Everett W. Hall, earned his doctorate from Cornell in 1929, served on the faculty of the University of North Carolina from 1952 until his death in 1960. Hall was a systematic philosopher whose main interest was value theory. In works such as What is Value? (1952) and Philosophical Systems (1960), he strived to work out a philosophical alternative to skepticism and subjectivism. Hall's papers contain numerous manuscripts of his articles, many of them unpublished until their inclusion in Categorical Analysis, edited by E. M. Adams, in 1964

 I perceive this sheet of paper as white, rectangular, and spotted with disfiguring black marks. Why not make the bold assumption that the only thing possessing the congeries of properties I perceive is the sheet of paper? Why look into our brains for them, or invent some unobservable mental events that display them? The answer of course is that I perceive them; this is an activity on my part now going on and is not in any sense part of the paper.... the occurrence of the seeing (in the sense of a referring in direct perceptual fashion to the sheet characterized as I have intimated), is a complex neurological 'act'- an act of intention.
--Everett W. Hall


I comment directly regarding Hall's claim, but obliquely to anyone else interested or concerned.
The paper in the Everett W. Hall quote is an object, a matergic unity. From a human perspective it has been flattened into what we call a sheet of material having a relatively broad surface in relation to depth or thickness formed by a community of atoms/particles in a certain configuration - or - if you wish a force field.

The *disfiguring black marks* may be inherently present as an outcome of the manufacturing process (he does not say.) For the purposes of my commentary I am going to assume that they are *foreign* objects, possibly the residue of dried print ink, perhaps black greasy fingermarks, maybe flecks of black shoe polish, or simply airborne detritus which has settled on the page.

If the objects are indeed *foreign,* it is just as ridiculous to characterise such objects as *possessing* the *property* of a rectangular piece of paper stuck to them, as it is to characterise the paper as *possessing* the *property* of them by virtue of them being stuck to it.

That Hall makes this mereological mistake is obvious, for his *bold assumption* is a mereological and ontological step too far. In describing the sheet of paper as possessing transcendental *congeries of properties,* rather than (in a serious dialogue) characterising the objects in analytically scientific terms as: *flattened dehydrated cellulose pulp, dried ink particles, grease smears and detritus, *he demonstrates the ontologically flawed, subjective, attributive psychologically agenderised, function of designating a relational hierarchy in such a manner which complies with his antecedally internalised pre-conception.

By assigning immaterial proprietorial *qualities* to objects that have no actual *proprietorial* vis a vis *possessed* affinities, he is simply manipulating the description of contiguous objects into HUMANLY EFFICACIOUS associative patterns which suit HIS proprietorially biased, internalised kaleidoscopic melange of metaphysical conventions.

In other words he is playing ontological checkers (see: The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam ) by proprietorially assigning: reality-disconnected affiliations:

                                     *this belongs to that and that belongs to this.*

in order to suit the utilitarian vagaries of human identification-manque.

At this stage I wish to emphasise that my comments are aimed at discerning  *what actually exists* and NOT what sort of abstract classification system of attribution proves most useful for humans to existentialise and reify abstractions into objects which are not objects, or even quasi objects, or even worse the fallacious *mental objects* of the ontologically insane.

Scientifically he makes assumptions that have no basis in reality, for the objects involved are insensate objects which simply lie there before him and exist in the way that they exist, completely remote and inviolate from his transcendentalist tinkering and human reifico-categorial whimsy.

In other words though his descriptions are sufficient for the natural language of the streets and bar rooms and the staff rooms of traditionalist *It'll do - that'll do - doesn't matter* philosophy departments - they are useless for serious onto-mereological investigation.

Hall is quite correct in asking why we look to our brains, but he does not go far enough in his analysis. He is in fact incapable of doing so, being trapped up to the cerebellar hemisphere in a quagmire of antecedally acquired cognitive reifico-impedimenta and supernatural sludge.

His  answer does however include the commonplace that because we perceive objects we invent unobservable *mental events* that display them.  The invention of primitive *properties* like: *mind* and qualia* (redolent of spirits in trees, woods and rocks imagined by bare-assed savages) are as asinine as the *properties* we attribute to objects that cannot answer back.

It is useless attempting to conduct serious scientific ontological investigation using the primitive concepts and corrupted language of the philosophical tradition. Such language is only suitable for the opinionated chatter which they call *ethics* and *morality* - a  bandwagon or rather a judgemental juggernaut  which (in the absence of being taken seriously in any other cognitive domain) lumbers along the corridors of shame in universities all over the world - its wheels squeaking a wheedling: *Jobs for the boys - jobs for the boys!*

However for all his ontological and mereological handicaps Hall does realise one salient point - a point that makes what he has to say worth reading, for it provides an insight to an understanding of the arrogance of the individualistic homocentric view of the world. Apart from his neurological malfunction (in true Cartesian manner) of unnecessary object-action reification by dualistically pimping his perceiving brain with an onto-neurologically illegitimately thingified *act of intention,* as a cranially transpory  trannie-partner/passenger, he did at least grasp that his reificative fantasies were not in any sense part of the paper.

At least we can be grateful for small mercies and that as taxpayers we are at least being provided with the occasional half-truth for our money.