Seeing Wittgenstein Anew (review)

William Day and Viktor J. Krebs' Seeing Wittgenstein Anew succeeds as an argument for the centrality of aspect-seeing in Wittgenstein's philosophy and as an argument for the more general philosophical importance of aspect-seeing to questions of mind, language, knowledge, and art. The worst that can be said about certain articles is that they merely use aspect-seeing as a springboard for an entirely different discussion, yet those discussions are fruitful and rich enough that it is difficult to see this as any sort of real fault. At best, the articles open a new path of inquiry, one that could not have been opened without the connection to aspect-seeing.

For example, David R. Cerbone's "(Ef)facing the Soul: Wittgenstein and Materialism" gives a Wittgensteinian account of various post-Wittgensteinian theories of mind. It argues that part of the reason that the identity theory seems plausible is that intuitions used to support it smuggle in behavior, but not just the kind of behavior that would satisfy the behaviorist. Cerbone considers how hope is embedded in a human life, in gestures, facial expressions, and relationships. Cerbone's essay thus is an implicit argument that discussions of the extended mind hypothesis could benefit from seeing Wittgenstein anew.

Cerbone also engages with eliminative materialism. He shows an important analogy between aspect-seeing and the propositional attitudes. For Wittgenstein, it is not the case that aspect-seeing is a phenomenon that arises when we add a subjective dimension to the neutral, objective data given by what is seen. Similarly, it is not the case that propositional attitudes can be understood as inferences or theories based on the neutral, objective, material facts. A longer treatment of this topic would explore the ways that Dennett himself explicitly appeals to Wittgenstein (in "Quining Qualia" for example); the essay as given, however, nicely opens pathways for understanding the direction in which such a discussion could go.

Garry L. Hagberg's "In a New Light: Wittgenstein, Aspect-Perception and Retrospective Change in Self-Understanding" explores the relationship between aspect-seeing and a problem of autobiographical knowledge as exemplified in Iris Murdoch's contention, "Rethinking one's past is a constant responsibility." Hagberg's lucid explication of the middle-ground Wittgenstein steers between "intrinsic, property-reflecting brute perception" and "freely imaginative perception" does propel him toward his goal of showing "how we can sustain an active or unfrozen engagement with our past" without descending into an understanding of our own past where "anything goes" and accuracy has no role to play.

Like Cerbone's essay, Hagberg's essay constitutes an implicit argument for the relevance of aspect-seeing to seeing Wittgenstein anew in a contemporary debate, this time about personal identity. Thinking about the epistemological question of how to understand our own past could enrich the question of whether continuity involves empathic access, or coherent narratives, or any kind of psychological continuity for that matter. Hagberg's essay guides what it means "to make a life-defining picture of ourselves." A person's memory of an early separation trauma is neither a brute perception nor a subjective construction, on Hagberg's interpretation. Understanding our own past is central to understanding who we are, and understanding our past is aided by a clearer understanding of Wittgenstein's middle course.

Lest one think that the focus on aspect-seeing in Wittgenstein is only a means to more contemporary philosophical ends, one ought to read Day's remarkable "Wanting to Say Something: Aspect-Blindness and Language." Day considers the issue of aspect-blindness, arguing that universal aspect-blindness is impossible for beings with language. Specifically, he shows that a child's first attempt at language, at trying "bloh" for "ball," is neither an indication that the child sees the ball for the first time, nor an indication that the child is giving a first label for an object seen all along. Rather, he shows that this attempt is an indication of the dawning of an aspect. The...