[Wittrs] Re: [quickphilosophy] An Anscombe Error Regarding Negation?
- From: Martin Brampton <martin.lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: quickphilosophy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2010 22:55:14 +0100
Surely if you do that, it is no longer a "picture" in the same sense?
On 05/08/10 21:43, walto wrote:
>
>
> On page 69-70 of her book Anscombe writes,
>
> It is clear that [in negation] one must convey /what/ situation one is
> saying does not exist, and this will be conveyed precisely by the
> picture depicting that situation. No other /picture/ could be involved:
> you could not for example make a /picture/ of the situation's /not
> /existing. We must be careful not to confuse what is not the case with
> what is the case instead of it; if you tried to make a picture of a
> situation's /not/ existing you would only make a picture of what did
> exist instead of it. The only exception to this is when we have the
> convention that not shewing something shews that the thing does not
> exist: as when a map shews that no large river passes through Birmingham
> by /not/ shewing a river passing through Birmingham.
>
> Today at least one convention for a pictorial "not" is very commonplace:
> a circle with a diagonal line through it placed over the original
> picture. Of course, this may be (and often is) taken to mean "Do not
> ____", but there's nothing sacrosanct about this indicator being used as
> a command rather than descriptively.
>
> It seems to me that both W and Anscombe go through a lot of convolutions
> to avoid relying on anything like Frege's assertion sign. Pictures are
> different from props in that they depict only--and don't also say that
> what is depicted is the case the way asserting a prop does. But it
> doesn't seem problematic to have a convention according to which adding
> a mark to any picture would mean that it is intended to be
> "non-fiction." I get the sense that W may here be overly fond of
> avoiding reliance on "saying" in favor of some sort of intrinsic
> property/element that can "show" what would otherwise have to be said.
>
> Walto
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