[Wittrs] [quickphilosophy] Re: An Anscombe Error Regarding Negation?
- From: "walto" <calhorn@xxxxxxx>
- To: quickphilosophy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:15:32 -0000
Do you think not? W gives the example of a musical score picturing a the sounds
of a symphony. Well, scores use the 8va sign to indicate that everything is to
be played an octave up or down and use rests to indicate that no sounds should
be made. Why not a circle with a diagonal across a picture of a red chair?
W
--- In quickphilosophy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Martin Brampton <martin.lists@...>
wrote:
>
> 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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