Wittgenstein on Aesthetic Understanding (eBook)

Garry L. Hagberg is the James H. Ottaway Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetics at Bard College, USA, and has also been Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, UK. Author of numerous papers at the intersection of aesthetics and the philosophy of language, his books include: Meaning and Interpretation: Wittgenstein, Henry James, and Literary Knowledge; Art as Language: Wittgenstein, Meaning, and Aesthetic Theory; and Describing Ourselves: Wittgenstein and Autobiographical Consciousness. He is editor of Art and Ethical Criticism and of Fictional Characters, Real Problems: The Search for Ethical Content in Literature, co-editor of A Companion to the Philosophy of Literature, and Editor of the journal Philosophy and Literature. He is presently writing a new book on the contribution literary experience makes to the formation of self and sensibility, Living in Words: Literature, Autobiographical Language, and the Composition of Selfhood.

Wittgenstein on Aesthetic Understanding 4
Contents 6
Introduction 8
Part I The Aesthetic Dimension of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Work 18
1 The Aesthetic Dimension of Wittgenstein’s Later Writings 19
1.1 Music and Understanding Wittgenstein’s “Book” 22
1.2 Perspicuous Representation, Aesthetic Descriptions, and Aspect-Seeing 25
Philosophical Clarity and Perspicuous Representation 26
Critical Descriptions and the Experience of Music 29
The Case of the Dawning of an Aspect 31
1.3 Aspect-Seeing and Seeing an Internal Relation 33
1.4 Addendum: Aspect-Seeing and Giving Voice to Connections 41
References 43
2 Improvisation and Imagination in Wittgenstein’s Investigations 46
Bibliography 73
3 Wittgenstein, Music, and the Philosophy of Culture 76
3.1 Relational Networks 78
3.2 A Certain Sort of Kinship 83
3.3 Embodied Speech, Embodied Music 87
3.4 Circumstantial Sense 90
3.5 Musical Sense and Linguistic Capacities 92
3.6 The Theme Interacts with Language 95
3.7 Counterpoint: A Model of Cultural Understanding and Philosophical Method 99
3.8 Aspect-Perception and the Casting of Light 103
3.9 A Musical Stream of Life 106
References 108
Part II Narrative, Interpretation, and Literary Language 111
4 Is a Narrative a Something or a Nothing? 112
4.1 Structures, Scripts, and Their Component Parts 116
4.2 Emotional Cadences 123
4.3 Scales, Centers, Samples, and Two Modest Proposals 128
References 140
5 Narrative Aspect Change and Alternating Systems of Justice: A Wittgensteinian Reading of Borges 143
References 161
6 Thinking the Poem: Elizabeth Bishop’s Transcendental “Crusoe in England” (For Example) 164
6.1 Thinking of Thinking 164
6.2 The Mind Thinking 180
6.3 Excursus: “A picture held us captive” 188
6.4 Bookkeeping 195
Accounting as Numerically Counting, Keeping Track 195
Accounting as Recounting and Projecting the Criteria of Concepts 199
6.5 “Home-made, home-made! But aren’t we all?” 211
Accounting as Acknowledging, Confessing, Auditing 211
Abbreviations 219
References 220
Part III Musical Understanding 226
7 Wittgenstein on Musical Depth and Our Knowledge of Humankind 227
References 254
8 Wittgenstein and the Inner Character of Musical Experience 258
8.1 Aspect Perception 260
8.2 Related Phenomena 266
8.3 Context and the Significance of ‘Clicks’ 272
8.4 Intersubjectivity 280
8.5 Conclusion 283
References 288
9 Wittgenstein’s Criticism of a “Science of Aesthetics” and the Understanding of Music 290
9.1 Wittgenstein’s Criticism of Psychologism 292
Grammatical Investigations of the Concept of Understanding 293
9.2 Understanding Music 297
Hearing and Understanding 297
Private, Emotional Reactions to Music and Aesthetic Judgment 301
The Flexibility of the Concept of Understanding 306
Bibliography 309
Works by Wittgenstein 309
Other Sources 309
Part IV Experiencing Art and Perceiving Persons: An Intimate Connection 311
10 The Philosophy of the Face 312
10.1 Expression-blindness 312
10.2 The Face in History: Descartes and the Romantics 315
10.3 The Face in Theory: Levinas, de Man, and Deleuze 320
10.4 Wittgensteinian Physiognomy 324
References 332
11 Seeing Stars: the Reception and Ontology of Movie Stars 335
11.1 Carroll’s Problem 337
11.2 Wittgenstein and Seeing Stars 342
11.3 Stars and Narratives 346
11.4 Personal Lives 347
11.5 Carroll Again 350
11.6 Benjamin’s Aura 351
11.7 The Construction and Evolution of the Star 356
References 359
12 If an Artwork Could Speak: Aesthetic Understanding After Wittgenstein 361
Prologue 361
12.1 Understanding Art 363
12.2 On Not Getting It 369
12.3 Transport Studies 374
12.4 Meaning, Intention, and All That Jazz 379
Epilogue 382
References 383
Index 389