Wittgenstein on art and aspects

Philosophical Investigations

Volumn 22, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 262-284

  McFee, Graham ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BRIGHTON   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 60949267811     PISSN: 01900536     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9205.00098     Document Type: Article

References (74)

1. For this crucial distinction between our appreciation etc. (a) of artworks and (b) of those other objects in which we take an aesthetic interest, see David Best, The Rationality of Feeling, London: Falmer Press, 1992, Ch. 12
2. my Understanding Dance, London: Routledge, 1992, esp. Ch. 1
3. I use standard abbreviations for works of Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1953 - 'PI'
4. Philosophical Grammar, trans. A. Kenny, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974 - 'PG'
5. Philosophical Remarks, trans. R. Hargreaves and R. White, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975 - 'PR'
6. Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics (3rd edition), trans. G. E. M. Anscombe, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978 - 'RFM'
7. Culture and Value, trans. Peter Winch, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980 - 'CV'
8. Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology (Vol. One), trans. G. E. M. Anscombe, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980 - 'RPP I'
9. Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology (Vol. Two), trans. C. G. Luckhardt and M. A. E. Aue, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980 - 'RPP II'
10. Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology (Vol. One), trans. C. G. Luckhardt and M. A. E. Aue, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982 - 'LWPP I'
11. Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology (Vol. Two), trans. C. G. Luckhardt and M. A. E. Aue, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1992 - 'LWPP II'
12. Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief, ed. C. Barrett, Oxford: Basil Blackwell - 'LC'
13. Wittgenstein's Lectures on Philosophical Psychology 1946-41 (Notes by P. T. Geach, K. J. Shah, A. C. Jackson), ed. P. T. Geach, London: Harvester, 1988 - 'LPP'
14. Richard Wollheim, Art and Its Objects (2nd edition), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980, §13 [from original text, recanted p. 209]
15. also his On Art and the Mind, Harmondsworth: Allen Lane, 1973, p. 25
16. Roger Scruton, Art and Imagination, London: Methuen, 1974
17. Virgil Aldrich, Philosophy of Art, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963
18. Here I shall focus primarily on the visual arts since (a) the standard exposition of aspect-perception is in terms of seeing-as; that is, in visual terms, even if it is widely taken to generalise to other sensory modalities, (b) pictorial representation is relevant in some way - although, as we will see, only negatively, (c) there are thought to be special problems about applying the idea of meaning to some artforms, for example music (see Peter Kivy, The Fine Art of Repetition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. 369-73), and (d) one of the analytical tools I favour (Wollheim's seeing-in) has its natural home in the visual arts
19. Understanding Dance, Ch. 6
20. Compare Peter Strawson, 'Imagination and Perception', reprinted in his Freedom and Resentment, and Other Essays, London: Methuen, 1974, esp. p. 58, pp. 63-64
21. R. G. Collingwood, The Principles of Art, London: Oxford University Press, 1938, pp. 140-41
22. A useful and important text here, offering detailed exposition of Investigations, Part Two, §xi and much else, is Stephen Mulhall, On Being In The World: Wittgenstein and Heidegger on Seeing Aspects, London: Routledge, 1990, hereafter cited as 'Mulhall' followed by page number. I have benefited from reading this book even when I differ from it
23. Compare Joachim Schulte, Wittgenstein: An introduction, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992, pp. 28-37, esp. 34
24. For the standard catalogue and a discussion of Wittgenstein's papers, see G. H. von Wright, Wittgenstein, Oxford: Blackwell, 1982, pp. 36-62
25. on Investigations, Part Two, see pp. 133-35
26. For useful discussion of some difficulties of scholarship, see S. Stephen Hilmy, The Later Wittgenstein, Oxford: Blackwell, 1987, Ch. 1
27. Also, compare Ms. 129 and Ms. 180(a) for other texts where the issue of aspect-perception is broached, but for different purposes: G. P. Baker and P. M. S. Hacker, Scepticism, Rules and Language, Oxford: Blackwell, 1984, p. 14
28. See Mark Johnston, Wittgenstein: Rethinking the Inner, London: Routledge, 1993, p. 41: cited as 'Johnston' followed by page number
29. John Cook, Wittgenstein's Metaphysics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, Ch. 10, cited as 'Cook' followed by page number
30. Joachim Schulte, Experience and Expression: Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Psychology, London: Oxford University Press, 1993, esp. pp. 74-85, cited as 'Schulte' followed by page number
31. PG p. 42 has a similar discussion from a much earlier time: Schulte note pp. 75-76
32. Note that it is the editors who attribute the illustrations to Kohler: RPP I p. 172
33. Wollheim, On Art and the Mind, p. 3 says that, by Investigations, Part Two: . . . whatever structure the book possesses elsewhere is more or less abandoned .
34. See G. H. Von Wright, Wittgenstein, p. 48; 135
35. One possible 'guide', Ms 144, gives no clear indication of the ordering of the sections, beyond simply the order they appear in the notebook; and what we have as §xi includes some apparent 'section'-breaks, although these relate to re-orderings of the material
36. A relation to implied argument is one of Wittgenstein's devices: recall the 'Preface' to Investigations (Part One) where Wittgenstein acknowledges that his arguments can only be (or are best) understood by seeing them in the light of the Tractatus
37. PI §xi p. 205[h] appears problematic here: I have heard it urged that this is Wittgenstein's endorsement of the concept regarding-as - yet that ignores the crucial modal auxiliary (as often happens in the reading of Wittgenstein). When he remarks 'I might say yes to this . . .', the context makes clear that under some circumstances he might do so!
38. Compare Cook, note p. 152
39. See Mulhall, p. 8 for more detail
40. Wittgenstein is especially explicit on this point in a passage in Ms 144 (p. 35 of '§xi') roughly: Thinking in psychological hypotheses deludes us sometimes with false difficulties, sometimes with false solutions. The best prophylactic against this is the thought that I don't know whether the humans I am acquainted with actually have a nervous system. (RPP I §1063)
41. Compare Mulhall, p. 14
42. See Mulhall, p. 19 for a characterisation of Äusserung: . . . a particular sort of description is reached for spontaneously, and that it is not treated as one of several possibilities .
43. Of course, a schematic cube can be seen as a cube (PI, p. 213[g]; also p. 197 for another design which is not a cube . . .), but that is because it is just a design. . . . It is a schematic for various things - for instance, a field-plan from above - and one might have learned to see it that way (unhesitatingly). Contrast seeing a representational painting .
44. See also LWPP I §§165-66
45. Richard Wollheim, 'Imagination and Pictorial Understanding', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Vol. (1986): p. 46; hereafter cited as 'IPU' followed by page number
46. Moreover, Wittgenstein has in mind a clear contrast, rooted in examples of 'a mere case of knowing, not seeing' (PI, p. 204[i]); namely, where (say) an illustration is treated as a blueprint, where they do not value the visual impression of the design. But, of course, this is (at best) a case of knowing in respect of a diagram unrelated to the specifics of seeing it: there is no argument for (non-cognitive) seeing!
47. Note, too, that what is now §xix of Investigations Part Two, which uses the expression 'young science' from Kohler, appears in Ms 144 in the middle of the discussion of seeing-as. We might expect this, since it too is a response to Kohler (although this does nothing to identify the correct location for what is now §xiv: see von Wright, p. 135)
48. Wolfgang Kohler, Gestalt Psychology: An Introduction to New Concepts in Modern Psychology, New York: Liveright, 1947 [original: 1929], pp. 181-82
49. (Mentor ed. 1975, p. 107): In our example, as long as the Mediterranean has shape, the area corresponding to Italy has no shape. Contrast Wittgenstein (RPP I §1035): When one fails to recognise the Mediterranean on a map with a different colouring, that does not shew that there is really a different visual object before one
50. Kohler, Gestalt Psychology, p. 139 (p. 82): '. . . sensory units . . . existed as units before . . . [they] acquired names, . . . [became] richly symbolic . . .' etc
51. and Wittgenstein (RPP I §1023): 'Object' and 'ground' - Kohler wants to say - are visual concepts, like red and round
52. See G. P. Baker and P. M. S. Hacker, Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning, Oxford: Blackwell, 1980, pp. 320-43
53. See also 'aspects of organisation' (PI, p. 208[d]) as an example of a subcategory
54. Some questions concern the translation. Is this the kind of imagination that is typically invoked as germane in discussion of the arts? Perhaps the word Anscombe has selected, 'imagination', is the best translation for this context of the German word Vorstellungskraft. Notice, though, that she also translates as 'imagination' the German word Phantasie (PI, p. 213[c]). (Other German words here (for example, Einbildungskraft, or einfallsreich) typically carry the implication of not being true; as, for example, in 'creative accounting'.)
55. Baker and Hacker, Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning, p. 365
56. Elsewhere ('Pictorial Representation in Art', British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 34, 1994, pp. 35-47)
57. I've compared the Wittgensteinian notion of aspect-perception with Wollheim's seeing-in (Richard Wollheim, Painting as an Art, London: Thames and Hudson, 1987, pp. 46-47
58. hereafter cited as 'Painting . . .' followed by page number) which related in different ways to what Wollheim calls 'straightforward perception': seeing-as is not perceptual whereas 'Seeing-in is a distinct kind of perception' (Painting, p. 46), as well as having two-foldness (see below)
59. See also Wolheim, IPU, p. 46
60. This might also be thought to follow from the 'ontological status' of what is seen, from the fact that seeing rifles implies that there are rifles. Against this point, see my 'Pictorial Representation . . .' pp. 41-42
61. See also LWPP I §587, where aspect-perception in respect of a tune means that one can play it differently!
62. Contrast PI, p. 54, note (b): . . . I do not need to explain why we do not describe it so. This is not a psychological point, but rather a remark about what puzzles or perplexes us: until the possibility of seeing the man in the picture as sliding down the hill is explicitly raised, it would not strike us (educated as we have been) - hence we could not have been perplexed by it
63. Perhaps, as Mulhall (p. 20) puts it: 'continuous aspect perception' is just another label for what he is investigating in his later separation of seeing from knowing
64. A puzzling passage here may appear to be: Here it occurs to me that in conversation on aesthetic matters we use the words: 'You have to see it like this, this is how it is meant . . .' (PI, p. 202[h]) In particular, it may seem odd between two passages on aspect-seeing: what exactly is the (apparently stray) thought this brings to Wittgenstein's mind? Clarification comes through consideration of an 'ancestor' passage, where Wittgenstein asks himself whether a first-person report of aspect-perception could have any use: If I ask myself of what use, of what interest that report is, I have to remember how often it is said in aesthetic observations: 'You have to see it like this, this is how it is meant' . . . (LWPP I 1632) So this is a parallel, one Wittgenstein reinforces (in both places) by reminding us that hearing a theme a certain way could relate either to playing or to listening to the theme
65. Of course, in some cases: It is possible - and this is important - to say a great deal about a fine aesthetic difference. (PI, p. 219[b]) But the discussion may not succeed in showing a dissenter the basis for that judgement, so that he/she can see it for him/herself. (Wittgenstein considers the case of a connoisseur, LWPP I §925.)
66. Terence Wilkerson, 'Representation, Illusion and Aspects', British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 18, 1978, pp. 45-58
67. T. E. Wilkerson, 'Pictorial Representation: A Defense of the Aspect Theory', in P. A. French, T. E. Uehling, and H. K. Wettstein (eds.), Midwest Studies in Philosophy Volume XVI (Philosophy and the Arts), Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991, pp. 152-66
68. N. Wolterstorff, Works and Worlds of Art, London: Oxford, 1980, pp. 285-300
69. One example: Nick McAdoo - for what, in correspondence, he called his most 'full-blooded version', see '"Realisation" in Aesthetic Education', Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 21, No. 2, 1987, pp. 235-45
70. also his 'Can Art Ever Be Just About Itself?', Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 50, No. 2, 1992, pp. 131-37
71. 'Aesthetic Education and the "Antinomy of Taste"', British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 27, No. 4, 1987, pp. 307-18
72. Another would be to understand aspect-perception differently; as, for instance, Scruton does (Art and Imagination, pp. 97-98)
73. J. L. Austin, Sense and Sensibilia, London: Oxford University Press, 1962, p. 142
74. What is suggested here might appear to be just refusal to follow certain lines of investigation, but in fact it is a 'refusal with a logos': as Cora Diamond (The Realistic Spirit, Cambridge, Mass.: Bradford/MIT, 1991, p. 69) described a parallel case: . . . not just stopping, but with an understanding of the quest as dependent on fantasy