The Significance of Aspect Perception: Bringing the Phenomenal World into View (Nordic Wittgenstein Studies Book 5)

In this volume, Baz offers a wide-ranging discussion of Wittgenstein's remarks on aspect-perception, with special focus on Wittgenstein's method. Baz starts out with an interpretation of Wittgenstein's remarks on aspects and continues with attempts to characterize and defend Wittgenstein's approach to the understanding and dissolution of philosophical difficulties. Baz ends with attempts to articulate--under the inspiration of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology--certain dissatisfactions, both with Wittgenstein's remarks on aspect perception, and with his philosophical approach more generally. On the way, Baz explores connections between Wittgenstein's remarks on aspects and Kant's aesthetics. He examines ways in which the remarks on aspects may be brought to bear on contemporary philosophical work on perception. He discusses some of the implications of Wittgenstein's work on aspect perception for issues in moral philosophy and the philosophy of action. Wittgenstein said the problem of aspect perception was as hard as granite, and no one is a more capable, persistent and imaginative stonecutter than Baz. Using insights from Merleau-Ponty's work, he shows how the philosophical significance of what is involved in "seeing something as something" is still being widely misunderstood and underappreciated. These essays stand out by their depth and honesty, and raise new questions that anyone working in the area will have to address. - Martin Gustafsson, Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland Acknowledgments 6 Contents 8 Abbreviations for Works of Wittgenstein Cited 10 Chapter 1: Introduction 11 Chapter 2: What’s the Point of Seeing Aspects? 22 2.1 Introduction 22 2.2 Seeing and (Merely) Knowing 26 2.3 The Grammar of Wittgenstein’s ‘Aspects’ 30 2.4 Can Wittgensteinian Aspects Be Seen Continuously? 35 2.5 Aspects and Representation 39 2.6 Soul Aspects? 42 2.7 Conclusion: The Scope of Aspect Perception 43 Chapter 3: On Learning from Wittgenstein; or What Does It Take to See the Grammar of Seeing Aspects? 44 3.1 Introduction 44 3.2 Learning from Wittgenstein I: The Work of Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Aspects 45 3.3 Learning from Wittgenstein: II 52 Chapter 4: Aspect Perception and Philosophical Difficulty 62 4.1 Introduction 62 4.2 Background 67 4.3 ‘A Quite Particular’ 70 4.4 The Intransitivity of Aspects 72 4.5 Aspect Perception, Aspect Blindness, and Philosophical Difficulty 74 4.6 Aspect Perception and Things That Speak to Us 78 Chapter 5: The Sound of Bedrock: Lines of Grammar Between Kant, Wittgenstein, and Cavell 80 5.1 Introduction 80 5.2 Cavell’s Two Proposals; and an Important Methodological Difference Between Kant and Wittgenstein 81 5.3 Kantian Beauty and Wittgensteinian Aspects 85 5.4 Why Pleasure? The Allure of the System 89 5.5 ‘Subjective Universal Validity’ Without Pleasure 92 5.6 Kantian Beauty, Wittgensteinian Aspects, and the Application of Concepts 94 5.7 The Sound of Bedrock 98 Chapter 6: Aspects of Perception 101 6.1 Introduction 101 6.2 The Grammar and Phenomenology of Wittgensteinian Aspects 104 6.3 Wollheim on Seeing-As 110 6.4 Aspects and Concepts 114 6.5 Aspects as Perceived Internal Relations 120 6.6 Perceptual Indeterminacy 125 6.7 Concluding Remark: Aspects and Beauty 129 Chapter 7: Motivational Indeterminacy 131 7.1 Introduction 132 7.2 The Assumption of Motivational Determinacy 133 7.3 Motivational Indeterminacy 141 7.4 An Illustration 150 7.5 Concluding Remark: Problems and Riddles 153 Chapter 8: Wittgenstein and the Difficulty of What Normally Goes Without Saying 155 8.1 Introduction: ‘Form of Life’ and the Conditions of Sense 155 8.2 Stage Setting: Kant and the Difficulty of Understanding Our Relation to the Worldly Conditions of Sense 158 8.3 Wittgenstein and the Difficulty of Doing Justice to Our Relation to the Background 161 8.4 Bringing the Phenomenal World into View by Way of Aspect Perception 163 8.5 The Natural Attitude and the Limitations of the Wittgensteinian Grammatical Investigation 169 Chapter 9: Bringing the Phenomenal World into View 176 9.1 Introduction: Travis’s ‘Fundamental Question of Perception’ and the Repression of the Phenomenal World 176 9.2 Travis’s (Kantian) Answer to the ‘Fundamental’ Question 182 9.3 The Difficulty Posed by Wittgensteinian Aspects to Travis’s Account of Perception 186 9.4 Sense Perception 194 9.5 Travis, McDowell, and Two Ways of Missing a Hole in the Wall 197 Index 204 In this volume, Baz offers a wide-ranging discussion of Wittgensteins remarks on aspect-perception, with special focus on Wittgenstein's method. Baz starts out with an interpretation of Wittgenstein's remarks on aspects and continues with attempts to characterize and defend Wittgenstein's approach to the understanding and dissolution of philosophical difficulties. Baz ends with attempts to articulate--under the inspiration of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology--certain dissatisfactions, both with Wittgenstein's remarks on aspect perception, and with his philosophical approach more generally. On the way, Baz explores connections between Wittgenstein's remarks on aspects and Kant's aesthetics. He examines ways in which the remarks on aspects may be brought to bear on contemporary philosophical work on perception. He discusses some of the implications of Wittgenstein's work on aspect perception for issues in moral philosophy and the philosophy of action. -- Publisher's description Front Matter ....Pages i-ix Introduction (Avner Baz)....Pages 1-11 What’s the Point of Seeing Aspects? (Avner Baz)....Pages 13-34 On Learning from Wittgenstein; or What Does It Take to See the Grammar of Seeing Aspects? (Avner Baz)....Pages 35-52 Aspect Perception and Philosophical Difficulty (Avner Baz)....Pages 53-70 The Sound of Bedrock: Lines of Grammar Between Kant, Wittgenstein, and Cavell (Avner Baz)....Pages 71-91 Aspects of Perception (Avner Baz)....Pages 93-122 Motivational Indeterminacy (Avner Baz)....Pages 123-146 Wittgenstein and the Difficulty of What Normally Goes Without Saying (Avner Baz)....Pages 147-167 Bringing the Phenomenal World into View (Avner Baz)....Pages 169-196 Back Matter ....Pages 197-201