The Structure of Complex Images by Robert B. Ray

Author:Robert B. Ray
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9783030406318
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Eliot’s memories resemble striking film scenes; Wittgenstein would deploy such scenes for philosophy in an activity he called “assembling reminders for a particular purpose” (Kenny 2006: 59). Denying that he had any “philosophical theses” to offer, Wittgenstein insisted that, “What I invent are new similes” (Wittgenstein 1980: 19), which took shape as concrete images: a safe that needs unlocking, a hair on the tongue that eludes your grasp, a man imprisoned in a room. “We now demonstrate a method, by examples,” Wittgenstein remarked, “and the series of examples can be broken off” (Kenny: 59).

In a similar vein, Stanley Cavell has drawn attention to the philosopher J.L. Austin’s reliance on stories and examples, whose role, Cavell suggests, “is a topic of inexaggeratable importance” (Cavell 1969: 65, n. I). Elaborating on the value of such examples, Cavell has described his own particular fondness for a story of Austin’s that distinguishes between doing something “by mistake” and doing something “by accident” (Cavell 2005: 171):You have a donkey, so have I, and they graze in the same field. The day comes when I conceive a dislike for mine. I go to shoot it, draw a bead on it, fire: the donkey falls in its tracks. I inspect the victim, and find to my horror that it is your donkey … [for Cavell a mistake] Then again, I go to shoot my donkey as before, draw a bead on it, fire—but as I do so, the beast moves, and to my horror, yours falls [for Cavell, an accident]. (Austin 1979: 185, n. I)

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