[Wittrs] Re: [C] Re: Notes on Duncan Richter's essay 'Did Wittgenstein Disagree With Heidegger?'
- From: John Phillip DeMouy <jpdemouy@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 19:58:21 -0400
Glad you recognize that a coercive attitude toward therapy
(Wittgensteinian or otherwise) is morally problematic.
"The results of philosophy are the uncovering of one or another piece of
plain nonsense and of bumps
that the understanding has got by running its head up against the limits
of language. These bumps make us see the
value of the discovery." (PI 119)
Someone who isn't getting such bumps, who isn't "banging their head",
cannot be expected to even value these insights, let alone to "require"
them.
>
>
> 2. I don't agree that Wittgenstein's idea of a picture is "just a
> picture."
I didn't use the expression "'just' a picture" and that betrays a very
un-Wittgensteinian attitude toward pictures. To say that someone uses a
picture is not a reductionistic or dismissive judgment. "Pictures" are
not stigmatized.
For example, in On Certainty, one can hardly take him to be dismissing
our model of the Earth as "'just' a picture"
146. We form the picture of the earth as a ball floating free in space
and not altering essentially in a hundred years. I
said "We form the picture etc." and this picture now helps us in the
judgment of various situations.
I may indeed calculate the dimensions of a bridge, sometimes
calculate that here things are more in favour of
a bridge than a ferry, etc. etc.,--but somewhere I must begin with an
assumption or a decision.
147. The picture of the earth as a ball is a good picture, it proves
itself everywhere, it is also a simple picture--in
short, we work with it without doubting it.
162. In general I take as true what is found in text-books, of geography
for example. Why? I say: All these facts have
been confirmed a hundred times over. But how do I know that? What is my
evidence for it? I have a world-picture.
Is it true or false? Above all it is the substratum of all my enquiring
and asserting.
The propositions describing it are not all equally subject to testing.
167. It is clear that our empirical propositions do not all have the
same status, since one can lay down such a
proposition and turn it from an empirical proposition into a norm of
description.
Think of chemical investigations. Lavoisier makes experiments
with substances in his laboratory and now he
concludes that this and that takes place when there is burning. He does
not say that it might happen otherwise
another time. He has got hold of a definite world-picture--not of course
one that he invented: he learned it as a child.
I say world-picture and not hypothesis, because it is the
matter-of-course foundation for his research and as such
also goes unmentioned.
168. But now, what part is played by the presupposition that a substance
A always reacts to a substance B in the
same way, given the same circumstances? Or is that part of the
definition of a substance?
169. One might think that there were propositions declaring that
chemistry is possible. And these would be
propositions of a natural science. For what should they be supported by,
if not by experience?
170. I believe what people transmit to me in a certain manner. In this
way I believe geographical, chemical, historical
facts etc.
> This would seem to say that being aware of the phenomenon of picturing
> is
> itself a "picture." I don't agree with that. I see it more in terms of
> an
> actual thing:
You present a false contrast. A picture is not stigmatized as
falsehood. Pictures may be misleading, causing misunderstandings, and
it may be applied inappropriately, but it is neither true nor yet false.
(And there are also expressions that may seem to make a picture but fail
to make anything coherent: it is this, if anything, that is stigmatized.
But see further on for important caveats to this point.)
To get into debates, going beyond describing the role that, e.g.
Lavoisier's picture plays, into hand-waving and desk-pounding over
whether it is "actual" is to go down the path of the "battle-cries"
between Realists and Idealists, as per Zettel.
413. One man is a convinced realist, another a convinced idealist and
teaches his children accordingly. In such an
important matter as the existence or non-existence of the external world
they don't want to teach their children
anything wrong.
What will the children be taught? To include in what they say:
"There are physical objects" or the opposite?
If someone does not believe in fairies, he does not need to
teach his children "There are no fairies": he can
omit to teach them the word "fairy". On what occasion are they to say:
"There are..." or "There are no..."? Only when
they meet people of the contrary belief.
414. But the idealist will teach his children the word "chair" after
all, for of course he wants to teach them to do this
and that, e.g. to fetch a chair. Then where will be the difference
between what the idealist-educated children say and
the realist ones? Won't the difference only be one of battle cry?
In fact, this whole urge to insist, "Yes, but this isn't 'just' a
picture, this is something actual," is needless melodrama, much like...
299. We say: "If you really follow the rule in multiplying, it MUST come
out the same." Now, when this is merely
the slightly hysterical style of university talk, we have no need to be
particularly interested. It is however the
expression of an attitude towards the technique of multiplying, which
comes out everywhere in our lives. The
emphasis of the 'must' corresponds only to the inexorability of this
attitude, not merely towards the technique of
calculating, but also towards innumerable related practices.
> something that happens, cognitively.
To insist on understanding Wittgenstein's similes in these terms is to
have him engaging in (psychological) theorizing, contra his explicit
claims. Now, your confusion is an understandable one and the sort of
thing that lead him to offer warnings such as this (from another
context).
412. Am I doing child psychology?--I am making a connexion between the
concept of teaching and the concept of
meaning.
> Those who launch claims do so
> from pictures in their head;
And you do not see that as a picture?
I quote again from Zettel, at some length because of its relevance to
the discussion prompting this whole thread (free will and determinism)
but, while I would have you note that he is examining (not dismissing)
the thinking underlying some of these debates, I wish you here to note
especially the remark numbered 605.
603. The unpredictability of human behaviour. But for this--would one
still say that one can never know what is
going on in anyone else?
604. But what would it be like if human behaviour were not
unpredictable? How are we to imagine this? (That is to
say: how should we depict it in detail, what are the connexions we
should assume?)
605. One of the most dangerous of ideas for a philosopher is, oddly
enough, that we think with our heads or in our
heads.
606. The idea of thinking as a process in the head, in a completely
enclosed space, gives him something occult.
607. Is thinking a specific organic process of the mind, so to speak--as
it were chewing and digesting in the mind?
Can we replace it by an inorganic process that fulfils the same end,
606. The idea of thinking as a process in the head, in a completely
enclosed space, gives him something occult.
607. Is thinking a specific organic process of the mind, so to speak--as
it were chewing and digesting in the mind?
Can we replace it by an inorganic process that fulfils the same end,
as it were use a prosthetic apparatus for thinking? How should we have
to imagine a prosthetic organ of thought?
608. No supposition seems to me more natural than that there is no
process in the brain correlated with associating
or with thinking; so that it would be impossible to read off
thought-processes from brain-processes. I mean this: if I
talk or write there is, I assume, a system of impulses going out from my
brain and correlated with my spoken or
written thoughts. But why should the system continue further in the
direction of the centre? Why should this order
not proceed, so to speak, out of chaos? The case would be like the
following--certain kinds of plants multiply by
seed, so that a seed always produces a plant of the same kind as that
from which it was produced--but nothing in the
seed corresponds to the plant which comes from it; so that it is
impossible to infer the properties or structure of the
plant from those of the seed that it comes out of--this can only be done
from the history of the seed. So an organism
might come into being even out of something quite amorphous, as it were
causelessly; and there is no reason why
this should not really hold for our thoughts, and hence for our talking
and writing.
609. It is thus perfectly possible that certain psychological phenomena
cannot be investigated physiologically,
because physiologically nothing corresponds to them.
610. I saw this man years ago: now I have seen him again, I recognize
him, I remember his name. And why does
there have to be a cause of this remembering in my nervous system? Why
must something or other, whatever it may
be, be stored up there in any form? Why must a trace have been left
behind? Why should there not be a
psychological regularity to which no physiological regularity
corresponds? If this upsets our concepts of causality
then it is high time they were upset.
611. The prejudice in favour of psychophysical parallelism is a fruit of
primitive interpretations of our concepts. For
if one allows a causality between psychological phenomena which is not
mediated physiologically, one thinks one is
making profession that there exists a soul side by side with the body, a
ghostly soul-nature.
612. Imagine the following phenomenon. If I want someone to take note of
a text that I recite to him, so that he can
repeat it to me later, I have to give him paper and pencil; while I am
speaking he makes lines, marks, on the paper; if
he has to reproduce the text later he follows those marks with his eyes
and recites the text. But I assume that what he
has jotted down is not writing, it is not connected by rules with the
words of the text; yet without these jottings he is
unable to reproduce the text; and if anything in it is altered, if part
of it is destroyed, he sticks in his 'reading' or
recites the text uncertainly or carelessly, or cannot find the words at
all.--This can be imagined!--What I called
jottings would not be a rendering of the text, not so to speak a
translation with another symbolism. The text would
not be stored up in the jottings. And why should it be stored up in our
nervous system?
613. Why should there not be a natural law connecting a starting and a
finishing state of a system, but not covering
the intermediary state? (Only one must not think of causal efficacy.)
> and those who see this are more insightful about
> claim forming. I see this trait in my students all the time.
Freud saw "confirmation" of his picture of human motivation all the time
in his clients. He did not seem to recognize that his was a picture
though and thought himself to be plumbing unknown depths of what is
"really" behind our thoughts, our dreams, and so forth.
Wittgenstein was more circumspect.
What is the criterion for having correctly identified the picture that
guides someone?
(Material from Big Typescript, which was quoted in the Richter essay.)
One of the most important tasks is to express all false thought
processes so true to character that the reader says, ‘Yes, that’s
exactly the way I meant it’. To make a tracing of the physiognomy of
every error.
Indeed, we can only prove that someone made a mistake if he (really)
acknowledges this expression as the correct expression of his feeling.
For only if he acknowledges it as such, is it the correct expression.
(Psychoanalysis). (Wittgenstein 2005: 303e)
Is not "tracing... the physiognomy of every error," making a picture?
Also...
People who make metaphysical assertions such as ‘Only the present is
real’ pretend to make a picture, as opposed to some other picture. I
deny that they have done this. But how can I prove it? I cannot say
‘This is not a picture of anything, it is unthinkable’ unless I assume
that they and I have the same limitations on picturing. If I indicate a
picture which the words suggest and they agree, then I can tell them
they are misled, that the imagery in which they move does not lead them
to such expressions. It cannot be denied that they have made a picture,
but we can say they have been misled. We can say ‘It makes no sense in
this system, and I believe this is the system you are using’. If they
reply by introducing a new system, then I have to acquiesce.
Notice, there is no hypothesis here. The reason "(i)t cannot be denied
that they have made a picture" is that they themselves profess to have
done so. This is the realm of "aussprechen" where the criteria for
correctness are the sincere avowals of the person putatively making the
picture. Note well, the deferential attitude advocated. This is not a
theory about what "really goes on" inside his interlocutor.
(And having studied Freud closely, he was well aware of the role of
persuasion in getting someone to accept an "explanation" of their
behavior as the "right one". And duly cautious of such presumption.)
> If you try to show
> them the picture behind their claim -- if you move the earth of their
> proposition rather than clash swords against it -- they come to see
> for the
> first time that the ground is not stationary (a given).
Whether it is stationary is a reflection of the attitude they take
toward it and what else it connects with and the status as a picture has
nothing to do with it whatsoever.
Quoting from On Certainty again, the remarks preceding the discussion of
world-pictures already quoted:
144. The child learns to believe a host of things. I.e. it learns to act
according to these beliefs. Bit by bit there forms a
system of what is believed, and in that system some things stand
unshakeably fast and some are more or less liable
to shift. What stands fast does so, not because it is intrinsically
obvious or convincing; it is rather held fast by what
lies around it.
145. One wants to say "All my experiences shew that it is so". But how
do they do that? For that proposition to
which they point itself belongs to a particular interpretation of them.
"That I regard this proposition as certainly true also
characterizes my interpretation of experience."
I quote OC 146 & 147 again, because it is important you recognize this
in context:
146. We form the picture of the earth as a ball floating free in space
and not altering essentially in a hundred years. I
said "We form the picture etc." and this picture now helps us in the
judgment of various situations.
I may indeed calculate the dimensions of a bridge, sometimes
calculate that here things are more in favour of
a bridge than a ferry, etc. etc.,--but somewhere I must begin with an
assumption or a decision.
147. The picture of the earth as a ball is a good picture, it proves
itself everywhere, it is also a simple picture--in
short, we work with it without doubting it.
Being a picture is neither here nor there in terms of the merit of an
idea.
>
> I wonder how the idea of picturing as itself being only a "picture"
> compares
> with Wittgenstein's views about the difficulty of finding "the
> beginning" or
> with Tractarian ideas about limitations in thought or world.
If being a picture were stigmatized, there would be a serious difficulty
here. It is not.
>
> I think, J, we may be very near here to the things that may separate
> you and I
> regarding what we feel Wittgenstein did to us. I'm thinking here of
> something
> like this. Some professors will not mess with pictures unless the
> patient seems
> to call for it.
Pictures are so ubiquitous that most pictures are never even recognized
as such or even considered. On Certainty deals with a few of these
pictures but they are countless. So one always picks and chooses.
According to some criterion or quite haphazardly.
And many pictures do not need to be "messed with".
> They will leave the student to think for himself or herself,
> after being shown the challenges of belief. These professors have the
> most
> exemplary bed side manners one could ever imagine. I once had a
> philosophy
> professor exactly like that -- very much appreciated him, too.
>
> I, however, have not taken this path. I take it as requirement #1 for
> students
> to see the pictures they create and to consider alternate pictures.
In an educational setting, the presumption is that the student is there
to learn (or, at any rate, ought to be), so challenging them is as much
pedagogical and therapeutic. Between peers, things are different.
> I'm much
> more interventionist. In fact, I take the model of picturing as a
> device around
> which to construct course material.
Then I certainly hope that I've stimulated more reflection on this issue
of pictures.
Regarding the question of intervention and the therapeutic and
pedagogical contexts, I post again some remarks and questions I'd posted
previously (revising slightly for clarity):
Notice how often, in Philosophical Investigations, the dialectical
movement involves three voices. Most typically - though not always - a
first voice tries to assert some dogmatic thesis. A second voices raises
difficulties with the
assertions made by the first voice. And only then is the voice of
clarity able to show wherein the puzzlement and confusion arises.
Have you ever asked, "To whom is therapy being addressed? Who is to
benefit from the remarks of the third voice, the first or the second
interlocutor?"? And mutatis mutandis, who benefits from Wittgensteinian
methods, someone whose attitude might be expressed through a voice like
the first or only someone who has arrived at the difficulties?
Is there a method of addressing someone who simply attempts to make
dogmatic metaphysical claims that is consistent with the Wittgensteinian
principle of not putting forth theses?
Therapy addresses puzzlement, confusion. But the person making
pronouncements is not confused. Or not aware of it at any rate.
Must the Wittgensteinian engage in a non-Wittgensteinian manner, viz.
the manner of the "second interlocutor" in order to make the first
receptive to therapy?
Or is therapy only suited to those already in the position of the second
interlocutor?
It seems to me that this presents a genuine dilemma for the Wittgenstein
interventionist:
Either one must master and utilize the methods of traditional
philosophy, the methods of counter-argument and so forth, in order to
shake up someone advancing theses, before they can be receptive to
Wittgensteinian elucidations,
(Recall some time back when I pointed out Gettier's Wittgensteinian
agenda for a famous example of this sort of thing.)
or
One must restrict one's efforts to those who are already receptive,
already aware of "bumps on the head".
But then again, there is the pedagogical context in contrast with the
therapeutic one.
>
> (Got to run for the day now)
>
> Regards and thanks
>
> Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
> [spoiler]Assistant Professor
> Wright State University
> Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
> SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
> Wittgenstein Discussion:
> http://seanwilson.org/wiki/doku.php?id=wittrs[/spoiler]
>
>
>
>
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