Aspect-Blindness (Philosophy of Psychology §257)

2024-1 Wittgenstein Final Exam

#2) Philosophy of Psychology §257

257. Es erhebt sich nun die Frage: Könnte es Menschen geben, denen die Fähigkeit, etwas als etwas zu sehen, abginge a und wie wäre das? Was für Folgen hätte es? —– Wäre dieser Defekt zu vergleichen mit Farbenblindheit, oder mit dem Fehlen des absoluten Gehörs? a Wir wollen ihn “Aspektblindheit” nennen a und uns nun überlegen, was damit gemeint sein könnte. (Eine begriffliche Untersuchung.)
Der Aspektblinde soll die Aspekte A nicht wechseln sehen. Soll er aber auch nicht erkennen, daß das Doppelkreuz ein schwarzes und ein weißes Kreuz enthält? Soll er also die Aufgabe nicht bewältigen können: “Zeig mir unter diesen Figuren solche, die ein schwarzes Kreuz enthalten”? Nein, das soll er können, aber er soll nicht sagen: “Jetzt ist es ein schwarzes Kreuz auf weißem Grund!”
Soll er für die Ähnlichkeit zweier Gesichter blind sein? Aber also auch für die Gleichheit, oder angenäherte Gleichheit? Das will ich nicht festsetzen. (Er soll Befehle von der Art “Bring mir etwas, was so ausschaut wie das!” ausführen können.)

257. The question now arises: Could there be human beings lacking the ability to see something as something a and what would that be like? What sort of consequences would it have? —– Would this defect be comparable to colour-blindness, or to not having absolute pitch? a We will call it “aspect-blindness” a and will now consider what might be meant by this. (A conceptual investigation.)
The aspect-blind man is supposed not to see the A aspects change. But is he also supposed not to recognize that the double cross contains both a black and a white cross? So if told “Show me figures containing a black cross among these examples”, will he be unable to manage it? No. He is supposed to be able to do that, but not to say: “Now it’s a black cross on a white ground!”
Is he supposed to be blind to the similarity between two faces? And so also to their identity or approximate identity? I do not want to settle this. (He is supposed to be able to execute such orders as “Bring me something that looks like this!”)

 

In PPF §257, Wittgenstein introduces the infamous notion of “aspect-blindness,” which is roughly defined as an inability to see something as something. The notion is arguably arcane given that even Wittgenstein himself asks, “What might be meant by this?” (PPF: §257). Therefore, I aim to clarify the meaning of “aspect-blindness,” especially highlighting what is lacking in the aspect-blind man. In §§257-258, the inabilities that Wittgenstein has in mind with this concept are delineated as follows:

(i)               The aspect-blind man lacks the ability to see something as something.
(ii)              The aspect-blind man is supposed not to see the A aspects change.
(iii)             He would not say, “Now it’s a black cross on a white ground!”
(iv)             For him it would not switch from one aspect to the other.

So, what is this all about? One might think that a tempting answer to this question is that the aspect-blind man cannot see the duck–rabbit picture presented in §118. As Baz points out, however, this should not be confused with an inability to tell a picture of a rabbit when he saw one. He argues:

If the aspect-blind were unable to tell a picture of a rabbit when he saw one, his handicap would be way severer than “not being able to see something as something”; and, actually, it would then make no sense to attribute the latter to him. (Baz 2020a: 30).

Therefore, the aspect-blind man is not someone who lacks the ability to see duck–rabbit picture as either a duck or a rabbit. Rather, what he cannot do, as indicated by (ii)-(iv), is seeing a duck as a rabbit and vice versa. Roughly speaking, it is an inability to see a sudden transition from A to B.

From this consideration, Baz proposes an intriguing skeptical argument called the 'Aspect Denier' (see Baz 2020b: 66-69). Let me briefly encapsulate the Aspect Denier’s Challenge. According to the Denier, the difference between an aspect-blind man and ordinary people does not lie in their abilities but in the way they explain their own experiences. In a nutshell, the Denier regards our explanation as a misleading and confusing one, and rejects the redundant and mysterious description that A suddenly changed into B. The point here is that “he knows exactly what experience we are talking about and is perfectly familiar with it, that he has fully accounted for that experience” (Baz 2020b: 67).

In this regard, this skeptical argument can be considered as a variant of the rule-following paradox; for “it would now be no use to say, “But can’t you see…?”—and go over the old explanations and examples for him again” (PI: § 185).

References

Baz, A. (2020a). Wittgenstein on Aspect Perception, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Baz, A. (2020b). The Significance of Aspect Perception. Bringing the Phenomenal World into View, Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

Wittgenstein, L. (PI). Philosophical Investigations, translated by G. E. M. Anscombe, P. M. S. Hacker and J. Shulte. Revised fourth edition by P. M. S. Hacker and J. Schulte. Oxford: Blackwell, 2009; Philosophische Untersuchungen, in: Werkausgabe Bd. 1, 23. hrsausgegeben von J. Schulte, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2019.