There is an old baseball story about three umpires calling balls and strikes. One says, “I call them as
I see them.” The second says, “I call them as they are.” The third insists, “They ain't nothing until I
call them.” These attitudes correspond to the philosophical positions of empiricism, realism, and
idealism. For neuroscience to support realism about objects, I need to show that the structures and
processes used by the brain enable it to represent things in the world as they are, at least
approximately.