Drawing and Diagram

Jay is on to something very important in his comment to my previous post.

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?

Wittgenstein, I would argue, does not give us a "diagram" of the visual field but a "drawing". A drawing is a guide to how to see something but a diagram is a guide to how to do something. The drawing is a picture of how to visualize the visual field ("here's how it looks"); the diagram is a picture of how to manipulate the manual field ("here's how it's done").

A drawing is a picture of how the world looks; a diagram is a picture of how history works. Both can be put in a book: blacks lines on white paper that are like a human body.

So we need a pair of hands and a chunk of matter ("a bear's paw emotional grasp") like a piece of clay, yes. The visual field is not visualized/able, the manual field is not manipulated/able.

The pangrammatical transposition of the drawing of the visual field as it can't possibly be beheld is a diagram of the manual field as it can't possibly be held. A hand (naked, like the eye) fondling the core (not the limit) of the done, the deed (not the seen, the vision).

Thanks, Jay.

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”.

Metaphysics and Anthropology

I just made another change to 6.53 of the Tractatus Pathetico-Poeticus. I have been trying to come up with something that one could be as critical (in a somewhat Kantian sense) of in poetry as Wittgenstein was of metaphysics. I think I've hit on something here, namely, that metaphysics is to philosophy what anthropology is to poetry. The consequences are quite striking, though right now, I admit, they will be clear mostly to be people who are more into the Heidegger-Deleuze-Negri-Agamben assemblage than I am. If that means you, read on, otherwise wait until I post passages from the Tractatus that address the metaphysics/anthropology transpositions. (Remark 4b below, however, especially when read along with 6.53, almost makes independent sense, though still depending on your background. Try that first, maybe.)

Notes on Ethnicity and Onticity

The items on the following list are pangrammatically homological.

Science : Politics
Epistemology : Ethics
Metaphysics : Anthropology
Theory : Practice
Ontology : Ethnography
Onticity : Ethnicity
Empirical : Normative
Facticity : Activity
Facts : Acts
Objects : Subjects
Things : People

World : History

Here are some consequences. This is still in rough form, preserving analogies at the expense of readability and making use of terms better (though not perfectly) available in Heidegger's phenomenology than Wittgenstein's logic.

1a. Anthropology is the account of human culture, or of human becoming quite generally, i.e., it is the account of “who is to come in history”, since our culture is always only the becoming of “the people to come”.

1b. Metaphysics is the account of human nature, or of human being quite generally, i.e., it is the account of “what there is in the world”, since our nature is always only the being of “the things that are”.

2. Anthropology is to politics what metaphysics is to science. Anthropology is politics without mandate, just as metaphysics is science without method.

3. Ontology is metaphysics when confined to the analysis of a specific theory, just as ethnography is the anthropology of specific practices.

4a. Onticity is not a property of theories (an ontology is an aspect of a theory, i.e., it is the account of “what there is” that the theory refers to), onticity is a property of empirical phenomena, it is the aspect of experience that stands in relation to the ontology of a specific theory. I.e., the onticity of experience is the sense in which it displays or instantiates the ontology (the account of what there is).

4b. Ethnicity is not proper to practices (an ethnography is an aspect of a practice, i.e., it is the depiction of “who is coming” that the practice defers to), ethnicity is proper to normative phenomena, it is the aspect of experience that stands in relation to the ethnography of a specific practice. I.e., the ethnicity of experience is the motive by which it displays and instantiates the ethnography (the picture of who is coming).

5a. While the onticity of experience construes phenomena according to the ontology of a theory, their facticity is apparent on their construal in terms that indicate their objectivity, or rather, facticity is the order of experience that can be established among phenomena qua empirical facts. More colloquially, the onticity of things indicates the ontology of the theory in terms of which we observe it, while their facticity indicates the objective relations that may be established between them and other things.

5b. While the ethnicity of experience construes phenomena according to the ethnography of a practice, their activity surfaces on their construal in terms that indicate their subjectivity, or rather, activity is the order of experience that can be established among phenomena qua normative acts. More colloquially, the ethnicity of people indicates the ethnography of the practice in terms by which we negotiate them, while their activity indicates the subjective positions that may be established among them and other people.

Tractatus Pathetico-Poeticus [6.1-6.13]

6.1 The sentences of passion are contradictions.

6.11 Therefore the sentences of passion say everything. (They are synthetic sentences.)

6.12 That the sentences of passion are contradictions shows the substantial--pathetic--propriety of language and history.

6.13 Passion is not a heresy, but a shadow-image of history.
Passion is immanent.

Tractatus Pathetico-Poeticus [6.54]

6.54 My sentences irritate as follows: anyone who understands me eventually gets wise to their lack of motive, but only after he has used them as steps to climb down into them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed down it.)

He must fall back upon these sentences, and then he will do history correctly.