. Before you dismiss, please consider making a donation. How is that possible? This article argues that the phenomenon of seeing-as cannot be explained by such a conception of perceptual experience. 4. The best that the rest of us can do is to try and remember certain pitches and make an inference by attempting to match what we hear with what we remember having heard in the past. Wittgenstein on Seeing Aspects 3 another, in the sense which Richard Wollheim has given to his notion,4 the change involves moving from seeing one thing in the figure to seeing a different, and incompatible, thing in it-from seeing a duck in the figure to seeing a rabbit in it. What seems disturbing about this account to me, and I'm inclined to think Wittgenstein would agree, is that there are an awful lot of "inferences" or "hypotheses" being made for a process which is described as an entirely "spontaneous" one. 1992. pp. To see the above image as a duck, and then to see it as a rabbit, is to see two different aspects of the image, just as it is to see the F-figure as an 'F' or a mirror-image of an 'F' (though these can be considered to be two different kinds of aspect perception). In other words, if a verificationist cannot provide an empirically verifiable, theoretical account of what it is to 'see', then the entire verificationist project is dead because the means of verification itself will be rendered unverifiable. I also believe that Wittgenstein would agree, and it seems that he wants to argue that traditional philosophy, in its attempt to theoretically reduce what it means to 'see', has stretched the meaning of interpretation far beyond the boundaries of its customary usage. Our eyes do not 'see', we do. 517. Wittgenstein came to see that language is not one monolithic system of representations for picturing reality. 17e, 11. What could Wittgenstein mean by this assertion? --not: "Put your left foot in front of your right foot etc. It might seem logical or common-sensical to someone like Russell that the duck-rabbit figure is one and the same picture, and that we simply interpret it differently, but as it appears, we simply cannot escape the experience of seeing two entirely unique pictures. Are we 'seeing' one essential object of perception, and merely interpreting it differently, or are we genuinely 'seeing' a duck and then 'seeing' a rabbit? References to sections in Part I will use a number sign (i.e., #). Such people have no need for pitch-pipes, since they can tune an instrument by simply listening to it and 'hearing' whether or not it is in tune. In the first part, the remarks are rarely more than a paragraph long and are numbered sequentially by paragraph. .' 30990675 Howick Place | London | SW1P 1WG © 2020 Informa UK Limited, Wollheim, Wittgenstein, and Pictorial Representation. The answer is not altogether clear, because, as mentioned above, his work is of the utmost complexity. A series of sketches depict the unfolding of his life from boyhood, … This type of analysis is infused in Bertrand Russell's treatment of what we can be said to be doing when we 'see': In our environment it frequently happens that events occur together in bundles--such bundles as distinguish a cat from another kind of object. What does it mean to see? Simon & Schuster. Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology. What is the correct way to see it? And so on. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Goldfarb, Warren. Sharing the same physical location in space does not make it so that the word to denote the objects can be used to mean both concepts at once. Wittgenstein hints at the difficulties that are involved in such a practice: 76. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. The basic evil of Russell's logic, as also of mine in the Tractatus, is that what a proposition is is illustrated by a few commonplace examples, and then pre-supposed as understood in full generality. New Jersey. He has been referred to as a behaviorist, a skeptic, a verificationist, and is even thought by some to be a practitioner of a sort of a priori anti-science. 110. The point is that an interpretation is something which is not immediately seen, but is actively applied to that which is seen. 3. Seeing the duck-rabbit figure as a duck, or as a rabbit, is therefore much like having perfect pitch, in that there are no active inferences being made. We in turn infer that this pattern of light comes from an area before us which beholds an object that resembles a cat. In other words, if the truth or falsity of statement cannot be empirically verified, then that statement is devoid of meaning and is thus nonsensical as an utterance. Relative to ourselves, it would seem, the essence of the universe around us is to all effects and purposes mere data: lines, shapes, colors, light emissions, textures, etc. He tries to compensate for this oddity by declaring that all of this inference-making is done by habit, implying that it therefore goes unnoticed by conscious thought. New York. Most interpretations of this figure, however, are going to be made in terms of what it actually looks like, and suffice it to say, there are a great many things in the world which share the appearance of this figure. ). This sort of conceptualization of how the brain works unconsciously by way of a leap of association is the result of the personification of the brain as a conscious, sentient entity in itself. The various contexts and examples Wittgenstein introduces, it also becomes obvious that the seeing experience depends upon both the perceiving subject and the object perceived. Where is the inference in this case? Click here to navigate to parent product. Click here to navigate to parent product. To use the term to denote unconscious processes (such as synaptic or neural functions, chemical balances, etc., as explained by neuroscience) performed by the brain is to confuse the concept of interpretation with something that it is not. This is simply unfathomable, because without the spontaneity of our alleged inferences, we would have been plagued by the constant awareness that we could be mistaken about everything that we see. Book Wollheim, Wittgenstein, and Pictorial Representation. Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology. Volume I. It is like describing how messages from the brain tell one foot to place itself in front of the other in such and such a fashion, in what manner the knees, ankles, and toes bend, etc., etc., and claiming that such an account of the mechanics of human bipedal locomotion is what it is to walk. Installation view, Paul Chan, Drawings for Word Book by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Greene Naftali, New York, 2020 Seen today in the midst of a global health crisis, and … We could also interpret the figure to be a fallen monolith by imagining it composed of solid bedrock and lying on the ground at some ancient archaeological site, such as the Sphinx Temple on the Giza necropolis in Egypt. yet'. It would seem that a person with perfect pitch experiences a genuine 'hearing' of one pitch or another. It is easy to describe the cases in which we are right to say we interpret what we see, as such-and-such. In regard to such confusions concerning psychological concepts in particular,in can be said that Wittgenstein quite literally has volumes to say on the subject. In §7-8 of Volume I of the Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, Wittgenstein writes: 7. We could say, as I understand Russell in his account of 'seeing' a cat, that these inferences are made out of habit, and therefore occur undetected by conscious thought. In order to help make sense of Wittgenstein's remarks, it becomes imperative to further and more thoroughly explicate the traditional philosophical views to which he seems to be objecting. Since Wittgenstein's ideas seem to elude classification so thoroughly, it is difficult to refer to them as anything but 'Wittgensteinian'. Such a response to a work of Wittgenstein's is not at all uncommon. When we see the figure one way instead of the other, we are not actively producing an interpretation of it, but rather our seeing it one way or another is an expression of our visual experience. Seeing Wittgenstein Anew is the first collection to examine Ludwig Wittgenstein’s remarks on the concept of aspect-seeing. Of course, we can offer rather outlandish interpretations which will obviously turn out to be mistaken, such as if we were to interpret the figure to be a pyramid or a jack o' lantern. As Wittgenstein puts it, interpreting is an action. Either way we wish to look at it, a verificationist is forced to give some kind of theoretical account like the one above, or else abandon his program altogether. We see it as two entirely different, alternating images, despite the fact that the drawing itself does not at all change. But in doing so he has to recognize that he is now utilizing two different meanings or uses for the word 'interpretation': (1) the unconscious processing and organizing of sensory data by the brain; and (2) the conscious and deliberate act of conjecturing or expressing a hypothesis. In our language game, we use intentional or action concepts to describe what we do. 1992. pp. As Wittgenstein writes in the above sections, he takes 'interpretation' to be an action in which we make a conjecture or an inference, which may end up being false. Here, Wittgenstein appears to be addressing our traditional philosophical inclination to search for some essential fact which constitutes our seeing the one way and seeing it another. 1958. pp. So if a verificationist cannot provide an account of 'seeing', what can he give an account of? Wittgenstein discussed the case of the duck-rabbit figure, which we can see as a duck, or see as a rabbit, but not both at the same time.) 1. Ideas such as these can properly be called interpretations. (It is in this respect that physics is superior to ignorant common sense.) Up to a point, we can test this hypothesis by experiment: we can touch the cat, and pick it up by the tail to see if it mews. (11). He seems to be showing us, contrary to those who mistakenly take him to be a behaviorist, that there are internal, inexplicable things going on within us, that the things we do and experience cannot all be explained or accounted for by pointing to some physical origin or process. WITTGENSTEIN ON SEEING AND SEEING AS WITTGENSTEIN ON SEEING AND SEEING AS HUNTER, J.F.M. A verificationist is committed to this type of theoretical conceptualization of 'seeing', because conceptualizing it in any other way would render such statements meaningless. To organize all of Wittgenstein's arguments and ideas into a neat, coherent philosophical system or program, in my opinion, would seem to do his work a great injustice. Due to this failure, he says that the book's structure "compels us to travel over a wide field of thought criss-cross in every direction." Therefore, it can be said that one of the most important things to keep in mind when reading Wittgenstein's work is that he is concerned with freeing us from traditional, a priori philosophical presuppositions and is attempting to push us to look at philosophical issues in new and different ways. Wittgenstein's claims, it should be noted, have the same implications for our other senses as well. So the meaning of the statement, "I see a cat," will lie in a purely physical account of the process that is played out by our sensory apparati and our brain, which can be dryly provided as something like the following (yes, why not hash it over one more time? When I'm looking at the photograph, I don't tell myself 'That could be seen as a human being'. How on earth does one make an interpretation without conscious thought? Let's say that we can only see the duck, for we are entirely unfamiliar with rabbits. . Seeing and Seeing‐as in Wittgenstein's Tractatus TILGHMAN, B. R. 1983-04-01 00:00:00 B . 1980. pp. According to this traditional picture, my seeing it one way and then another is due solely to whether I interpret it to be one way or the other, since my eyes have apparently done the 'seeing' for me beforehand. Or is that just the way that science attempts to explain how we walk? Volume I. Citadel Press. In other words, we see the image as a duck and then we see the image as a rabbit (in whichever order it may occur). Seeing Wittgenstein Anew is the first collection to examine Ludwig Wittgenstein's remarks on the concept of aspect-seeing. Is this not the way that we have come to use and understand the concept of interpretation in our everyday language game, namely that an interpretation is at least to some degree a conscious and deliberate inference which may or may not turn out to be correct? As Wittgenstein puts it, interpreting is an action. Furthermore, to try to give a theoretical account of what it is to 'see'--to put it in terms, as discussed earlier in this essay, which describe the physical processes undergone by the respective areas in the body--is akin to giving a theoretical account of what it is to walk. ." An interpretation or inference is a conscious action which is performed over and above what happens when we 'see' something. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. In the preface, Wittgenstein describes his failure to synthesize his points into a unified work. Wittgenstein’s concept of seeing-as (Philosophical Investigations, 1953). R. Tilghman of affairs whereby they are able to express a sense and represent the world. These essays show that aspect-seeing was not simply one more topic of investigation in Wittgenstein's later writings, but, rather, that it was a pervasive and guiding concept in his efforts to turn philosophy's attention to the actual conditions of our common life in … . His aim is to prevent us from adopting a 'scientistic' view of things, a view that every linguistic concept we use to describe what we do, such as 'seeing', 'believing', and 'understanding', point to factual, physical things in the world or in ourselves, and can thus be scientifically investigated and expounded. (4). When we say that we see something, we are expressing a belief that a specific perception is apparent to us, wherein no alternative perceptions are relevant. Every sensation which is of a familiar kind brings with it various associated beliefs and expectations. His response to this is not the latter, as our traditional philosophical inclinations would have us expect, but rather it is the former, namely that to see the figure one way and then another is to really see something different in each instance. With such a confused conception of 'interpretation', Russell and other philosophers who argue along a traditional line are trying to have it both ways, so to speak. I t was Ludwig Wittgenstein who sparked philosophical interest in what psychologists call ambiguous figures. University of Chicago Press. 'Seeing-in' is an imaginative act of the kind employed by Leonardo’s pupils when he told them to see what they could - for example, battle scenes - in a wall of cracked plaster. This is also a very good case of what Wittgenstein meant by the concept of internal relations in the Tractatus. Where Socrates says, “Virtue is knowledge,” Dr. Verdi’s Wittgenstein says, “Ethics is aspect-seeing,” an ingrained appreciation of alternate possibilities and the respect that goes with it. 1948. pp. (5). Wittgenstein puts it this way: 75. Even some prominent thinkers misunderstand Wittgenstein's ideas, as evidenced by the fact that many perceive of him as subscribing to philosophical schools of thought with which he would want no affiliation. To view the two pictures at the same time, to use an example of Wittgenstein's regarding 'meaning' (8), would be like trying to use the word "bank" in a manner that meant both of its meanings at the same time (financial bank, river bank). An interpretation, as we have already established, is a conscious, deliberate act. Edition 1st Edition. University of Chicago Press. We mentally embellish the object in a way which conforms to what we believe the object is or may be meant to represent. It is a passive experience, just as it is a passive experience for a person with perfect pitch to 'hear' E flat. .' In 1908 he began his studies in aeronauticalengineering at Manchester University where his interest in thephilosophy of pure mathematics led him to Frege. Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology. A theoretical account of 'hearing' that is along the same lines as the account of 'seeing' would thus not seem appropriate, particularly in light of this phenomenon of perfect pitch. In this case, it involves observing the physical structure and mechanics of the eyes, optic nerves, and the region of the brain to which they attach, as well as the physical laws regarding the behavior of light. What is it to maintain a 'Wittgensteinian' position on an issue? (In the same way we tell someone: "Go into the shop and buy . The chief confusions lie in the prevailing and allegedly common-sensical conceptions of the terms 'interpretation' and 'seeing'. In §1 of the Remarks, for instance, Wittgenstein begins by presenting us with the above figure which can be seen in two different ways. The fact that there are illusions of the senses, contrary to what Russell claims, somehow revolts against the idea that every object of sense contains root data that the brain merely interprets in different ways. Denonn, Lester E. Ed. Broadly speaking, a perceptive experience is a dogmatic belief in what physics and induction show to be probable; it is wrong in its dogmatism, but usually right in its content. Rescuing Wollheim's account without the support of Wittgenstein --pt. Wittgenstein then goes on to ask: "what does seeing the figure now this way and now that consist in?" This is because the scientific, empirical account of how we see--that is, strictly speaking, how the respective parts of the body work together--is based solely upon observations of the workings of the human body, vis-à-vis, how the eyes, nerves, and brain function in relation to the laws of physics. The adoption of Wittgenstein’s “seeing-as” for image studies can easily be retraced. It leads us to ascribe qualities to the brain that are, as I wish to argue, those of a human as a whole, such as inference-making. In fact, Wittgenstein's thought does not fit neatly into any type of established philosophical outlook or movement, but rather it seems to stand alone. Is that really what it means to walk? By Volker A. Munz. Philosophical Investigations is divided into two parts, consisting of what Wittgenstein calls, in the preface, Bemerkungen, translated by Anscombe as "remarks". This is something which is done, to at least some degree, consciously and deliberately. Upon a careful and painstaking reading of the rather cryptic and difficult passages within Ludwig Wittgenstein's Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, any reasonably intelligent person might still be left wondering what this obscure Austrian thinker might possibly be attempting to convey. One of the most interesting of Wittgenstein's challenges can be gleaned from the large number of passages devoted to the discussion of what he believes are the differences between 'seeing' and 'interpreting' that which one sees. Personally, I do not recall ever having had to develop the habit of 'seeing' things properly; of going through a process of hypothesizing about whether I see a cat or something else. And since the meaning of this statement, according to proponents of this movement in philosophy, is the mode of empirically verifying its truth or falsity, such meaning must be put in terms of the method in which statement's truth or falsity is determined. Scientific examination is simply not applicable in such a case. Those who are not acquainted with the shape and form of a rabbit but are with that of a duck will see only a duck--and vice versa. Even if it were so that the financial bank happens to be built on a river bank, we would still only be able to mean one designation or the other at one time if we were to say, for example, "I am going to the bank." Thus to 'see' is merely a job performed by the eyes: to take in raw visual data, since that is what the eyes apparently do. Moreover, Russell claims, as also earlier quoted, that "spontaneously and without conscious thought we interpret what we see and hear and fill it out with customary adjuncts." Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XVII. Wittgenstein does not have any quarrels with legitimate scientific inquiry or its findings. 2e. My doubt, in particular, is that Russell would actually mean such silliness by his use of the word "habit." pt. For an account of 'seeing' such as Russell's to hold water, there must be something which we can point to that constitutes both the duck and the rabbit as the proper object of perception. I. Wittgenstein and seeing-as --pt. He continues in this manner by asking whether we are actually seeing something different in each instance or whether we are seeing the same thing and merely interpreting it one way or the other. Such schools of thought, which Wittgenstein somewhat influenced in his early years, are characterized by an attempt to rid philosophy of speculative metaphysics and align it with the methodological commitments of science. However the brain may organize and process information (even the terms 'process' or 'organize' may not be fitting, for we know relatively very little about how the brain functions in this regard) from the sensory apparati, it is not a case of 'interpretation' as the term is customarily used. is connected with 'I'm trying to see it as . These essays show that aspect-seeing was not simply one more topic of investigation in Wittgenstein's later writings, but, rather, that it was a pervasive and guiding concept in his efforts to turn philosophy's attention to the actual conditions of our common life in language. For such theoretical reductions regarding psychological concepts, traditional philosophy is indebted at least in part to the influence of the verificationist movement in the early twentieth century, out of which came programs such as logical positivism (or logical empiricism) and Russell's logical atomism. We simply alternate between passively seeing the ambiguous picture as a duck and seeing it as a rabbit. Or you can dismiss until our next donations drive (typically at the beginning of October). Science and traditional philosophy try to provide a physiological account of these concepts. The scientistic inclination to search for a physical account of mental and psychological notions is an expression of the mental discomfort we feel at the thought of being unable to provide reasons for why we are the way we are and why we do the things we do. In the Remarks on thePhilosophy of Psychology, Volumes I & II, Wittgenstein provides his readers with a wealth of counterexamples to our traditional philosophical accounts of various psychological phenomenon, all of which are designed to help demonstrate how such accounts seem to be misguided and mired in confusion. Seeing Wittgenstein Anew is the first collection to examine Ludwig Wittgenstein's remarks on the concept of aspect-seeing. "Wittgenstein on Understanding". The above figure is meant to show, as are the ones soon to be discussed, that there are in fact illusions of the senses and thus to conceptualize seeing (as well as any other sensory experience) simply as a process of absorbing and interpreting 'data' is to terribly confuse the idea of what it actually means to 'see'. If we were to play a specific note, for instance, say E flat, on the guitar for such a person, he will immediately recognize it as E flat, in just the same way that we can immediately recognize the color blue when it is presented to us. Thanks! The meaning of the word is stretched so far as to include that which it seems to contradict. To this regard it is an action that is at least to some degree performed consciously and deliberately. T The phrase “seeing as” became a staple of philosophical vocabulary, and various uses were made of it. In the case of the aforementioned figure 'F', therefore, this traditional analysis has instilled in many modern philosophers the conviction that there must be some common, essential object of perception between the 'F' and the mirror-image of the 'F', which is interpreted differently in each instance. Benefits from Wollheim's borrowing from Wittgenstein --pt. But if I now wanted to offer reasons against this way of putting things--what would I have to say? In Russell's defense, we could say that it is a drawing of the same shape, a specific conglomeration of lines and curves, or something to that effect, but this seems trivial and unsatisfying to us--almost as if we were to say that the proper object of sense in this case is a "thing". It does in fact seem wrong to say that the picture-duck and the picture-rabbit look the same, because they are two completely different pictures. Philosophers who have allowed these elements in the philosophical tradition to influence them have thus created a sharp divide between what one sees and what one infers from what one sees, namely that what one sees is raw sensory data, and all else is interpretation. We do not each exist as a brain in a vat. Seeing Wittgenstein Anew is a collection which examines Ludwig Wittgenstein's remarks on the concept of aspect-seeing, showing that it was not simply one more topic of investigation in Wittgenstein's later writings but rather a pervasive and guiding concept in his efforts to turn philosophy's attention to the actual conditions of our common life in language.