Philosophical Investigations 150-200
Well, this go round, I seemed to have underlined a lot less things than I did in the previous two sections. I'm taking this as both a good and a bad sign. It's good in the sense that I think I'm getting a grasp on W, and so as I am reading find myself nodding "yes, yes, yes, aha! you switched something", and then subsequently underlining it. It's also bad, because it might be an indication that I am getting lost in the book, something I, as an aspiring critical reader, have to constantly resist. For what it's worth, here you are:
154. understanding is not a mental process
157. The change when the pupil began to read was a change in his behaviour; and it makes no sense here to speak of 'a first word in his new state'.
161. Try this experiment: say the numbers 1 to 12. Now look at the dial of your watch and read them.--What was it that you called "reading" in the latter case? That is to say: what did you do, to make it into reading? [I would say that the difference here lies only what the eye has seen. What this means is that reading is perhaps more visual than most people give it credit for being. Reading is often considering an "intellectual activity," but what if we considered it to be more of a "visual activity" than anything else? How would reading change?]
164. in different circumstances we apply different criteria for a person's reading [written side note: there is nothing essential to def. of reading or deriving]
165. 'The words that I utter come in a special way [when reading].' That is, they do not come as they would if I were for example making them up.--They come of themselves.--But even that is not enough
167. A sign in the algebra of logic for instance can be replaced by any other one without exciting a strong reaction in us. [This, as opposed to when reading, it does. Even spelling a word with a z rather than an s excites antagonism.]
168. The eye passes, one would like to say, with particular ease, without being held up; and yet it doesn't skid. And at the same time involuntary speech goes on in the imagination....But what in all this is essential to reading as such? Not any one feature that occurs in all cases of reading.
169. Read a sentence. [HA! Gotcha. ;)]....I should like to say: when I read I feel a kind of influence of the letters working on me---but I feel no influence from that series of arbitrary flourishes on what I say.
172. [written marginal note: nothing is common, everything is similar]
177. I should like to say: 'I experience the because.'
196. In our failure to understand the use of a word we take is as the expression of a queer process.
197. its [the word's] meaning lies in its use
199. To obey a rule, to make a report, to give an order, to play a game of chess, are customs (uses, institutions). To understand a sentence means to understand a language. To understand a language means to be a master of technique.
157. The change when the pupil began to read was a change in his behaviour; and it makes no sense here to speak of 'a first word in his new state'.
161. Try this experiment: say the numbers 1 to 12. Now look at the dial of your watch and read them.--What was it that you called "reading" in the latter case? That is to say: what did you do, to make it into reading? [I would say that the difference here lies only what the eye has seen. What this means is that reading is perhaps more visual than most people give it credit for being. Reading is often considering an "intellectual activity," but what if we considered it to be more of a "visual activity" than anything else? How would reading change?]
164. in different circumstances we apply different criteria for a person's reading [written side note: there is nothing essential to def. of reading or deriving]
165. 'The words that I utter come in a special way [when reading].' That is, they do not come as they would if I were for example making them up.--They come of themselves.--But even that is not enough
167. A sign in the algebra of logic for instance can be replaced by any other one without exciting a strong reaction in us. [This, as opposed to when reading, it does. Even spelling a word with a z rather than an s excites antagonism.]
168. The eye passes, one would like to say, with particular ease, without being held up; and yet it doesn't skid. And at the same time involuntary speech goes on in the imagination....But what in all this is essential to reading as such? Not any one feature that occurs in all cases of reading.
169. Read a sentence. [HA! Gotcha. ;)]....I should like to say: when I read I feel a kind of influence of the letters working on me---but I feel no influence from that series of arbitrary flourishes on what I say.
172. [written marginal note: nothing is common, everything is similar]
177. I should like to say: 'I experience the because.'
196. In our failure to understand the use of a word we take is as the expression of a queer process.
197. its [the word's] meaning lies in its use
199. To obey a rule, to make a report, to give an order, to play a game of chess, are customs (uses, institutions). To understand a sentence means to understand a language. To understand a language means to be a master of technique.
posted by KP @ 4:05 PM
1 Comments:
I bought this book, along with Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, for myself with the $50 my grandparents gave me for my birthday in October. Haven't cracked it, in any sense. Feel like I have to digest Tractatus before PI, and thereby have bitten off more than I can chew. Now I have an accomplice, yes? Who knows when I'll get to it. I am, honestly and seriously, vicariously glad that you're going through it.
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