There is a difference between seeing (or “seeing that”) and “seeing as.” That difference is due to aspect perception according to the noted philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. He used the following image in explaining the meaning and importance of aspect perception.
Ludwig Wittgenstein is said by some to be the greatest philosopher of the twentieth century, in spite of not being widely known (or understood). He was born in Austria in 1889, taught at the University of Cambridge from 1929 to 1947, and died in England in 1951.
During his lifetime, only one book of his philosophy was published, but he left voluminous manuscripts. Some of those were published posthumously in the 1953 book Philosophical Investigations.
In Part
II Section XI of that book, Wittgenstein used the above image, which first
appeared in the October 23, 1892, issue of Blätter, a German humor
magazine. He used that image to illustrate what he termed aspect perception.
Wittgenstein’s philosophy is not easily grasped. He
is one philosopher whom since my graduate school days I thought I ought to read
more than I have. Reading and understanding his philosophical views are not
easy. But my purpose here is not to explain Wittgenstein’s philosophy.
I am writing
this piece in order to think with you about how we humans can “see” the same
thing and understand it in completely opposite ways. Here is another illusion,
one that was on a German postal card in 1888, four years before the rabbit-duck
image was published.
Depending on which “aspect” you perceive, these images change
decisively. The rabbit-duck image changes depending on whether you focus your
eyes on the right side or the left side of the drawing. And in the latter, it
depends on whether you look at the upper left or the lower right part of the
image.
Wittgenstein’s emphasis on aspect perception has
religious, as well as political, ramifications. I am indebted to Stephen Law of
Oxford University for his thought-provoking essay referring to the duck-rabbit
drawing.**
As Law indicates, belief in God may well be far more a way
of perceiving things than recognizing “the cogency of certain arguments for the
conclusion that God exists.”
Law goes on to say,
Just as some suffer from a kind of aesthetic blindness—they can’t see a particular painting by Pablo Picasso as a powerful expression of suffering—so, some suggest, atheists suffer from a kind of religious blindness that means they’re unable to see the world as it really is: as a manifestation of the divine.
Yes, we would not expect a severely visually impaired person
to give an accurate description of a beautiful sunset or the fall splendor of
the maple tree I see out my window.
Why should we expect a person who suffers from “religious
blindness” to make statements about God as superior to those who have the sight,
or insight, that comes from deep faith?
Or, why should those who have a paucity of experience of God
think they are qualified to deny the richness of the experience of those who
have had, and who continue to have, a deep and ongoing relationship with God?
Law adds a word of caution, though: “Seeing something as a
so-and-so doesn’t guarantee that it is a so-and-so.” One can always be mistaken
in what they think they “see.” But that is as true for those who “see” no evidence
of God as well as for those who do.
So, I encourage those who see only the “old hag” (as she is
sometimes called) in the lower image above to shift their eyes upward and you will
likely see an attractive young woman.
I also encourage those who see mainly the ugliness of the
present world of humans to (metaphorically) shift their eyes “upward.” A change
in aspect perception might drastically change what you see—and also help you
understand people who see things differently.
_____
**Law’s
article “Do you see a duck or a rabbit: just what is aspect perception?” was posted
by aeon.com on July 31, 2018. Aeon is a British digital “magazine of ideas,
philosophy and culture” that has been published since 2012.
Note: My next blog post will be partly
about the political ramifications of aspect perception.
In this blog, Leroy, you're getting at what disturbs many people about postmodernism which stresses the aspect of perception. For some, it makes decisive judgment about . . . well . . . most anything impossible.
ReplyDeleteI'm reminded of Friedrich Nietzsche's perspectivism. Here is one of his better quotes, from The Genealogy of Morals, which points out, as I commonly tell my students, "You cannot look at something from nowhere":
“Henceforth, my dear philosophers, let us be on guard against the dangerous old conceptual fiction that posited a ‘pure, will-less, painless, timeless knowing subject’; let us guard against the snares of such contradictory concepts as ‘pure reason,’ ‘absolute spirituality,’ ‘knowledge in itself’: these always demand that we should think of an eye that is completely unthinkable, an eye turned in no particular direction, in which the active and interpreting forces, through which alone seeing becomes seeing something, are supposed to be lacking; these always demand of the eye an absurdity and a nonsense. There is only a perspective seeing, only a perspective ‘knowing’; and the more affects we allow to speak about one thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we can use to observe one thing, the more complete will our ‘concept’ of this thing, our ‘objectivity,’ be. But to eliminate the will altogether, to suspend each and every affect, supposing we were capable of this—what would that mean but to castrate the intellect?"
You'll get a kick out of this little anecdote about perspective from my life: One day, not too long after Jean and I were married, we were headed to the gym at William Jewell College for a workout. I don't remember what we were talking about (or what I was complaining about?), but when we got out of the car, Jean said to me: "When you see a glass that's half full, you don't think it's half empty. You think it's entirely empty!" I've been laughing from this incident for over 30 years.
Thanks, Anton, for your perceptive comments (pun intended). I was interested in the beginning of your second paragraph, for I used to tell my seminary students in Japan, What you see depends on where you stand." I'm sure those words weren't original, but I couldn't remember where I got them--although I don't think I got them from C.S. Lewis. But when I googled those words the first "hit" was this statement by Lewis: "What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.”
DeleteI haven't read "The Genealogy of Morals" nor do I know much about Nietzsche's perspectivism. But it is surely similar to the existentialism of Kierkegaard, whom as you know I regard highly, and the "post-modernism" of Michael Polanyi, whose emphasis on "personal knowledge" has strongly influenced my thinking since graduate school days. Among other things, Polanyi declared that since all knowledge is personal knowledge, it is important for us to realize that we might be wrong--about anything or everything. The corollary is that others who disagree with us might be right. The difference is because of how we see things from different perspectives. But surely Jean was wrong, that is, surely you don't see a glass that is half full/empty and think that is is entirely empty!
Here are significant comments from local Thinking Friend Vern Barnet, a personal friend I have long known as one who is smarter and far better read than I.
ReplyDelete"Leroy, as always, thanks for a provocative entry. I think 'both' Wittgensteins are important, the one of the 'Tractatus,' which expected a correspondence between careful language and the world, and the one of the 'Investigations' (your citation is page 194 in my German-English edition) which explores how language is actually used (and at the very outset corrects one of Augustine's many mistakes). It is hard to think of a technical philosopher of the first half of the 20th Century who is more important or more influential.
"As for your larger point: Agreed: religion is not in facticity but in perspective. A famous debate on this point begins with John Wisdom's 'Parable of the Unseen Gardener,' with participants including Antony Flew, R.M. Hare, Basil Mitchell, and I.M. Crombie, in the wake of Wittgenstein.
"Lynda Sexson, in 'Ordinarily Sacred,' 1982, says: 'Religion . . . is the consecration of experience, or person, so that the person, or experience, is made whole (holy)." [p. 9]. And she rightly notes that many--I would say most--cultures do not have an equivalent for the term. Religion is in fact a Western invention, a product of dualistic thinking, and as we understand it, it is particularly a product of the Protestant Reformation, as scholars like Talal Asad, Edward Said, and Tomoko Masuzawa. Sexson continues, religion 'does not refer to a specialized category, but to the way that all reality is perceived and integrated.' [p. 13]
"I think the affliction of religion-blindness is an artifact of Western dualistic religion.
"Images like the beauty-hag and duck-rabbit are useful reminders of why William Blake protested the Enlightenment's notion that the 'object' is separate from the 'subject' (my shorthand way of summarizing Blake), a protest fulfilled in part by Thomas Kuhn's 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,' 1962, and works by other such thinkers. I use the famous Rubin faces-goblet illustration in my book, 'Thanks for Noticing' [p. 31].
"I look forward to your discussion of the political ramifications of perception. Wow, what an important topic!"
Vern, I much appreciate your erudite comments, beginning with a recognition of the two different (contrasting?) emphases in Wittgenstein. I long did not recognize that twoness, and perhaps that is one reason I had trouble understanding Wittgenstein adequately.
DeleteYour second point brought back good memories for me. The essay you referred to was one I read during my first year in graduate school (in 1962-63), and I also read other essays by the philosophers you mentioned.
I was not familiar with Lynda Sexson and her book, which seems to be one I would profit from reading. But, alas, I don't have the energy necessary to read as I long did.
I was most interested in your next paragraph, and the short one following that. As one who knows quite a bit about Japanese culture and the Japanese language, I know it is true that until modern times there was no word for "religion" in Japanese. And I agree that "religion" is "the way that all reality is perceived and integrated." And as long as there is no alternative to the indigenous way to see reality, no word for religion is needed. So in Japan for centuries there was no "religion," there was just acknowledgement of "the way of the gods" (=Shinto). But when Buddhist ideas and practices began to spread to Japan, a different way of perceiving and integrating reality confronted the indigenous way of seeing and interpreting the world. And then when Christianity was introduced to Japan, beginning in 1549, here was a third, and much different, way to see "reality." So it seems to me that when a term for religion began to be used, it wasn't because of dualistic thinking. Rather, it was because of the necessity to have some way to differentiate the plurality that was apparent.
The "religious blindness" that Law referred to is, in my understanding, not a blindness of those who can't "see" or accept a view of God that differs from the prevalent cultural view, but the "blindness" of those whose view of reality is confined to only one dimensional. So many of the students I taught in Japan, as well as a few of the students I had in my classes at Rockhurst U., were so engulfed in materialism and hedonism that they seemingly had little awareness of or interest in anything other than material things and having fun. Such students are the ones that I perceived as suffering from “religious blindness.”
"Intriguing, Leroy. You opened for me a new way of thinking." (Thinking Friend Glenn Hinson in Kentucky)
ReplyDeleteThinking Friend Jamea Crum in Springfield, Mo., wrote,
ReplyDelete"I had to cover the upper left to finally see the hag.
"Thanks for your posts. They always make me think. Today my thoughts reminded me that when I allow the ugly things in life to direct my thoughts, my upward look toward God can become distorted or even nonexistent."
Thanks for your comments, Jamea. I found it interesting that you had trouble seeing the "hag," for when I look at the picture, which I just did again now, the first thing I see is the "hag." Perhaps that is because when I see people, or pictures of people, I look at their mouths. So in looking at the "illusion" I first see the old woman's prominent mouth--which when I look to the top part of the picture, I then see is the young woman's necklace.
DeleteThanks especially for your last sentence. I hope more and more people come to that same understanding.
I was most interested in what you wrote about experiencing God, Eric. I am not sure I have a good answer to the question of why some people experience God whereas others do not. I don't think it is due to God's willingness to reveal Godself to some people but not to others. Instead, I think it is wholly due to each person's willingness or ability to be open to the reality of the divine. Perhaps it is related to one's early "education." Those children who are exposed to and/or taught to "understand" music, or art, or literature, or maybe even sports, are much more likely to appreciate, enjoy, and to be enriched by those things than those who have grown up without having learned such things. So, I wonder if it is also true that those who have been brought up hearing about God and participating in prayer and worship at home and in group activities of believers in God aren't much more likely to experience God than those without such childhoods. Certainly, there are those who can and do have experience of God without such a childhood, but they are probably far, far fewer than those who do.
ReplyDeleteI find this last interchange rather interesting. I would say, to begin with, that there is no place where God ain't, so it is impossible to be separate from God, and by extension, it's not possible to not experience God, whether or not we acknowledge the reality of God. It seems to me that we human becomings have identified the very human experiences of awe, conscience, and transcendence in human life as divinely originated. (I think of Rudolf Otto's work, The Idea of the Holy.) Whether God is a reality seems to me quite beyond absolute, conclusive, cognitive conviction for human becomings. As finite becomings, we simply have to live with that element of doubt. So there are people who understandably don't acknowledge the reality of God, but if God is real, there's no such thing as not experiencing God. There's something not right about debating why some people experience God and others don't. I'm not sure I can express it any way other than that I have in this thread reply.
ReplyDelete