering Jim and now consider our own abstractions, ourselves.

I don’t see a problem. Jim remains the same throughout while what he performs does not.

You can tell what is and isn’t driven by straight propaganda by its constant repetition. Repetition makes true. It has been the hill upon which the anti-Trump mind crucifies itself, but at the same time reveals its naked absurdity.

The notion that Trump called for the termination of the constitution or that he was going to indict political opponents is nonsense. It’s just the clever twisting of his admittedly loose words into something palpable for the anti-Trump mind, riddled as it is with the incessant campaign for views and advertising bucks from an industry in its death-throes. So it cannot be that Trump’s opponents are weaponizing the justice system against him, even though they campaigned on it and are now doing it, it’s that we ought to fear Trump maybe doing it in some dystopian future, much like the future they promised us before he was elected the first time, but what only Biden could deliver: war, failed economy, weaponized and two-tiered justice.

Yes. One can abstract out a specific action from another by considering it on its own as a state, by placing limits on its duration, naming it, and presenting it as a singular movement, and so on. The actor is the action, or rather, the actor acts.

Thanks for making it more clear. I was just trying to picture it, the haphazard result of dividing what I believe is one entity into two. A “perception” to me is just the perceiver considered abstractly, and not worthy enough to be given position, spacial or temporal. But in a way it does come after, insofar as it is a post hoc state, an afterthought, as in “between this time and that time I was perceiving such and such”. So for me it speaks little of the directness or indirectness of perception and doing so leads me into wild territory.

I would oppose any such view, personally.

I think these details are important because no one mentions these components of perception, as far as I know. Which extension do you mean?

What do you mean here that it can be said for animals but not nervous systems?

It cannot be said that a nervous system can perceive because perception involves more than nervous systems. For instance, in humans, lungs, a heart, bones, muscles, skin etc. are involved in the act.

Educated and nuanced is how they see themselves, but then they repeat almost verbatim the propaganda they’ve been spoon fed for the last few years, as if it was soy. Trump was educated in the Ivy League. I’d love to compare their education, but then again these days “educated” is another word for “instructed”, and instruction aptly describes how they think about politics. It’s why they fell for the Russia hoax, and every hoax since—just following instruction.

I didn't say that. I said that the perceiver (in general) is the medium between the perception and the perceived.

You also said that the nervous system was the medium. So if both perceiver and nervous systems (in general) is the medium, then I’m left to assume nervous systems are perceivers in your view. They perceive and are also mediums. But I just don’t know how that can be possible, because much more than a nervous system is required for the act of perceiving.

Humans and other animals perceive, and are therefor perceivers. This is what I mean when I use the term “perceiver”: a thing that perceives. It can be said these things perceive. The same cannot be said of nervous systems.

As for your positioning of perceiver, perceptions, and mediums, it’s too odd for me to think about because it implies the perception (whatever that is) is somewhere outside or behind the perceiver.

I don’t think it can be established that a perceiver is both perceiver and perceived. I suspect that, given the indirectness theory, that you would say we perceive our nervous systems, and not the sound waves in air. Is this so?

All processes are mediated or mediate. Perception can be validly understood as a process.

I’m not so sure. I cannot see the difference between the body and a bodily process. When I point to either, or both, I am pointing at the same thing. I don’t know how to distinguish between the thing that moves and the movements it makes, as if I was distinguishing between the morning and the evening star.



The nervous system is not a medium, though, because it is a part of that which senses—the perceiver—not that which the perceiver senses. I guess my next question is: where does the perceiver begin and end? I doubt appealing to biology can furnish an answer in favor of the indirectness of perception. Sound waves, for example, where the medium is air, contacts the sensitive biology of the ear directly, not indirectly.

Why do you think other adults require your brand of protection, unless you thought they were children? You advise taking their weapons and then turn around and suggest protecting them from the people who are going to take their weapons. If you want to protect them from the state and totalitarianism, let them keep their weapons and instead take the weapons away from the state.

If philosophers would respect the fact that there is always a medium between the thing sensed (sometimes called external), and the sensation of the individual (sometimes called internal), most of these silly problems could be avoided.

What is the medium?

I don’t care about any screed that proposes treating adults like children and limiting their most basic rights so Christoffer can feel a little safer.

Replacing and updating is not equivalent of "trashing". Try again without the strawman.

Trashing it and replacing it with one Christoffer likes.

Lovers of wisdom should have no fear of information they do not like.

Cringe. Now we’re to learn about “Democracy” from people who suggest trashing a constitution and censoring information they don’t like.

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.

The question arises, as it invariably does: what mediates perceptions?

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.

I ask because nothing in biology shows that we are viewing our own eyes. Rather, eyes are included in the act of perceiving, as necessary components of the perceiver. And the contact with light on the retina is quite direct—light hits the retina. This contact between perceiver and perceived suggests the directness of perception.

I know how eyes work. The question is: how are you able to view the medium of your eyes?

Usually we use our eyes to view mediums, such as light for example. So one might say we perceive light. But you’re saying the eyes are the medium. Eyes are no longer an aspect of the perceiver, but of the perceived. So it raises the question. If the eyes are the medium, and you believe that we perceive this medium, how are you perceiving them if not with eyes? Do you think the perceiver is the brain?

To say eyes are one of the mediums of visual perception is to point out that perceptions are indirect. It had been mentioned particularly, because it is the most obvious and unmistakable example of the medium in visual perception by anyone, due to the fact that some folks in this thread seem to have problems in understanding why perceptions are indirect.

One problem I have with your obvious and unmistakeable example is routine biology. One usually uses her eyes to view mediums. So how does one view the medium of her own eyes, if not with her eyes?

You miss the point. If you are going to assert that the objects of perception are unreal or that tables and chairs are real, it is a good idea to know what the word means, including what it means to other people. Unless you offer your own definition of real, other people will assume that you mean by it what it means in ordinary language. But in ordinary language, the assertion that tables and chairs are real is extraordinarily pointless, and the assertion that rainbows and sunsets are unreal is completely puzzling.

He makes the point clear enough. It is a “fatal enterprise” to use the word in the way Ayer does. If us ordinary people need our hand held in what the word “real” might mean, perhaps he should have reminded his readers that it isn’t really fatal to use the word in such a manner.

That’s a good guess. The indirect realist position presents itself with a problem of self-hood, among others. It implies the perceiver is like a little viewer who observes the neural circuitry of his sense organs as they dutifully present him with impulses that turn out to look like chairs, sound like horns, and smell like lavender.

It’s a shame Austin doesn’t wade into any of these problems given the title of his book (just another play on words, I guess), and is content to split-hairs on rather trivial matters, like an entire lecture on the word “real”.

I am easily persuadable given good arguments, but indirect realism is lacking in that department. So thank you for at least sharing what you believe.

He quibbles throughout, but then says that, according to the argument from illusion, sense-data is perceived directly.

As I mentioned earlier, the argument from illusion is intended primarily to persuade us that, in certain exceptional, abnormal situations, what we perceive—directly anyway—is a sense-datum; but then there comes a second stage, in which we are to be brought to agree that what we (directly) perceive is always a sense-datum, even in the normal, unexceptional cases.

P.44

So whether we are perceiving a table or sense-datum, both are perceived directly.

It’s not only the leaf, but also the binoculars, the window, the garden, the chemicals and particulates in the air that you are seeing. To the question “what is it that is perceived”, all of it must be included. The mistake, I think, is to consider the “perceived” as an isolated object, like a leaf or table. Moreover, everything witnessed in the entire sensual periphery must be considered as “the perceived”, including smells, sounds, and so on. If all of it included, as I think it must be, it is impossible to say perception is indirect because there is no intermediary there.

If the law of identity holds, I cannot consider “the final place where the perceptual judgement took place” as perceived, because the brain is a component of the perceiver. Does X perceive Y, or does X perceive X? At any rate, neither precludes any intermediary.

To be fair, as Austin intimates somewhere, all perception is direct. It’s just a question of what it is we are perceiving. In my opinion there are only two likely candidates: ourselves or the world. So in my mind it also becomes a question of identity and selfhood.