Aaron Schiller

Part of Sellars's general attack on the Myth of the Given is his endorsement of psychological nominalism, a view that implies that awareness of our own mental states is not given but must be earned. Sellars provides an account of how such awareness might have been earned with the Myth of Jones. Such an account is important for Sellars, for without it the Given can look necessary after all. But a problem with such accounts is that they can look extremely implausible. Sellars himself seems unconcerned to make his account plausible, and so others have stepped in here. But, I argue, they have done so in ways that fail to respect his psychological nominalism. This evinces, as well as reinforces, a lack of sensitivity to the scope of Sellars's attack on the Given, the aim of which is the dismantling of “the entire framework of givenness.” In this essay, I show how one can make Sellars's Myth of Jones plausible, while still respecting his psychological nominalism, by seeing how Jones's thought is governed by the norms of rationality as interpretability.

After outlining an enactive account of fact perception, I consider J. L. Austin's discussion of the argument from illusion. From it I draw the conclusion that when fact perception is primary the objects perceived are those involved in the fact. A consideration of Adelson's checkershadow illusion shows that properties as basic as luminance are perceived in the contexts of facts as well. I thus conclude that when facts are perceived they structure our perception of objects and properties. I then argue that which facts are perceived is determined by contexts which are themselves determined by our interests. Here I appeal to Heidegger's views on everyday coping as a foundational form of intentional directedness. A discussion of Simons and Chabris? gorilla experiment provides contemporary empirical support of the Heideggerian analysis. Finally, I argue that there cannot be context-free perception on the enactive account inasmuch as perception, qua action, is always permeated with the interests of the subject

At the head of The Colbert Report, one of the most popular shows on television, Stephen Colbert is a pop culture phenomenon. More than one million people backed his fake candidacy in the 2008 U.S. presidential election on Facebook, a testament to the particularly rich set of issues and emotions Colbert brings to mind. Stephen Colbert and Philosophy is crammed with thoughtful and amusing chapters, each written by a philosopher and all focused on Colbert's inimitable reality — from his word creations (truthiness, wikiality, freem, and others) to his position as a faux-pundit who openly mocks Fox News and CNN. Although most of the discussion is centered around The Colbert Report, this collection does not neglect either his best-selling book, I Am America (And So Can You!), or his public performances, including his incendiary 2006 White House Press Correspondents' Dinner speech.