3 A public reality of one’s own
If we all come to a performance and experience the projection of the counterfactual situation presented to us with varying degrees of belief (and knowledge), how will we make sense of the information observed before us? In Sense and Sensibilia (1962), J. L. Austin responds to A. J. Ayer and Rudolf Carnap’s defense that one only perceives sense-datum and never a material object itself:
For if, when I make some statement, it is true that nothing whatever could in fact be produced as a cogent ground for retracting it, this can only be because I am in, have got myself into, the very best possible position for making that statement—I have, and am entitled to have, complete confidence in it when I make it. But ...
