Brown Book: Difference between revisions

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I am tempted to say, “This isn't just a scribble, but it's ''this'' particular face.” – But I can't say, “I see ''this'' as ''this'' face”, but ought to say, “I see this as ''a'' face.” But I feel I want to say, “I don't see this as ''a'' face, I see it as ''this'' face!” But in the second half of this sentence the word “face” is redundant, and it should have run, “I don't see this as a face, I see it like ''this''.”
I am tempted to say, “This isn't just a scribble, but it's ''this'' particular face.” – But I can't say, “I see ''this'' as ''this'' face”, but ought to say, “I see this as ''a'' face.” But I feel I want to say, “I don't see this as ''a'' face, I see it as ''this'' face!” But in the second half of this sentence the word “face” is redundant, and it should have run, “I don't see this as a face, I see it like ''this''.”


Suppose I said, “I see this scribble like ''this''”, and while saying “this scribble” I look at it as a mere scribble, and while saying “like ''this''”, I see the face, – this would come to something like saying, “What at one time appears to me like this at another appears to me like that”, and here the “this” and the “that” would be accompanied by the two different ways of seeing. – But we must ask ourselves in what game is this sentence with the processes accompanying it to be used. E.g., whom am I telling this? Suppose the answer is, “I'm saying it to myself.” But that is not enough. We are here in the grave danger of believing that we know what to do with a sentence if it looks more or less like one of the common sentences of our language. But here in order not to be deluded we have to ask ourselves: What is the use, say, of the words “this” and “that”? – or rather, What are the different uses which we make of them? What we call their meaning the meaning of these words is {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,145}} not anything which they have got in them or which is fastened to them irrespective of what use we make of them. Thus it is one use of the word “this” to go along with a gesture pointing to something: We say, “I am seeing the square with the diagonals like this”, pointing to a swastika. And referring to the square with diagonals I might have said, “What at one time appears to me like this [[File:Brown Book 2-Ts310,134c.png|80px|link=]] at another time appears to me like that [[File:Brown Book 2-Ts310,134d.png|80px|link=]].” And this is certainly not the use we made of the sentence in the above case. – One might think the whole difference between the two cases is this, that in the first the pictures are mental, in the second, real drawings. We should here ask ourselves in what sense we can call mental images pictures, for in some ways they are comparable to drawn or painted pictures, and in others not. It is, e.g., one of the essential points about the use of a “material” picture that we say that it remains the same not only on the ground that it seems to us to be the same, that we remember that it looked before as it looks now. In fact we shall say under certain circumstances that the picture hasn't changed although it seems to have changed; and we say it hasn't changed because it has been kept in a certain way, certain influences have been kept out. Therefore the expression, “The picture hasn't changed”, is used in a different way when we talk of a material picture on the one hand, and of a mental one on the other. Just as the statement, “These ticks follow at equal intervals”, has got one grammar if the ticks are the tick of a pendulum and the criterion for their regularity is the result of measurements which we have made on our apparatus, and another grammar if the ticks are ticks which {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,146}} we imagine. I might for instance ask the question: When I said to myself, “What at one time appears to me like this, at another … ”, did I recognize the two aspects, this and that, as the same which I got on previous occasions? Or were they new to me and I tried to remember them for future occasions? Or was all that I meant to say, “I can change the aspect of this figure”?
Suppose I said, “I see this scribble like ''this''”, and while saying “this scribble” I look at it as a mere scribble, and while saying “like ''this''”, I see the face, – this would come to something like saying, “What at one time appears to me like this at another appears to me like that”, and here the “this” and the “that” would be accompanied by the two different ways of seeing. – But we must ask ourselves in what game is this sentence with the processes accompanying it to be used. E.g., whom am I telling this? Suppose the answer is, “I'm saying it to myself.” But that is not enough. We are here in the grave danger of believing that we know what to do with a sentence if it looks more or less like one of the common sentences of our language. But here in order not to be deluded we have to ask ourselves: What is the use, say, of the words “this” and “that”? – or rather, What are the different uses which we make of them? What we call their meaning the meaning of these words is {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,145}} not anything which they have got in them or which is fastened to them irrespective of what use we make of them. Thus it is one use of the word “this” to go along with a gesture pointing to something: We say, “I am seeing the square with the diagonals like this”, pointing to a swastika. And referring to the square with diagonals I might have said, “What at one time appears to me like this [[File:Brown Book 2-Ts310,134d.png|80px|link=]] at another time appears to me like that [[File:Brown Book 2-Ts310,134e.png|80px|link=]].” And this is certainly not the use we made of the sentence in the above case. – One might think the whole difference between the two cases is this, that in the first the pictures are mental, in the second, real drawings. We should here ask ourselves in what sense we can call mental images pictures, for in some ways they are comparable to drawn or painted pictures, and in others not. It is, e.g., one of the essential points about the use of a “material” picture that we say that it remains the same not only on the ground that it seems to us to be the same, that we remember that it looked before as it looks now. In fact we shall say under certain circumstances that the picture hasn't changed although it seems to have changed; and we say it hasn't changed because it has been kept in a certain way, certain influences have been kept out. Therefore the expression, “The picture hasn't changed”, is used in a different way when we talk of a material picture on the one hand, and of a mental one on the other. Just as the statement, “These ticks follow at equal intervals”, has got one grammar if the ticks are the tick of a pendulum and the criterion for their regularity is the result of measurements which we have made on our apparatus, and another grammar if the ticks are ticks which {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,146}} we imagine. I might for instance ask the question: When I said to myself, “What at one time appears to me like this, at another … ”, did I recognize the two aspects, this and that, as the same which I got on previous occasions? Or were they new to me and I tried to remember them for future occasions? Or was all that I meant to say, “I can change the aspect of this figure”?


The danger of delusion which we are in becomes most clear if we propose to ourselves to give the aspects “this” and “that” names, say A and B. For we are most strongly tempted to imagine that giving a name consists in correlating in a peculiar and rather mysterious way a sound (or other sign) with something. How we make use of this peculiar correlation then seems to be almost a secondary matter. (One could almost imagine that naming was done by a peculiar sacramental act, and that this produced some magic relation between the name and the thing.)
The danger of delusion which we are in becomes most clear if we propose to ourselves to give the aspects “this” and “that” names, say A and B. For we are most strongly tempted to imagine that giving a name consists in correlating in a peculiar and rather mysterious way a sound (or other sign) with something. How we make use of this peculiar correlation then seems to be almost a secondary matter. (One could almost imagine that naming was done by a peculiar sacramental act, and that this produced some magic relation between the name and the thing.)
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Now when we proposed to give the aspects of a drawing names, we made it appear that by seeing the drawing in two different ways, and each time saying something, we had done more than performing just this uninteresting action; whereas we now see that it is the usage of the “name” and in fact the detail of this usage which gives the naming its peculiar significance.
Now when we proposed to give the aspects of a drawing names, we made it appear that by seeing the drawing in two different ways, and each time saying something, we had done more than performing just this uninteresting action; whereas we now see that it is the usage of the “name” and in fact the detail of this usage which gives the naming its peculiar significance.


{{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,149}} It is therefore not an unimportant question, but a question about the essence of the matter: “Are ‘A’ and ‘B’ to remind me of these aspects; can I carry out such an order as ‘See this drawing in the aspect ‘A’; are there, in some way, pictures of these aspects correlated with the names ‘A’ and ‘B’ (like [[File:Brown Book 2-Ts310,134c.png|80px|link=]] and [[File:Brown Book 2-Ts310,134d.png|80px|link=]]); are ‘A’ and ‘B’ used in communicating with other people, and what exactly is the game played with them?”
{{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,149}} It is therefore not an unimportant question, but a question about the essence of the matter: “Are ‘A’ and ‘B’ to remind me of these aspects; can I carry out such an order as ‘See this drawing in the aspect ‘A’; are there, in some way, pictures of these aspects correlated with the names ‘A’ and ‘B’ (like [[File:Brown Book 2-Ts310,134d.png|80px|link=]] and [[File:Brown Book 2-Ts310,134e.png|80px|link=]]); are ‘A’ and ‘B’ used in communicating with other people, and what exactly is the game played with them?”


When I say, “I don't see mere dashes (a mere scribble) but a face (or word) with this particular physiognomy”, I don't wish to assert any general characteristic of what I see, but to assert that I see that particular physiognomy which I do see. And it is obvious that here my expression is moving in a circle. But this is so because really the particular physiognomy which I saw ought to have entered my proposition. – When I find that, “In reading a sentence, a peculiar experience goes on all the while”, I have actually to read over a fairly long stretch to get the peculiar impression uttered in this way || which makes one say this.
When I say, “I don't see mere dashes (a mere scribble) but a face (or word) with this particular physiognomy”, I don't wish to assert any general characteristic of what I see, but to assert that I see that particular physiognomy which I do see. And it is obvious that here my expression is moving in a circle. But this is so because really the particular physiognomy which I saw ought to have entered my proposition. – When I find that, “In reading a sentence, a peculiar experience goes on all the while”, I have actually to read over a fairly long stretch to get the peculiar impression uttered in this way || which makes one say this.