The Ludwig Wittgenstein Project

Brown Book: Difference between revisions

Page Discussion

Brown Book (view source)

Revision as of 09:17, 6 February 2021

53,386 bytes added ,  3 years ago
no edit summary
No edit summary
No edit summary
Line 433: Line 433:
Our method is ''purely descriptive''; the descriptions we give are not hints of explanations.
Our method is ''purely descriptive''; the descriptions we give are not hints of explanations.


{{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,77}}
{{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,77}} ((Interval. Vacation after Michaelmas Term.))
 
<span id="part-ii">'''Part II'''</span>
 
Do we have a feeling of familiarity whenever we look at familiar objects? Or do we have it usually?
 
When do we actually have it?
 
It helps us to ask: What do we contrast the feeling of familiarity with?
 
One thing we contrast it with is surprise.
 
One could say: “Unfamiliarity is much more of an experience than familiarity”.
 
We say: A shows B a series of objects. B is to tell A whether the object is familiar to him or not. ''a'') The question may be, “Does B know what the objects are?” or ''b'') “Does he recognize the particular object?”
 
{{parBB|1}} Take the case that B is shown a series of apparatus, – – a balance, a thermometer, a spectroscope, etc.
 
{{parBB|2}} B is shown a pencil, a pen, an inkpot, and a pebble. Or:
 
{{parBB|3}} Besides familiar objects he is shown an object of which he says, “That looks as though it served some purpose, but I don't know what purpose”.
 
What happens when B recognizes a pencil || something as a pencil?
 
Suppose A had shown him an object looking like a stick. B handles this object, suddenly it comes apart, one of the parts being a cap, the other a pencil. B says, “Oh, this is a pencil”. He has recognized the object as a pencil.
 
{{parBB|4}} We could say, “B always knew what a pencil looked like; he could e.g., have drawn one on being asked to. He didn't know that the object he was given contained a pencil which he {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,78}} could have drawn any time”.
 
Compare with this case 5).
 
{{parBB|5}} B is shewn a word written on a piece of paper held upside down. He does not recognize the word. The paper is gradually turned round until B says, “Now I see what it is. It is ‘pencil’”.
 
We might say, “He always knew what the word ‘pencil’ looked like. He did not know that the word he was shewn would when turned round look like ‘pencil’”.
 
In both cases 4) and 5) you might say something was hidden. But note the different application of “hidden”.
 
{{parBB|6}} Compare with this: You read a letter and can't read one of its words. You guess what it must be from the context, and now can read it. You recognize this scratch as an ''e'', the second as an ''a'', the third as a ''t''. This is different from the case where the word “eat” was covered by a blotch of ink, and you only guessed that the word “eat” must have been in this place.
 
{{parBB|7}} Compare: You see a word and can't read it. Someone alters it slightly by adding a dash, lengthening a stroke, or suchlike. Now you can read it. Compare this alteration with the turning in 5), and note that there is a sense in which while the word was turned round you saw that it was ''not'' altered. I.e., there is a case in which you say, “I looked at the word while it was turned, and I know that it is the same now as it was when I didn't recognize it”.
 
{{parBB|8}} Suppose the game between A and B just consisted in this, {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,79}} that B should say whether he knows the object or not but does not say what it is. Suppose he was shewn an ordinary pencil, after having been shewn a hygrometer which he had never seen before. On being shewn the hygrometer he said that he was not familiar with it, on being shewn the pencil, that he knew it. What happened when he recognized it? Must he have told himself, though he didn't tell A, that what he saw was a pencil? Why should we assume this?
 
Then, when he recognized the pencil, what did he recognize it as?
 
{{parBB|9}} Suppose even that he had said to himself, “Oh, this is a pencil”, could you compare this case with 4) or 5)? In these cases one might have said, “He recognized this as that” (pointing, e.g., for “this” to the covered up pencil and for “that” to an ordinary pencil, and similarly in 5)).
 
In 8) the pencil underwent no change and the words, “Oh, this is a pencil” did not refer to a paradigm, the similarity of which with the pencil shewn B had recognized.
 
Asked, “What is a pencil?”, B would not have pointed to another object as the paradigm or sample, but could straight away have pointed to the pencil shewn to him.
 
“But when he said, ‘Oh, this is a pencil’, how did he know that it was if he didn't recognize it as something?” ‒ ‒ This really comes to saying, “How did he recognize ‘pencil’ as the name of this sort of thing?” Well, how did he recognize it? He just reacted in this particular way by saying this word.
 
{{parBB|10}} Suppose someone shews you colours and asks you to name {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,80}} them. Pointing to a certain object you say, “This is red”. What would you answer if you were asked, “How do you know that this is red?”?
 
Of course there is the case in which a general explanation was given to B, say, “We shall call ‘pencil’ anything that one can easily write with on a wax tablet”. Then A shews B amongst other objects a small pointed object, and B says, “Oh, this is a pencil”, after having thought, “One could write with this quite easily”. In this case, we may say, ''a derivation'' takes place. In 8), 9), 10) there is no derivation. In 4) we might say that B derived that the object shewn to him was a pencil by means of a paradigm, or else no such derivation might have taken place.
 
Now should we say that B on seeing the pencil after seeing instruments which he didn't know had a feeling of familiarity? Let us imagine what really might have happened. He saw a pencil, smiled, felt relieved, and the name of the object which he saw came into his mind or mouth.
 
Now isn't the feeling of relief just that which characterizes the experience of passing from unfamiliar to familiar things?
 
We say we experience tension and relaxation, relief, strain and rest in cases as different as these: a man holds a weight with outstretched arm; his arm, his whole body is in a state of tension. We let him put down the weight, the tension relaxes. A man runs, then rests. He thinks hard about the solution of a problem in Euclid, then finds it, and relaxes. He tries to remember a name, and relaxes on finding it.
 
{{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,81}} What if we asked, “What do all these cases have in common that makes us say that they are cases of strain and relaxation?”
 
What makes us use the expression, “seeking in our memory”, when we try to remember a word?
 
Let us ask the question, “What is the similarity between looking for a word in your memory and looking for my friend in the park?” What would be the answer to such a question?
 
One kind of answer certainly would consist in describing a series of intermediate cases. One might say that the case which looking in your memory for something is most similar to is not that of looking for my friend in the park, but, say, that of looking up the spelling of a word in the dictionary. And one might go on interpolating cases. Another way of ''pointing out'' the similarity would be to say, e.g., “In both these cases at first we can't write down the word and then we can”. This is what we call pointing out a common feature.
 
Now it is important to note that we needn't be aware of such similarities thus pointed out when we are prompted to use the words “seeking”, “looking for”, etc. in the case of trying to remember.
 
One might be inclined to say, “Surely a similarity must strike us, or we shouldn't be { inclined || driven || moved to use the same word”. ‒ ‒ Compare this statement with that: “A similarity between these cases must strike us in order that we should be inclined to use the same picture to represent both”. This says that some act must precede the act of using this picture. But why shouldn't {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,82}} what we call “the similarity striking us” consist partially or wholly in our using the same picture? And why shouldn't it consist partially or wholly in our being prompted to use the same phrase?
 
We say: “This picture (or this phrase) suggests itself to us irresistibly”. Well, isn't this an experience?
 
We are treating here of cases in which, as one might roughly put it, the grammar of a word seems to suggest the “necessity” of a certain intermediary step || stage, although in fact the word is used in cases in which there is no such intermediary step. Thus we are inclined to say, “A man ''must'' understand an order before he obeys it”, “He must know where his pain is before he can point to it”, “He must know the tune before he can sing it”, & such like.)
 
Let us ask the question: Suppose I had explained to someone the word “red” (or the meaning of the word “red”) by having pointed to various red objects and given the ostensive explanation. ‒ ‒ What does it mean to say, “Now if he has understood the meaning, he will bring me a red object if I ask him to”? This seems to say: If he has really got hold of what is in common between || to all the objects I have shewn him, he will be in the position to follow my order. But what is it that is in common to these objects?
 
Could you tell me what is in common between a light red and a dark red? Compare with this the following case: I shew you two pictures of two different landscapes. In both pictures, amongst many other objects, there is the picture of a bush, and it is exactly alike in both. I ask you, “Point to what {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,83}} these two pictures have in common”, and as answer you point to this bush.
 
Now consider this explanation: I give someone two boxes containing various things, and say, “The object which both these boxes have in common is called a toasting fork”. The person I give this explanation to has to sort out the objects in the two boxes until he finds the one they have in common, and thereby we may say, he arrives at the ostensive explanation. Or, this explanation: “In these two pictures you see patches of many colours; the one colour which you find in both is called ‘mauve’”. ‒ ‒ In this case it makes a clear sense to say, “If he has seen (or found) what is in common between these two pictures, he can now bring me a mauve object.”
 
There is this case || game: I say to someone, “I shall explain to you the word ‘w’ by shewing you various objects. What's in common to them all is what ‘w’ means.” I first shew him two books, and he asks himself, “Does ‘w’ mean ‘book’?” I then point to a brick, and he says to himself, “Perhaps ‘w’ means ‘parallelepiped’”. Finally I point to glowing coal, and he says to himself, “Oh, it's ‘red’ he means, for all these objects had something red about them.” It would be interesting to consider another form of this game where the person has at each stage to ''draw'' or ''paint'' what he thinks I mean. The interest of this version lies in this, that in some cases it would be quite obvious what he has got to draw, say, when he sees that all the objects I have shewn him so far bear a certain trademark (; he'd draw the trademark). ‒ ‒ What, on the other hand, should he paint if he recognizes that there is something red on each object?
 
{{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,84}} A red patch? And of what shape and shade? Here a convention would have to be laid down, say, that painting a red patch with ragged edges does not mean that the objects have that red patch with ragged edges in common, but ''something'' red.
 
If, pointing to patches of various shades of red, you asked a man, “What have these in common that makes you call them red?”, he'd be inclined to answer, “Don't you see?” And this of course would not be pointing out a common element.
 
There are cases where experience teaches us that a person is not able to carry out an order, say, of the form, “Bring me x” if he did not see what was in common between the various objects to which I pointed as an explanation of “x”. And “seeing what they have in common” in some cases consisted in pointing to it, in letting one's glance rest on a coloured patch after a process of scrutiny and comparing, in saying to oneself, “Oh, it's red he means,” and perhaps at the same time glancing at all the red patches on the various objects, and so on. ‒ ‒ There are cases, on the other hand, in which no process takes place comparable with this intermediary “seeing what's in common”, and where we still use this phrase, though this time we ought to say, “If after shewing him these things he brings me another red object, then ''I shall say'' that he has seen the common feature of the objects I shewed him.” Carrying out the order is now the ''criterion'' for his having understood.
 
((Having now made a start, Wittgenstein resumes formal dictation.))
 
“Why do you call ‘strain’ all these different experiences?” ‒ ‒ “Because they have some element in common.” ‒ ‒ “What is it {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,85}} that bodily and mental strain have in common?” ‒ ‒ “I don't know, but obviously there is some similarity.”
 
Then why did you say the experiences had something in common? Didn't this expression just compare the present case with those cases in which we primarily say that two experiences have something in common? (Thus we might say that some experiences of joy and of fear have the feeling of heart beat in common.) But when you said that the two experiences of strain had something in common, these were only different words for saying that they were similar: It was then no explanation to say that the similarity consisted in the occurrence of a common element.
 
Also, shall we say that you had a feeling of similarity when you compared the two experiences, and that this made you use the same word for both? If you say you have a feeling of similarity, let us ask a few questions about it:
 
Could you say the feeling was located here or there?
 
''When'' did you actually have this feeling? For, what we call comparing the two experiences is quite a complicated activity: perhaps you called the two experiences before your mind, and imagining a bodily strain, and imagining a mental strain, was each in itself imagining a process and not a state uniform through time. Then ask yourself at what time during all this you had the feeling of similarity.
 
“But surely I wouldn't say they are similar if I had no experience of their similarity.” ‒ ‒ But must this experience be anything you should call a feeling? Suppose for a moment {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,86}} it were the experience that the word “similar” suggested itself to you. Would you call this a feeling?
 
“But is there no feeling of similarity?” ‒ ‒ I think there are feelings which one might call feelings of similarity. But you don't always have any such feeling if you “notice similarity”. Consider some of the different experiences which you have if you do so.
 
''a'') There is a kind of experience which one might call being hardly able to distinguish. You see, e.g., two lengths, two colours, almost exactly alike. But if I ask myself, “Does this experience consist in having a peculiar feeling?”, I should have to say that it certainly isn't characterized by any such feeling alone, that a most important part of the experience is that of letting my glance oscillate between the two objects, fixing it intently, now on the one, now on the other, perhaps saying words expressive of doubt, shaking my head, etc. etc. There is, one might say, hardly any room left for a feeling of similarity between these manifold experiences.
 
''b'') Compare with this the case in which it is impossible to have any difficulty of distinguishing the two objects. Supposing I say, “I like to have the two kinds of flowers in this bed of similar colours to avoid a strong contrast.” The experience here might be one which one may describe as an easy sliding of the glance from one to the other.
 
''c'') I listen to a variation on a theme and say, “I don't see yet how this is a variation of the theme, but I see a certain similarity.” What happened was that at certain points of {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,87}} the variation, at certain turning points of the key, I had an experience of “knowing where I was in the theme”. And this experience might again have consisted in imagining certain figures of the theme, or in seeing them written before my mind or in actually pointing to them in the score, etc.
 
“But when two colours are similar, the experience of similarity should surely consist in noticing the similarity which there ''is'' between them.” ‒ ‒ But is a bluish green similar to a yellowish green or not? In certain cases we should say they are similar and in others that they are most dissimilar. Would it be correct to say that in the two cases we noticed different relations between them? Suppose I observed a process in which a bluish green gradually changed into a pure green, into a yellowish green, into yellow, and into orange. I say, “It only takes a short time from bluish green to yellowish green, because these colours are similar.” ‒ ‒ But mustn't you have had some experience of similarity to be able to say this? ‒ ‒ The experience may be this, of seeing the two colours and saying that they are both green. Or it may be this, of seeing a band whose colour changes from one end to the other in the way described, and having some one of the experiences which one may call noticing how close to each other bluish green and yellowish green are, compared to bluish green and orange.
 
We use the word “similar” in a huge family of cases.
 
There is something remarkable about saying that we use the word “strain” for both mental and physical strain because there is a similarity between them. Should you say we use the word “blue” both for light blue and dark blue because there is a similarity {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,88}} between them? If you were asked, “Why do you call this ‘blue’ also?”, you would say, “Because this ''is'' blue, too”.
 
One might suggest that the explanation is that in this case you call “blue” what is ''in common'' between the two colours, and that, if you called “strain” what was in common between the two experiences of strain, it would have been wrong to say, “I called them both ‘strain’ because they had a certain similarity”, but that you would have had to say, “I used the word ‘strain’ in both cases because there is a strain present in both.”
 
Now what should we answer to the question, “What do light blue and dark blue have in common?”? At first sight the answer seems obvious: “They are both shades of blue.” But this is really a tautology. So let us ask, “What do these colours I am pointing to have in common?” (Suppose one is light blue, the other dark blue.) The answer to this really ought to be, “I don't know what game you are playing.” And it depends upon this game whether I should say they had anything in common, and what I should say they had in common.
 
Imagine this game: A shews B different patches of colours and asks him what they have in common. B is to answer by pointing to a particular primary || pure colour. Thus if A points to pink and orange, B is to point to pure red. If A points to two shades of greenish blue, B is to point to pure green and pure blue, etc. If in this game A shewed B a light blue and a dark blue and asked what they had in common, there would be no doubt about the answer. If then he pointed to pure red and pure green, the answer would be that these have nothing in common. But I could easily imagine circumstances under which {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,89}} we should say that they had something in common and would not hesitate to say what it was: Imagine a use of language (a culture) in which there was a common name for green and red on the one hand, and yellow and blue on the other. Suppose, e.g., that there were two castes, one the patrician caste, wearing red and green garments, the other, the plebeian, wearing blue and yellow garments. Both yellow and blue would always be referred to as plebeian colours, green and red as patrician colours. Asked what a red patch and a green patch have in common, a man of our tribe would not hesitate to say they were both patrician.
 
We could also easily imagine a language (and that means again a culture) in which there existed no common expression for light blue and dark blue, in which the former, say, was called “Cambridge”, the latter “Oxford”. If you ask a man of this tribe what Cambridge and Oxford have in common, he'd be inclined to say, “Nothing”.
 
Compare this game with). B is shewn certain pictures, combinations of coloured patches. On being asked what these pictures have in common, he is to point to a sample of red, say, if there is a red patch in both, to green if there is a green patch in both, etc. This shews you in what different ways this same answer may be used.
 
Consider such a proposition || an explanation as, “I mean by ‘blue’ what these two colours have in common.” ‒ ‒ Now isn't it possible that someone should understand this explanation? He would, e.g., on being ordered to bring another blue object, carry out this order satisfactorily. But perhaps he will bring a red object and we shall be inclined to say: “He seems to notice some sort {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,90}} of similarity between samples we shewed him and that red thing.
 
Note: Some people when asked to sing a note which we strike for them on the piano, regularly sing the fifth of that note. That makes it easy to imagine that a language might have one name only for a certain note and its fifth. On the other hand we should be embarrassed to answer the question: What do a note and its fifth have in common? For of course it is no answer to say: “They have a certain affinity.”
 
It is one of our tasks here to give a picture of the grammar (the use) of the word “a certain.”
 
To say that we use the word “blue” to mean “what all these shades of colour have in common” by itself says nothing more than that we use the word “blue” in all these cases.
 
And the phrase, “He sees what all these shades have in common,” may refer to all sorts of different phenomena, i.e., all sorts of phenomena are used as criteria for “his seeing that … ” Or all that happens may be that on being asked to bring another shade of blue he carries out our order satisfactorily. Or a patch of pure blue may appear before his mind's eye when we shew him the different samples of blue: or he may instinctively turn his head towards some other shade of blue which we haven't shewn him for sample, etc. etc.
 
Now should we say that a mental strain and a bodily strain were “strains” in the same sense of the word or in different (or “slightly different”) senses of the word? ‒ ‒ There are cases of this sort in which we should not be doubtful about the answer.
 
Consider this case: We have taught someone the use of the {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,91}} words “darker” and “lighter”. He could, e.g., carry out such an order as, “Paint me a patch of colour darker than the one I am shewing you.” Suppose now I said to him: “Listen to the five vowels a, e, i, o, u and arrange them in order of their darkness.” He may just look puzzled and do nothing, but he may (and some people will) now arrange the vowels in a certain order (mostly i, e, a, o, u). Now one might imagine that arranging the vowels in order of darkness presupposed that when a vowel was sounded a certain colour came before a man's mind, that he then arranged these colours in their order of darkness and told you the corresponding arrangement of the vowels. But this actually need not happen. A person will comply to the order: “Arrange the vowels in their order of darkness”, without seeing any colours before his mind's eye.
 
Now if such a person was asked whether ''u'' was “''really''” darker than ''e'', he would almost certainly answer some such thing as, “It isn't really darker, but it somehow gives me a darker impression.”
 
But what if we asked him, “What made you use the word ‘darker’ in this case at all?”?
 
Again we might be inclined to say, “He must have seen something that was in common both to the relation between two colours and to the relation between two vowels.” But if he isn't capable of specifying what this common element was, this leaves us just with the fact that he was prompted to use the words “darker”, “lighter” in both these cases.
 
For, note the word “must” in “He must have seen something … ” When you said that, you didn't mean that from past {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,92}} experience you conclude that he probably did see something, and that's just why this sentence adds nothing to what we know and in fact only suggests a different form of words to describe it.
 
If someone said: “I do see a certain similarity, only I can't describe it”, I should say: “This itself || “Saying this also characterizes your experience.”
 
Suppose you look at two faces and say, “They are similar, but I don't know what it is that's similar about them.” And suppose that after a while you said: “Now I know; their eyes have the same shape”, I should say, “Now your experience of their similarity is different from what it was when you saw similarity and didn't know what it consisted in.” Now to the question “What made you use the word ‘darker’ … ?” the answer may be, “Nothing made me use the word ‘darker’, – – that is, if you ask me for a ''reason'' why I use it. I just used it, and what is more I used it with the same intonation of voice, and perhaps with the same facial expression and gesture which I should in certain cases be inclined to use when applying the word to colours.” ‒ ‒ It is easier to see this when we speak of a ''deep'' sorrow, a ''deep'' sound, a ''deep'' well. Some people are able to distinguish between fat and lean days of the week. And their experience when they conceive a day as a fat one consists in applying this word together perhaps with a gesture expressive of fatness and a certain comfort.
 
But you may be tempted to say: This use of the word and gesture is not their primary experience. First of all they {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,93}} have to conceive the day as fat and then they express this conception by word or gesture.
 
But why do you use the expression, “They have to”? Do you know of an experience in this case which you call “the conception, etc.”? For if you don't, isn't it just what one might call a linguistic prejudice that made you say, “He had to have a conception before, etc.”?
 
Rather, you can learn from this example and from others that there are cases in which we may call a particular experience “noticing, seeing, conceiving that so & so is the case”, before expressing it by word or gestures, and that there are other cases in which if we talk of an experience of conceiving at all, we have to apply this word to the experience of using certain words, gestures, etc.
 
When the man said, “''u'' isn't really darker than ''e'' … ”, it was essential that he meant to say that the word “darker” was used ''in different senses'' when one talked of one colour being darker that another and, on the other hand, of one vowel being darker than another.
 
Consider this example: Suppose we had taught a man to use the words “green”, “red”, “blue” by pointing to patches of these colours. We had taught him to fetch us objects of a certain colour on being ordered, “Bring me something red!”, to sort out objects of various colours from a heap, and such like. Suppose we now shew him a heap of leaves, some of which are a slightly reddish brown, others a slightly greenish yellow, and give him the order, “Put the red leaves and the green leaves on separate heaps.” It is quite likely that he will upon this {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,94}} separate the greenish yellow leaves from the reddish brown ones. Now should we say that we had here used the words “red” and “green” in the same sense as in the previous cases, or did we use them in different but similar senses? What reasons would one give for adopting the latter view? One could point out that on being asked to paint a red patch, one should certainly not have painted a slightly reddish brown one, and therefore one might say “red” means something different in the two cases. But why shouldn't I say that it had one meaning only but was, of course, used according to the circumstances?
 
The question is: Do we supplement our statement that the word has two meanings by a statement saying that in one case it had this, in the other that meaning? As the criterion for a word's having two meanings, we may use the fact of there being two explanations given for a word. Thus we say the word “bank” has two meanings; for in one case it means this sort of thing, (pointing, say, to a river bank) in the other case that sort of thing, (pointing to the Bank of England). Now what I point to here are paradigms for the use of the words. One could not say: “The word ‘red’ has two meanings because in one case it means this (pointing to a light red), in the other that (pointing to a dark red)”, if, that is to say, there had been only one ostensive definition for the word “red” used in our game. One could, on the other hand, imagine a language-game in which two words, say “red” and “reddish”, were explained by two ostensive definitions, the first shewing a dark red object, the second a light red one. Whether two such explanations were given or only one might depend on the natural reactions of the people using the {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,95}} language. We might find that a person to whom we give the ostensive definition, “This is called ‘red’” (pointing to one red object) thereupon fetches any red object of whatever shade of red on being ordered: “Bring me something red!” Another person might not do so, but bring objects of a certain range of shades only in the neighborhood of the shade pointed out to him in the explanation. We might say that this person “does not see what is in common between all the different shades of red”. But remember please that our only criterion for that is the behaviour we have described.
 
Consider the following case: B has been taught a use of the words “lighter” and “darker”. He has been shewn objects of various colours and has been taught that one calls this a darker colour than that, trained to bring an object on being ordered, “Bring something darker than this”, and to describe the colour of an object by saying that it is darker or lighter than a certain sample, etc., etc. Now he is given the order to put down a series of objects, arranging them in the order of their darkness. He does this by laying out a row of books, writing down a series of names of animals, and by writing down the five vowels in the order u, o, a, e, i. We ask him why he put down that latter series, and he says, “Well ''o'' is lighter than ''u'', and ''e'' lighter than ''o''.” ‒ ‒ We shall be astonished at his attitude, and at the same time admit that there is something in what he says. Perhaps we shall say: “But look, surely ''e'' isn't lighter than ''o'' in the way this book is lighter than that.” ‒ ‒ But he may shrug his shoulders and say, “I don't know, but ''e'' ''is'' lighter than ''o'', isn't it?” {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,96}} We may be inclined to treat this case as some kind of abnormality, and to say, “B must have a different sense, with the help of which he arranges both coloured objects and vowels.” And if we tried to make this idea of ours (quite) explicit, it would come to this: The normal person registers lightness and darkness of visual objects on one instrument, and, what one might call the lightness and darkness of sounds (vowels) on another, in the sense in which one might say that we record rays of a certain wave length with the eyes, and rays of another range of wave length by || with our sense of temperature. B on the other hand, we wish to say, arranges both sounds and colours by the readings of one instrument (sense organ) only (in the sense in which a photographic plate might record rays of a range which we could only cover with two of our senses).
 
This roughly is the picture standing behind our idea that B must have “understood” the word “darker” differently from the normal person. On the other hand let us put side by side with this picture the fact that there is in our case no evidence for “another sense”. ‒ ‒ And in fact the use of the word “must” when we say, “B must have understood the word differently”, already shews us that this sentence (really) expresses our determination to look at the phenomena we have observed after the picture outlined in this sentence.
 
“But surely he used ‘lighter’ in a different sense when he said ''e'' was lighter than ''u''”. ‒ ‒ What does this mean? Are you distinguishing between the sense in which he used the word and his usage of the word? That is, do you wish to say that if someone uses the word as he does, some other difference, say in {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,97}} his mind, must go along with the difference in usage? Or is all you want to say that surely the usage of “lighter” was a different one when he applied it to vowels?
 
Now is the fact that the usages differ anything over and above what you describe when you point out the particular differences?
 
What if somebody said, pointing to two patches which I had called red, “Surely you are using the word ‘red’ in two different ways.” ‒ ‒ I should say, “This is light red and the other dark red, – – but why should I have to talk of two different usages?”‒ ‒
 
It certainly is easy to point out differences between that part of the game in which we applied “lighter” and “darker” to coloured objects and that part in which we applied these words to vowels. In the first part there was comparison of two objects by laying them side by side and looking from one to the other, there was painting a darker or lighter shade than a certain sample given; in the second there was no comparison by the eye, no painting, etc. But when these differences are pointed out, we are still free to speak of two parts of the same game (as we have done just now) or of two different games.
 
“But don't I perceive that the relation between a lighter and a darker bit of material is a different one than that between the vowels ''e'' and ''u'', – – as on the other hand I perceive that the relation between ''u'' and ''e'' is the same as that between ''e'' and ''i''?” ‒ ‒ Under certain circumstances we shall in these cases be inclined to talk of different relations, under certain others to talk of the same relation. One might say, “It depends how {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,98}} one compares them.”
 
Let us ask the question, “Should we say that the arrows ⟶ and ⟵ point in the same direction or in different directions?” ‒ ‒ At first sight you might be inclined to say, “Of course, in different directions.” But look at it this way: If I look into a looking glass and see the reflection of my face, I can take this as a criterion for seeing my own head. If on the other hand, I saw in it the back of a head I might say, “It can't be my own head I am seeing, but a head looking in the opposite direction.” Now this could lead me on to say that an arrow and the reflection of an arrow in a glass have the same direction when they point at || towards each other, and opposite directions when the head of the one points to the tail end of the other. Imagine the case that a man had been taught the ordinary use of the word “the same” in the cases of “the same colour”, “the same shape”, “the same length.” He had also been taught the use of the word “to point to” in such contexts as, “The arrow points to the tree.” Now we shew him two arrows facing each other, and two arrows one following the other, and ask him in which of these two cases he'd apply the phrase, “The arrows point the same way.” Isn't it easy to imagine that if certain applications were uppermost in his mind, he would be inclined to say that the arrows ⟶ ⟵ point “the same way”?
 
When we hear the diatonic scale we are inclined to say that after every seven notes the same note recurs, and, asked why we call it the same note again one might answer, “Well it's a ''c'' again.” But this isn't the explanation I want, for I should ask, “What made one call it a ''c'' again?” And the answer to this {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,99}} would seem to be, “Well, don't you hear that it's the same tone only an octave higher?” ‒ ‒ Here too we could imagine that a man had been taught our use of the word “the same” when applied to colours, lengths, directions, etc., and that we now played the diatonic scale for him and asked him whether he'd say that he heard the same notes again and again at certain intervals, and we could easily imagine several answers, in particular for instance, this, that he heard the same note alternately after every four or three notes (he calls the tonic, the dominant, and the octave the same tone).
 
If we had made this experiment with two people A and B, and A had applied the expression “the same tone” to the octave only, B to the dominant and octave, should we have a right to say that the two hear different things when we play to them the diatonic scale? ‒ ‒ If we say they do, let us be clear whether we wish to assert that there must be some other difference between the two cases besides the one we have observed, or whether we wish to make no such statement.
 
All the questions considered here link up with this problem: Suppose you had taught someone to write down series of numbers according to rules of the form: Always write down a number ''n'' greater than the preceding. (This rule is abbreviated to “Add ''n''”). The numerals in this game are to be groups of dashes -, --, ---, etc. What I call teaching this game of course consisted in giving general explanations and doing examples. ‒ ‒ These examples are taken from the range, say, between 1 and 85. We now give the pupil the order, “Add 1”. After some time we observe that after passing 100 he did what we should call {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,100}} adding 2; after passing 300 he does what we should call adding 3. We have him up for this: “Didn't I tell you always to add 1? Look what you have done before you got to 100!” ‒ ‒ Suppose the pupil said, pointing to the numbers 102, 104, etc. “Well, didn't I do the same here? I thought this was what you wanted me to do”. ‒ ‒ You see that it would get us no further here again to say, “But don't you see … ?”, pointing out to him again the rules and examples we had given to him. We might in such a case, say that this person naturally understands (interprets) the rule (and examples) we have given as we should understand the rule (and examples) telling us: “Add 1 up to 100, then 2 up to 200, etc.”
 
(This would be similar to the case of a man who did not naturally follow an order given by a pointing gesture by moving in the direction shoulder to hand, but in the opposite direction. And understanding here means the same as reacting.)
 
“I suppose what you say comes to this, that in order to follow the rule “Add 1” correctly a new insight, intuition, is needed at every step.” ‒ ‒ But what does it mean to follow the rule ''correctly''? How and when is it to be decided which at a particular point is the correct step to take? – “The correct step at every point is” that which is in accordance with the rule as it was ''meant'', intended.” … with the ''meaning'', intention, of the rule.” ‒ ‒ I suppose the idea is this: When you gave the rule, “Add 1”, and meant it, you meant him to write 101 after 100, 199 after 198, 1041 after 1040, and so on. But how did you do all these acts of meaning (I suppose an infinite number of them) when you gave him the rule? Or is this misrepresenting {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,101}} it? And would you say that there was only one act of meaning, from which, however, all these others, or any one of them, followed in turn? But isn't the point just: “what does follow from the general rule?” You might say, “Surely I knew when I gave him the rule that I meant him to follow up 100 by 101.” But here you are misled by the grammar of the word “to know”. Was knowing this some mental act by which you at the time made the transition from 100 to 101, e.g., some act like saying to yourself: “I want him to write 101 after 100”? In this case ask yourself how many such acts you performed when you gave him the rule. Or do you mean by knowing some kind of disposition, – – then only experience can teach us what it was a disposition for. ‒ ‒ “But surely if one had asked me which number he should write after 1568, I should have answered ‘1569’.” ‒ ‒ I dare say you would, but how can you be sure of it? Your idea really is that somehow in the mysterious act of ''meaning'' the rule you made the transitions without really making them. You crossed all the bridges before you were there. ‒ ‒ This queer idea is connected with a peculiar use of the word “to mean”. Suppose our man got the number 100 and followed it up by 102. We should then say, “I ''meant'' you to write 101.” Now the past tense in the word “to mean” suggests that a particular act of meaning had been performed when the rule was given, though as a matter of fact this expression alludes to no such act. The past tense could be explained by putting the sentence into the form, “Had you asked me before what I wanted you to do at this stage, I should have said … ” But it is a hypothesis that you would have said that.
 
{{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,102}} To get this clearer, think of this example: Someone says, “Napoleon was crowned in 1804.” I ask him, “Did you mean the man who won the battle of Austerlitz?” He says, “Yes, I meant him.” ‒ ‒ Does this mean that when he “meant him” he in some way thought of Napoleon's winning the battle of Austerlitz? ‒ ‒
 
The expression, “The rule meant him to follow up 100 by 101,” makes it appear that this rule, as it was meant, ''foreshadowed'' all the transitions which were to be made according to it. But the assumption of a shadow of a transition does not get us any further, because it does not bridge the gulf between it and the transition itself. || real transition. If the mere words of the rule could not anticipate a future transition, no more could any mental act accompanying these words.
 
We meet again and again with this curious superstition, as one might be inclined to call it, that the mental act is capable of crossing a bridge before we've got to it. This trouble crops up whenever we try to think about the ideas of thinking, wishing, expecting, believing, knowing, trying to solve a mathematical problem, mathematical induction, and so forth.
 
It is no act of insight, intuition, which makes us use the rule as we do at the particular stage || point of the series. It would be less confusing to call it an act of decision, though this too is misleading, for nothing like an act of decision must take place, but possibly just an act of writing or speaking. And the mistake which we here and in a thousand similar cases are inclined to make is labelled by the word “to make” as we have used it in the sentence, “It is no act of insight which makes us use the rule as we do,” because there is an idea that {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,103}} “something must make us” do what we do. And this again joins on to the confusion between cause and reason. ''We need have no reason to follow the rule as we do''. The chain of reasons has an end.
 
Now compare these sentences: “Surely it is using the rule ‘Add 1’ in a different way if after 100 you go on to 102, 104, etc.” and “Surely it is using the word ‘darker’ in a new || different way if after applying it to coloured patches we apply it to the vowels.” ‒ ‒ I should say: “That depends on what you call a ‘different way’”. ‒ ‒
 
But I should certainly say that ''I would'' || should call the application of “lighter” and “darker” to vowels “another usage of the words”; and I also should carry on the series “Add 1” in the way 101, 102, etc., but not – – or not necessarily – – because of some other justifying mental act.
 
There is a kind of general disease of thinking which always looks for (and finds) a mental state || what would be called a mental state from which all our acts spring as from a reservoir. Thus one says, “The fashion changes because the taste of people changes.” The taste is the mental reservoir. But if a tailor today designs a cut of dress different from that which he designed a year ago, can't what is called his change of taste have consisted, partly or wholly, in doing just this?
 
And here we say, “But surely designing a new shape isn't in itself changing one's taste, – – and saying a word isn't meaning it, – – and saying that I believe isn't believing; there must be feelings, mental acts, going along with these lines and these words.” ‒ ‒ And the reason we give for saying this is {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,104}} that a man certainly could design a new shape without having changed his taste, say that he believes something without believing it, etc. And this obviously is true. But it doesn't follow that what distinguishes a case of having changed one's taste from a case of not having done so isn't under certain circumstances just designing what one hasn't designed before. Nor does it follow that in cases in which designing a new shape is not the criterion for a change of taste, the criterion must be a change in some particular region of our mind.
 
That is to say, we don't use the word “taste” as the name of a feeling. To think that we do is to imagine || represent the structure || practice of our language in undue simplification. This, of course, is the way in which philosophical puzzles generally arise; and our case is quite analogous to that of thinking that wherever we make a predicative statement we state that the subject has a certain ingredient (as we really do in the case, “Beer is alcoholic.”)
 
It is advantageous in treating our problem to consider parallel with the feeling or feelings characteristic for having a certain taste, changing one's taste, meaning what one says, etc. etc. the facial expression (gestures or tone of voice) characteristic for the same states or events. If someone should object, saying that feelings and facial expressions can't be compared, as the former are experiences and the latter aren't, let him consider the muscular, kinaesthetic and tactile experiences bound up with gestures and facial expressions.
 
Let us then consider the proposition, “Believing something can not merely consist in saying that you believe it, you must {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,105}} say it with a particular facial expression, gesture, and tone of voice.” Now it cannot be doubted that we regard certain facial expressions, gestures, etc. as characteristic for the expression of belief. We speak of a “tone of conviction”. And yet it is clear that this tone of conviction isn't always present whenever we rightly speak of conviction wherever we should say there was conviction. “Just so”, you might say, “this shews that there is something else, something behind these gestures, etc. which is the real belief as opposed to mere expressions of belief.” ‒ ‒ “Not at all”, I should say, “many different criteria distinguish, under different circumstances, cases of believing what you say from those of not believing what you say.” There may be cases where the presence of a sensation other than those bound up with gestures, tone of voice, etc. distinguishes meaning what you say from not meaning it. But sometimes what distinguishes these two is nothing that happens while we speak, but a variety of actions and experiences of different kinds before and after.
 
To understand this family of cases it will again be helpful to consider an analogous case drawn from facial expressions. There is a family of friendly facial expressions. Suppose we had asked, “What feature is it that characterizes a friendly face?” At first one might think that there are certain traits which one might call friendly traits, each of which makes the face look friendly to a certain degree, and which when present in a large number constitute the friendly expression. This idea would seem to be borne out by our common speech, talking {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,106}} of “friendly eyes”, “friendly mouth”, etc. But it is easy to see that the same eyes of which we say they make a face look friendly, do not look friendly, or even look unfriendly, with certain other wrinkles of the forehead, lines round the mouth, etc. Why then do we ever say that it is these eyes which look friendly? Isn't it wrong to say that they characterize the face as friendly, for if we say they do so “under certain circumstances” (these circumstances being the other features of the face) why did we single out the one feature from amongst the others? The answer is that in the wide family of friendly faces there is what one might call a main branch characterized by a certain kind of eyes, another by a certain kind of mouth, etc.; although in the large family of unfriendly faces we meet these same eyes when they don't mitigate the unfriendliness of the expression. ‒ ‒ There is further the fact that when we notice the friendly expression of a face, our attention, our gaze, is drawn to a particular feature in the face, the “friendly eyes” or the “friendly mouth”, etc., and that it does not rest on other features although these too are responsible for the friendly expression.
 
“But is there no difference between saying something and meaning it, and saying it without meaning it?” ‒ ‒ There needn't be a difference while he says it, and if there is, this difference may be of all sorts of different kinds according to the surrounding circumstances. It does not follow from the fact that there is what we call a friendly and an unfriendly expression of the eye that there must be a difference between the eye {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,107}} of a friendly and the eye of an unfriendly face.
 
One might be tempted to say, “This trait can't be said to make the face look friendly, as it may be belied by another trait.” And this is like saying, “Saying something with the tone of conviction can't be the characteristic of conviction, as it may be belied by experiences going along with it.” But neither of these sentences is correct. It is true that other traits in this face could take away the friendly character of this eye, and yet in this face it is the eye which is the outstanding friendly feature.
 
It is such phrases as, “He said it and meant it”, which are most liable to mislead us. ‒ ‒ Compare meaning “I shall be delighted to see you” with meaning “The train leaves at 3.30”. Suppose you had said the first sentence to someone and were asked afterwards, “Did you mean it?”, you would then probably think of the feelings, the experiences, which you had while you said it. And accordingly you would in this case be inclined to say, “Didn't you see that I meant it?” Suppose that on the other hand, after having given someone the information, “The train leaves at 3.30”, he asked you, “Did you mean it?”, you might be inclined to answer, “Certainly. Why shouldn't I have meant it?”
 
In the first case we shall be inclined to speak of a feeling characteristic of meaning what we said, but not in the second. Compare also lying in both these cases. In the first case we should be inclined to say that lying consisted in saying what we did but without the appropriate feelings or even with the opposite feelings. If we lied in giving the information {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,108}} about the train, we would be likely to have different experiences while we gave it than those which we have in giving truthful information, but the difference here would not consist in the absence of a characteristic feeling, but perhaps just in the presence of a feeling of discomfort.
 
It is even possible while lying to have quite a strong experience of what might be called the characteristic for meaning what one says, – – and yet under certain circumstances, and perhaps under the ordinary circumstances || ones, one refers to just this experience in saying, “I meant what I said”, because the cases in which something might give the lie to these experiences do not come into the question. In many cases therefore we are inclined to say, “Meaning what I say” means having such-and-such experiences while I say it.
 
</div>
</div>
Retrieved from "https://www.wittgensteinproject.org/w/index.php/Special:MobileDiff/740"