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When I said, “I am mistaking the function of a sentence”, it was because by its help I seemed to be pointing out to myself which colour it is I see, whereas I was just contemplating a {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,152}} sample of a colour. It seemed to me that the sample was the description of its own colour. | When I said, “I am mistaking the function of a sentence”, it was because by its help I seemed to be pointing out to myself which colour it is I see, whereas I was just contemplating a {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,152}} sample of a colour. It seemed to me that the sample was the description of its own colour. | ||
Suppose I said to someone: “Observe the particular lighting of this room.” ‒ ‒ Under certain circumstances the sense of this order || imperative will be quite clear, e.g., if the walls of the room were red with the setting sun. But suppose at any other time when there is nothing striking about the lighting I said, “Observe the particular lighting of this room”: – – Well, isn't there a particular lighting? So what is the difficulty about observing it? But the person who was told to observe the lighting when there was nothing striking about it would probably look about the room and say, “Well, what about it?” Now I might go on and say, “It is exactly the same lighting as yesterday at this hour”, or “It is just this slightly dim light which you see in this picture of the room.” | |||
In the first case, when the room was lit a striking red, you could have pointed out the peculiarity which you were meant, though not explicitly told, to observe. You could, e.g., have used a sample of the particular colour in order to do so. We shall in this case be inclined to say that a peculiarity was added to the normal appearance of the room. | |||
In the second case, when the room was just ordinarily lighted and there was nothing striking about its appearance, you didn't know exactly what to do when you were told to observe the lighting of the room. All you could do was to look about you waiting for something further to be said which would give the first order its full sense. | |||
{{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,153}} But wasn't the room, in both cases, lit in a particular way? Well, this question, as it stands, is senseless, and so is the answer, “It was … ” The order, “Observe the particular lighting of this room”, does not imply any statement about the appearance of this room. It seemed to say: “This room has a particular lighting, which I need not name; observe it!” The lighting referred to, it seems, is given by a sample, and you are to make use of the sample; as you would be doing in copying the precise shade of a colour sample on a palette. Whereas the order is similar to this: “Get hold of this sample!” | |||
Imagine yourself saying, “There is a particular lighting I must observe || which I'm to observe.” You could imagine yourself in this case staring about you in vain, that is, without seeing the lighting. | |||
You could have been given a sample, e.g., a piece of colour material, and been asked: “Observe the colour of this patch.” ‒ ‒ And we can draw a distinction between observing, attending to, the shape of the sample and attending to its colour. But, attending to the colour can't be described as looking at a thing which is connected with the sample, rather, as looking at the sample in a peculiar way. | |||
When we obey the order, “Observe the colour … ”, what we do is to open our eyes to colour. “Observe the colour … ” doesn't mean “See the colour you see.” The order, “Look at so-and-so”, is of the kind, “Turn your head in this direction”; what you will see when you do so does not enter this order. By attending, looking, you produce the impression; you can't look at the impression. | |||
{{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,154}} Suppose someone answered to our order: “Yes || “All right, I am now observing the particular lighting this room has”, – – this would sound as though he could point out to us the particular lighting || which lighting it was. The order, that is to say, may seem to tell || have told you to do something with this particular lighting, as opposed to another one (like “Paint this lighting, not that”). Whereas you obey the order by taking in ''lighting'', as opposed to dimensions, shapes, etc. | |||
(Compare, “Get hold of the colour of this sample” with “Get hold of this pencil”, i.e., there it is, take hold of it.) | |||
I return to our sentence: “This face has a particular expression.” In this case too I did not compare or contrast my impression with anything, I did not make use of the sample before me. The sentence was an utterance of a state of attention. | |||
What has to be explained is this: Why do we talk to our impression? ‒ ‒ You read, put yourself into a state of attention || particular state of attention and say: “Something peculiar happens undoubtedly.” You are inclined to go on: “There is a certain smoothness about it”; but you feel that this is only an inadequate description and that the experience can only stand for itself. “Something peculiar happens undoubtedly” is like saying, “I have had an experience.” But you don't wish to make a general statement independent of the particular experience you have had but rather a statement into which this experience enters. | |||
You are under an impression. This makes you say, “I am under a ''particular'' impression”, and this sentence seems to say, to yourself at least, under what impression you are. As though you were referring to a picture ready || in readiness in your mind and said, {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,155}} “This is it” || and said, “This is what my impression is like”. Whereas you have only pointed to your impression. In our case), saying “I notice the particular colour of this wall” is like drawing, say, a black rectangle enclosing a small patch of the wall and thereby designating that patch as a sample for further use. | |||
When you read, as it were attending closely to what happened when you read || in reading, you seemed to be observing reading as under a magnifying glass and to see the reading process. (But the case is more like that of observing something through a coloured glass.) You think you have noticed the process of reading, the particular way in which signs are translated || pass over into spoken words. | |||
I have read a line with a peculiar attention; I am impressed by the reading, and this makes me say that I have observed something besides the mere seeing of the written signs and the speaking of words. I have also expressed it by saying that I have noticed a particular atmosphere round the seeing and speaking. How such a metaphor as that embodied in the last sentences can arise || can come to suggest || present itself to me may be seen more clearly by looking at this example: If you heard sentences spoken in a monotone, you might be tempted to say that the words were all enshrouded in a particular atmosphere. But wouldn't it be using a peculiar way of representation to say that speaking the sentence in a monotone was adding something to the mere saying of it? Couldn't we even conceive speaking in a monotone as the result of ''taking away'' from the sentence its inflexion. Different circumstances would make us adopt different {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,156}} ways of representation. If, e.g., certain words had to be read out in a monotone, this being indicated by a staff and a sustained note beneath the written words, this notation would very strongly suggest the idea that something had been added to the mere speaking of the sentence. | |||
I am impressed by the reading of a sentence, and I say the sentence has shewn me something, that I have noticed something in it. This made me think of the following example: A friend and I once looked at beds of pansies. Each bed shewed a different kind. We were impressed by each in turn. Speaking about them my friend said, “What a variety of colour patterns, and each says something.” And this was just what I myself wished to say. | |||
Compare such a statement with this: “Every one of these men says something.” ‒ ‒ | |||
If one had asked what the colour pattern of the pansy said, the right answer would have seemed to be that it said itself. Hence we could have used an intransitive form of expression, say, “Each of these colour patterns impresses one.” | |||
It has sometimes been said that what music conveys to us are feelings of joyfulness, melancholy, triumph, etc. etc. and what repels us in this account is that it seems to say that music is a means to || an instrument for producing in us sequences of feelings. And from this one might gather that any other means of producing such feelings would do for us instead of music. ‒ ‒ To this || such an account we are tempted to reply “Music conveys to us ''itself''!” | |||
It is similar with such expressions as, “Each of these {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,157}} colour patterns impresses one.” We feel we wish to guard against the idea that a colour pattern is a means to producing in us a certain impression – – the colour pattern being like a drug and we interested merely in the effect this drug produces. ‒ ‒ We wish to avoid any form of expression which would seem to refer to an effect produced by an object on a subject. (Here we are bordering on the problem of idealism and realism and on the problem whether statements of aesthetics are subjective or objective.) Saying, “I see this and am impressed” is apt to make it seem as though || that the impression was some feeling accompanying the seeing, and that the sentence said something like, “I see this and feel a pressure.” | |||
I could have used the expression, “Each of these colour patterns has meaning”; – – I didn't say “has meaning”, for this would provoke the question, “What meaning?”, which in the case we are considering is senseless. We are distinguishing between meaningless patterns and patterns which have meaning; but there is no such expression in our game as, “This pattern has the meaning so-and-so.” Nor even the expression, “These two patterns have different meanings”, unless this is to say: “These are two different patterns and both have meaning.” | |||
It is easy to understand though why we should be inclined to use the transitive form of expression. For let us see what use we make of such an expression as, “This face says something”, that is, what the situations are in which we use this expression, what sentence would precede or follow it, (what kind of conversation it is a part of). We should perhaps follow up such {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,158}} a remark by saying, “Look at the line of these eyebrows” or “The ''dark'' eyes and the ''pale'' face!”; these expressions would draw attention to certain features. We should in the same connection use comparisons, as for instance, “The nose is like a beak”, – – but also such expressions as “The whole face expresses bewilderment”, and here we have used “expressing” transitively. | |||
We can now consider sentences which, as one might say, give an analysis of the impression we get, say, from a face. Take such a statement as, “The particular impression of this face is due to its small eyes and low forehead.” Here the words, “the particular impression”, may stand for a certain specification, e.g., “the stupid expression.” Or, on the other hand, they may mean, “what makes this expression a striking one” (i.e. an extraordinary one); or, “what strikes one about this face” (i.e., “what draws one's attention”). Or again, our sentence may mean, “If you change ''these'' features in the slightest the expression will change entirely (whereas you might change other features without changing the expression nearly so much)”. The form of this statement, however, mustn't mislead us into thinking that there is in every case a supplementing statement of the form, “First the expression was ''this'', after the change it's ''that''.” We can, of course, say, “Smith frowned, and his expression changed from this to that”, pointing, say, at two drawings of his face. – – (Compare with this the two statements: “He said these words”, and “His words said something”). | |||
When, trying to see what reading consisted in, I read a written sentence, let it || the reading of it impress itself upon me, and said that {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,159}} I had a particular impression, one could have asked me such a question as whether my impression was not due to the particular handwriting || whether it was not, say, the handwriting which had given me the particular impression. This would be asking me whether my impression would not be a different one if the writing had been a different one, or say, if each word of the sentence were written in a different handwriting. In this sense we could also ask whether that impression wasn't due after all to the ''sense'' of the particular sentence which I read. One might suggest: Read a different sentence (or the same one in a different handwriting) and see if you would still say that you had the same impression. And the answer might be: “Yes, the impression I had was really due to the handwriting.” ‒ ‒ But this would ''not'' imply that when I first said the sentence gave me a particular impression I had contrasted one impression with another, or that my statement had not been of the kind, “This sentence has ''its own expression'' || character.” This will get clearer by considering the following example: Suppose we have three faces drawn side by side: a) [[File:Brown Book 2-Ts310,159a.png|40px|link=]], b) [[File:Brown Book 2-Ts310,159b.png|40px|link=]], c) [[File:Brown Book 2-Ts310,159c.png|40px|link=]]. They should be absolutely identical, but for an additional stroke in b) and two dots in c). I contemplate the first one, saying to myself, “This face has a peculiar expression.” Then I am shewn the second one and asked whether it has the same expression. I answer “Yes”. Then the third one is shewn to me and I say, “It has a different expression.” In my two answers I might be said to have distinguished the face and its expression: for b) is different from a) and still I say they have the same expression, whereas the difference between c) and a) corresponds to a {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,160}} difference of expression; and this may make us think that also in my first utterance I distinguished between the face and its expression. | |||
Let us now go back to the idea of a feeling of familiarity which arises when I see familiar objects. Pondering about the question whether there is such a feeling or not, we are likely to gaze at some object and say, “Don't I have a particular feeling when I look at my old coat and hat?” But to this we now answer: What feeling do you compare this || it with, or oppose it to? Should you say that your old coat gives you the same feeling as your old friend A with whose appearance too you are well acquainted, or that ''whenever'' you happened to look at your coat you get that feeling, say of intimacy and warmth? | |||
“But is there no such thing as a feeling of familiarity?” ‒ ‒ I should say that there are a great many different experiences, some of them feelings, which we might call “experiences (feelings) of familiarity.” | |||
Different experiences of familiarity: ''a'') Someone enters my room, I haven't seen him for a long time, and didn't expect him. I look at him, say or feel, “Oh, it's you.” ‒ ‒ (Why did I in giving this example say that I hadn't seen the man for a long time? Wasn't I setting out to describe ''experiences of'' familiarity? And whatever the experience was I alluded to, couldn't I have had it even if I had seen the man half an hour ago? I mean, I gave the circumstances of recognizing the man as a means to the end of describing the precise situation of the recognition. One might object to this way of describing the ''experience'', saying that it brought in irrelevant things, and in {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,161}} fact wasn't a ''description'' of the feeling at all. In saying this one takes as the prototype of a description, say, the description of a table, which tells you the exact shape, dimensions, the material which it is made of, and its colour. Such a description one might say pieces the table together. There is on the other hand a different kind of description of a table, such as you might find in a novel, e.g., “It was a small, rickety table decorated in Moorish style, the sort that is used for smoker's requisites.” Such a description might be called an indirect one; but if the purpose of it is to bring a vivid image of the table before your mind in a flash, it might serve this purpose incomparably better than a detailed “direct” description. ‒ ‒ Now if I am to give the description of a feeling of familiarity or recognition, – – what do you expect me to do? Can I piece the feeling together? In a sense of course I could, giving you many different stages and the way my feelings changed. Such detailed descriptions you can find in some of the great novels. Now if you think of descriptions of pieces of furniture as you might find them in a novel, you see that to this kind of description you can oppose another making use of drawings, measures such as one should give to a cabinet maker. This latter kind one is inclined to call the only direct and complete description (though this way of expressing ourselves shews that we forget that there are certain purposes which the “real” description does not fulfil). These considerations should warn you not to think that there is one real and direct description of, say, the feeling of recognition as opposed to {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,162}} the “indirect” one which I have given.) | |||
''b'') the same as ''a''), but the face is not familiar to me immediately. After a little, recognition “dawns upon me.” I say, “Oh, it's you”, but with totally different inflexion than in a). (Consider tone of voice, inflexion, gestures, as essential parts of our experience, not as inessential accompaniments or mere means of communication. (Compare p. 104–5)). ''c'') There is an experience directed towards people or things which we see every day when suddenly we feel them to be “old acquaintances” or “good old friends”; one might also describe the feeling as one of warmth or of being at home with them. ''d'') My room with all the objects in it is thoroughly familiar to me. When I enter it in the morning do I greet the familiar chairs, tables, etc., with a feeling of “Oh, hello!”? or have such a feeling as described in ''c'')? But isn't the way I walk about in it, take something out of a drawer, sit down, etc. different from my behaviour in a room I don't know? And why shouldn't I say therefore, that I had experiences of familiarity whenever I lived amongst these familiar objects? ''e'') Isn't it an experience of familiarity when on being asked, “Who is this man?” I answer straight away (or after some reflection), “It is so-and-so”? Compare with this experience, ''f''), that of looking at the written word “feeling” and saying, “This is A's handwriting” and on the other hand ''g'') the experience of reading the word, which also is an experience of familiarity. | |||
To ''e'') one might object saying that the experience of saying the man's name was not the experience of familiarity, that he had to be familiar to us in order that we might know his name, {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,163}} and that we had to ''know his name'' in order that we might say it. Or, we might say, “Saying his name is not enough, for surely we might say the name without knowing that it was his name.” And this remark is certainly true if only we realise that it does not imply that knowing the name is a process accompanying or preceding saying the name. | |||
Consider this example: What is the difference between a memory image, an image that comes with expectation, and say, an image of a day dream. You may be inclined to answer, “There is an intrinsic difference between the images”. ‒ ‒ Did you notice that difference, or did you only say there was one because you thought there had to be one? || think there must be one? | |||
“But surely I recognize a memory image as a memory image, an image of a day dream as an image of a day dream, etc.” ‒ ‒ Remember that you are sometimes doubtful whether you actually saw a certain event happening or whether you dreamt it, or just had heard of it and imagined it vividly. But apart from that, what do you mean by “recognizing an image as a memory image”? I agree that (at least in most cases) while an image is before your mind's eye you are not in a state of doubt as to whether it is a memory image, etc. Also, if asked whether your image was a memory image, you would (in most cases) answer the question without hesitation. Now what if I asked you, “''When'' do you know what sort of an image it is?”? Do you call knowing what sort of image it is not being in a state of doubt, not wondering about it? Does introspection make you see a state or activity of mind which you would call knowing that the image was a memory image, and which takes place while the image is before {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,164}} your mind? ‒ ‒ Further, if you answer the question, what sort of image it was you had, do you do so by, as it were, looking at the image and discovering a certain characteristic in it? (as though you had been asked by whom a picture was painted, looked at it, recognized the style, and said it was a Rembrandt.) | |||
It is easy, on the other hand, to point out experiences characteristic of remembering, expecting, etc. accompanying the images, and further differences in the immediate or more remote surrounding of them. Thus we certainly ''say'' different things in the different cases, e.g., “I remember his coming into my room”, “I expect his coming into my room”, “I imagine his coming into my room.” ‒ ‒ “But surely this can't be all the difference there is!” It isn't all: There are the three different games played with these three words surrounding these statements. | |||
When challenged, do we ''understand'' the word “remember”, etc., is there really a difference between the cases besides the mere verbal one, our thoughts moving in the immediate surroundings of the image we had or the expression we used. I have an image of dining in Hall with T. If asked whether this is a memory image, I say, “Of course”, and my thoughts begin to move on paths starting from this image. I remember who sat next to us, what the conversation was about, what I thought about it, what happened to T later on, etc. etc. | |||
Imagine two different games both played with chess men on a chess board. The initial positions of both are alike. One of the games is always played with red and green pieces, the other with black and white. Two people are beginning to play, they have the chess board between them with the red and green {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,165}} pieces in position. Someone asks them, “Do you know what game you're intending to play?” A player answers, “Of course; we are playing No.2.” “What is the difference now between playing no.2 and no.1?” ‒ ‒ “Well, there are red and green pieces on the board and not black and white ones, also we say that we are playing no.2.” ‒ ‒ “But this couldn't be the only difference; don't you ''understand'' what ‘no.2’ means and what game the red and green pieces stand for?” Here we are inclined to say, “Certainly I do” and to prove this to ourselves we actually begin to move the pieces according to the rules of game no.2. This is what I should call moving in the immediate surrounding of our initial position. | |||
But isn't there also a peculiar feeling of pastness characteristic of images as memory images? There certainly are experiences which I should be inclined to call feelings of pastness, although not always when I remember something is one of these feelings present. ‒ ‒ To get clear about the nature of these feelings it is again very || most useful to remember that there are gestures of pastness and inflexions of pastness which we can regard as representing the experiences of pastness. (Aristotle). | |||
I will examine one particular case, that of a feeling which I shall roughly describe by saying it is the feeling of “long, long ago.” These words and the tone in which they are said are a gesture of pastness. But I will specify the experiences which I mean still further by saying that it is that corresponding to a certain tune (Davidsbündlertänze – – “Wie aus weiter Ferne”). I'm imagining this tune played with the right {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,166}} expression and thus recorded, say, for a gramophone. Then this is the most elaborate and exact expression of a feeling of pastness || exact gesture of pastness which I can imagine. | |||
Now should I say that hearing this tune played with this expression is in itself that particular experience of pastness, or should I say that hearing the tune causes the feeling of pastness to arise and that this feeling accompanies the tune? I.e., can I separate what I call this experience of pastness from the experience of hearing the tune? Or, can I separate an experience of pastness expressed by a gesture from the experience of making this gesture? Can I discover something, the essential feeling of pastness, which remains after abstracting all those experiences which we might call the experiences of expressing the feeling? | |||
I am inclined to suggest to you to put the expression of our experience instead of the experience. “But these two aren't the same.” This is certainly true, at least in the sense in which it is true to say that a railway train and a railway accident aren't the same thing. And yet there is a justification for talking as though the expression, “the gesture ‘long, long ago’” and the expression, “the feeling ‘long, long ago’” had the same meaning. Thus I could give the rules of chess in the following way: I have a chess board before me with a set of chess men on it. I give rules for moving these particular chess men (these particular pieces of wood) on this particular board. Can these rules be the rules of the game of chess? They can be converted into them by the usage of a single {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,167}} operator, such as the word “any”. Or, the rules for my particular set may stand as they are and be made into rules of the game of chess by changing our standpoint towards them. | |||
There is the idea that the feeling, say, of pastness, is an amorphous something in a place, the mind, and that this something is the cause or effect of what we call the expression of feeling. The expression of feeling then is an indirect way of transmitting the feeling. And people have often talked of a direct transmission of feeling which would obviate the external medium of communication. | |||
Imagine that I tell you to mix a certain colour and I describe the colour by saying that it is that which you get if you let sulphuric acid react on copper. This might be called an indirect way of communicating the colour I meant. It is conceivable that the reaction of sulphuric acid on copper under certain circumstances does not produce the colour I wished you to mix, and that on seeing the colour you had got I should have to say, “No, it's not this”, and to give you a sample. | |||
Now can we say that the communication of feelings by gestures is in this sense indirect? Does it make sense to talk of a direct communication as opposed to that indirect one? Does it make sense to say, “I can't feel his toothache, but if I could I'd know what he feels like”? | |||
If I speak of communicating a feeling to someone else, mustn't I in order to understand what I say know what I shall call the criterion of having succeeded in communicating? | |||
We are inclined to say that when we communicate a feeling {{BBB TS reference|Ts-310,168}} to someone, something which we can never know happens at the other end. All that we can receive from him is again an expression. This is closely analogous to saying that we can never know when in Fitzeau's experiment the ray of light reaches the mirror. | |||
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