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If we think of the objects (as opposed to the facts and properties) we see as the objects we are visually conscious of, the texture of conscious visual experience is given by the number of objects we see. By using an epistemic test for the objects we see (viz, the objects one sees are the objects one has direct perceptual knowledge of) it is argued that the texture of conscious experience is very rich indeed — much richer, in fact, than studies of change blindness and inattention would suggest. We know, by direct visual perception, more than we know we know. We are therefore — often enough anyway — aware of more than we realize. A subjective, first-person, test for consciousness is the wrong test.

In this chapter I further develop interaction theory and the concept of primary intersubjectivity by providing evidence for our ability to directly perceive intentions and emotions. Intentions and emotions can be understood at least in part as composed of perceivable patterns of contextualized embodied behaviors. I argue that perception is “smart” and in no need of inferential or simulational supplementation in most instances of social interaction. I consider that even some theory theorists have acknowledged the role of perception but not without giving up the idea of a subpersonal processing that amounts to an inferential mindreading. I also consider recent predictive processing accounts and argue for an embodied-enactive interpretation of such processes. Finally, I consider concerns about direct social perception raised by research in social psychology.

This chapter narrates the interview between the author and Louwrien Wijers, on her life and experiences within the Fluxus movement. Wijers, as a contemporary of Joseph Beuys, had grown up surrounded by beauty and had learned Beuys’ “soft touch” approach to art, which would later be supplemented by her study of Gelugpa Buddhism and its concepts of nondual thinking and direct perception. During her foray into the contemporary art world, she met the likes of Ben d’Armagnac, who in his final performance introduced his concept of the overgave—a methodical push toward a state of emotional, physical, and intellectual exposure. His death also becomes a sort of avant-garde exhibition, and raises questions of death and silence—which is in itself a death of all other sounds—if there is a perfect ending, or if the ending is yet another beginning.

This chapter explores Putnam’s more recent natural realism. Natural realism has many points of contact with McDowell’s line of thought in Mind and World. In particular, it utterly rejects the bracketed empiricist approach to ’understanding’ that is characteristic of nonrealism. Moreover, it attempts to avoid the problems raised by the model-theoretic arguments by tackling Cartesian angst head-on. This is an excellent strategy. Unfortunately, natural realism attempts to tackle Cartesian angst by embracing naïve realism about perception. It is therefore unable to deal adequately with Cartesian scepticism. This is a crucial failing, since Cartesian angst is all that is needed to feed the machine of the model-theoretic arguments and the just-more-theory manoeuvre. The discussion of philosophy of perception turns out to be a red herring in the present context.

This paper engages with the debate of how Berkeley reconciles restricting the objects of sense perception to what is immediately perceived with allowing that ordinary physical objects are amongst the objects of perception. Pitcher’s (1986) argument that Berkeley did not take the claim that we perceive ordinary physical objects to be ‘strictly true’ is rejected before we move to the debate between Pappas (2000) and Dicker (2006) about whether Berkeley equivocates about the definition of ‘immediate perception’ in a way which undermines his position. They agree that Hylas must accept indirect realism, but disagree about how this affects the cogency of his argument. However, Stoneham (2002) gave a different account of the dialectic in the First Dialogue that shows both Pappas and Dicker to be mistaken. This allows us to resolve Berkeley’s problem by appeal to the ordinary idea that we can perceive an object by perceiving part of it.

According to the problem of other animal minds, claims to know anything about the minds of animals suffer from serious problems of justification. These problems parallel the problem of other human minds. Inferentialist approaches argue that the justification lies in the appropriate form of inference. These approaches are inadequate for a variety of reasons. Direct perception approaches claim our access to the minds of animals is, in some cases, perceptual. A novel form of the direct perception account is defended. This is based on three ideas: (a) a distinction between seeing and seeing that, (b) a distinction between formal and functional descriptions of behavior, and (c) the idea that functional descriptions of behavior are (often) disguised psychological descriptions. If we wish to have any useful descriptions of animal behavior, we must accept that we can often see their mental states.