  Even on Ayer’s later view, called ‘sophisticated realism’(in Ayer 1973), where our perception of physical objects was indirect, the ultimate bases for perceptual judgments were sense-data, which were now called ‘qualia’ (or, if particularized, ‘percepts’). It was this continuing commitment to sense-data as the objects of perception that drew J.L. Austin’s (often sarcastic) criticism in Sense and Sensibilia (1962). On Ayer’s view, qualia formed the patterns constituting a primary system, and it was on the basis of this system that we posited the existence of physical objects, this being the ‘theoretical’ secondary system. Once we have this theory, we are able reinterpret the quale as mental states and claim that they are caused by the physical objects. This causal claim is only merited once the theoretical system is in place, and so cannot be a primitive element in any account of perception. The physical objects are required to be there before any causal hypothesis involving them makes sense.