# Uncovering Appearances Chapter One **Opening (not a real abstract):** A Problem of Interpretation Thomas Reid remarked that we hardly ever attend to the visible appearance of objects, but that our attention is normally drawn to the objects themselves and those features of them which best fit our intentions and interests.1 For example, I can with a cursory glance take in the lavender bush at the end of my street, some fifty metres away, and note the overall colour of the bush—a dull green at this time of year—and its rough, somewhat square, shape. But it takes more attention, reflection and skill to move beyond this description and to discover the distinctive ways in which these objects can appear to me. I may note, for example, that the lavender bush seems somehow flatter than the garden hedge a mere ten metres from me. With further attention, it may strike me that I differentiate among the branches of the lavender bush only through the