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 opening remark is double-barreled: he states thatthe field of aesthetics is both very big and entirely misunderstood. Again, we can rely on Russell to lend his support to this idea: There are in fact no illusions of the senses, but only mistakes in interpreting sensational data as signs of things other than themselves. In the case of seeing, however, the statement, "I see a cat," is a meaningful one since its truth or falsity can, according to the proponents of such schools of thought, be empirically verified. The path corresponds to a particular pattern of oscillation of the eyeballs in the act of looking. If to 'interpret' is a habit in this sense of the term, then Russell seems to be conceptualizing the word 'interpretation' in a manner which includes unconscious or subconscious processes in the brain as part of its meaning. (9). 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. University of Chicago Press. (10). Denonn, Lester E. Ed. Wittgenstein pointed to the epistemological significance of puzzle pictures, such as the ambiguous “duck-rabbit” that can be seen either as a duck’s head facing one way or a rabbit’s head facing another way. In respect to Russell's claim, vis-à-vis, that there are no illusions of the senses, only mistakes in interpreting sensational data, how would seeing the ambiguous figure one way or other be a mistake? The point is that an interpretation is something which is not immediately seen, but is actively applied to that which is seen. In the first part, the remarks are rarely more than a paragraph long and are numbered sequentially by paragraph. 1981-04-01 00:00:00 Footnotes 1 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1953). 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. As a result, for Wittgenstein scientism is just as misguidedly metaphysical as traditional, more transparently a prioristic, approaches. The facts of human natural history that throw light on our problem, are difficult for us to find out, for our talk passes them by, it is occupied with other things. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Let us put it another way. . Should I say: "The picture-rabbit and the picture-duck look just the same"?! 93e, 7. 17e, 11. Wittgenstein is particularly troubled by this sort of theoretical reduction of what we can be said to be doing when we say we see something. First Published 2016. There does not seem to be, however, anything that we can point to in this regard. Seeing Wittgenstein Anew is the first collection to examine Ludwig Wittgenstein’s remarks on the concept of aspect-seeing. 1980. pp. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XVII. --I couldn't answer: 'I take that to be a . WITTGENSTEIN ON SEEING AND SEEING AS WITTGENSTEIN ON SEEING AND SEEING AS HUNTER, J.F.M. 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. Philosophical Investigations is divided into two parts, consisting of what Wittgenstein calls, in the preface, Bemerkungen, translated by Anscombe as "remarks". Or you can dismiss until our next donations drive (typically at the beginning of October). 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. Is 'seeing' something which is empirically verifiable, which can be reduced to a theoretical account? If there is, can its ultimate reality be known if all that we have to rely on is our perceptions of it derived from our senses? As Wittgenstein puts it, interpreting is an action. upon Ludwig Wittgenstein’s concept of seeing-as (Philosophical Investigations, 1953). This is what it is to see something as. The meaning of the word is stretched so far as to include that which it seems to contradict. 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. As mentioned earlier in this essay, in the traditional philosophical picture, there is a tendency to think of the brain itself as the "I", or as the seat of consciousness. Those who are gifted in such a way have the ability to recognize the pitch of a sound as spontaneously and readily as the rest of us can recognize colors (of those of us who are not colorblind, anyway). . In the following sections we will examine where Wittgenstein seems to believe that the philosophy of psychology, in regard to the senses, has gone astray. Is that really what it means to walk? 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. The Bertrand Russell Dictionary of Mind, Matter, and Morals. As Warren Goldfarb puts it, Wittgenstein is "a philosopher whose major concern is to fight against a priorism, to demolish pictures of how things must be, to expose 'preconceived ideas to which reality must correspond'".(1). 1980. pp. We do not each exist as a brain in a vat. 8. 1. . In §7-8 of Volume I of the Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, Wittgenstein writes: 7. But to be able to give an account of what it is to 'believe', 'desire', 'understand', or 'see' (in the sense it has been discussed in this essay) is an entirely different matter. If, on the other hand, pictorial perception involves In ordinary everyday life, however, there are many things for which only one interpretation is correct or the most plausible, such as when a person infers that there is a UFO hovering in the night sky and it turns out that it is only the planet Venus. This claim is especially troubling. 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). When we look at the duck-rabbit, without any awareness that it can be seen two different ways, we only see either a duck or a rabbit. .' Wittgenstein’s concept of seeing-as (Philosophical Investigations, 1953). Click here to navigate to parent product. Benefits from Wollheim's borrowing from Wittgenstein --pt. This chapter gives some kind of survey of the various contexts in which Wittgenstein discusses the phenomenon of 'seeing as'. 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. 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. "Wittgenstein on Understanding". A series of sketches depict the unfolding of his life from boyhood, … 9. ', or 'I can't see it as . We thus end up with an application of the word 'interpretation' which seems to go against its customary usage, namely that we take a word which is used to denote a conscious activity and use it to denote an unconscious one. In §1 of the Remarks, for instance, Wittgenstein begins by presenting us with the above figure which can be seen in two different ways. In Russell's account of what it is to 'see' a cat, he claims that through induction, we "infer" that the light patterns before us proceed from a cat. 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? Volume I. Such illusions, through their ambiguity, show that there are in fact cases where we cansee as without need for interpretation, and thus 'seeing' is an experience which seems to come as a brute fact, neither having nor requiring verification in the form of a physicalistic account. In the case of 'seeing', therefore, Wittgenstein is trying to clarify the concept so as to show where scientific examination would and would not be applicable. . Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology. Wittgenstein wants to break us out of the scientistic habit of presupposing that mental and psychological attributions like beliefs, desires, understanding, and sensory experiences of every kind can be reduced to theoretical, physiological accounts. 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. 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. This collection examines the idea of 'seeing-in' as it appears primarily in the work of Wollheim but also its origins in the work of Wittgenstein. Edition 1st Edition. Wittgenstein puts it this way: 75. To what extent we do this becomes obvious when we make a mistake--for example, when what we thought was an airplane turns out to be a bird. One would simply say, "I see an airplane." The traditional stance on this issue would, of course, be of the former persuasion. 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. (11). I t was Ludwig Wittgenstein who sparked philosophical interest in what psychologists call ambiguous figures. University of Chicago Press. 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. Therefore, according to Wittgenstein, the way that we actually see the image changes in this particular instance, not the way that we interpret it. One such presupposition is that the brain in itself is the seat of consciousness, and the rest of the body is a sort of mechanistic, organic vehicle in which the brain resides and by which it maneuvers through the world. Citadel Press. 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. Philosophers have always wrestled with the problems of sense and perception. References to sections in Part I will use a number sign (i.e., #). The problem, of course, lies in using the word 'interpretation' to denote the unconscious processing of sensory data in the brain. Russell's similar account above, along with his being the proponent of a closely related program called "logical atomism," shows that he accepts a similar enough analysis. 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. What we see in the above figure, of course, is dependent upon that with which we are familiar. .' Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology. 2. To say that we 'see' something can stand on its own two feet, without the need for verification by any further supporting account. And for philosophy to fall into the trap of working from a priori presuppositions that are grounded in such misapplied scientific projects is a great mistake. Philosophers of psychology, in their efforts to determine theoretically what it is to 'see', or to provide a theoretical account of what it means to speak of 'seeing' something, have become tied up in this empirical, scientific picture. 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. The brain is merely another organ in the body, the purpose of which is to facilitate the various things that human bodies do, such as thinking, walking, seeing, desiring, and interpreting. There is a distinction to be made here concerning this issue. 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. Such a response to a work of Wittgenstein's is not at all uncommon.