Sunday, March 06, 2005

Tractatus Pangrammaticus [5.6331]

Detail of the Tractatus Pathetico-Poeticus:

5.633 When in history is an anthropological object to be noted?

You say that this is just like the issue of the hand and the manual field. But, ideally, you don't touch the hand.

And there is nothing in the manual field from which it can it be concluded that it is touched by a hand.

5.6331 For the manual field is not shaped liked this . . .


Commentary:

The question is what the picture drawn at 5.6331 should "look like", indeed, whether it should be a picture at all. A gesture? A texture? Suggestions are welcome, and here are some things to think about in coming up with them.

My eyes belong to the world as my hands belong to history.

What I see is always already behind me, but what I do is always yet to come.
(What I see is never wholly before me, and what I do is never quite upon me.)

My eyes are implicated in the fact as my hands are implicated in the act.

When I see, the relation of my eye to the fact seen is riddled with material references. When I do, the position of my hand before the act done is rife with social deference. What the seeing refers to (in its visual relation to the world) is a “thing”. What the doing defers to (in its manual position in history) is a “person”.

1 comment:

Jay said...

The visual field diagram is, I take it, intended to show, among other things, that "the visual field has no limits". At least not the kind of limits we think of when we draw a "bird's eye" conceptual view of it.

So I think you'd want to show a hand, just like the analagous picture shows an eye. And you'd want to show a "bird's eye" view of a limited "field". How could you do the latter? Does the hand hold something, say a piece of clay or silly-putty? Is it wearing or about to put on a glove?