The opposite of
inferred
nature. Barfield used the term to mean external nature as perceived
by the ordinary person: "The stars, clouds, trees, houses, animals, and
so forth that we see around us" (WA 53).
According to modern
science, however, this nature is mind-dependent, its "reality" created
and sustained by human
thinking and perceiving.
It is thus a collective representation.
Barfield sometimes
refers to familiar nature as the "specious given."