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71). But what if, doing all
this, he then transcribed an “A” into a
“b”, a “B” into a
“c”, and so on?
Should we not call this “reading”
“deriving” too?
We might in this case describe his procedure by saying that he
used the table as we should have used it had we not looked straight from
left to right like this: but like this:
though he actually when
looking up the table passed with his◇◇◇ eyes or finger
horizontally from left to right. ‒ ‒
But let us suppose now
72) that going through the
normal processes “looking up”, he transcribed an
“A” into an “n”, a
“B” into an “x”, in
short, acted, as we might say, according to a scheme of arrows which
showed no simple regularity.
Couldn't we call this “deriving”
too? ‒ ‒
But suppose that
73)
he didn't stick to this way of transcribing.
In fact he changed it, but according to a simple rule:
After having transcribed “A” into
“n”, he transcribed the next
“A” into “o”, and the
next “A” into “p”, and so
on.
But where is the sharp line between this procedure and that of
producing a transcription without any system at all?
Now you might object to this by saying, “In the case
71), you obviously assumed that he understood the table
differently; he didn't understand it in the normal
way”.
But what do we call “understanding the table in
75.
a particular
way?”
But whatever process you imagine this “understanding”
to be, it is only another link interposed between the outward and inward
processes of I have described and
the actual transcription.
In fact this process of understanding could obviously be
described by means of a schema of the kind used in 71), and we could
then say that in a particular case he looked up the table like
this: ; understood the
table like this: ; and transcribed it like
this: .
But does this mean that the word “deriving” (or
“understanding”) has really no meaning, as by following
up its meaning this seems to trail off into nothing?
In case 70) the meaning of “deriving” stood out
quite clearly, but we told ourselves that this was only one
special case of deriving.
It seemed to us that the essence of the process of deriving was here
presented in a particular dress and that by stripping it of this we
should get at the essence.
Now in 71), 72), 73) we tried to strip our case of what had
seemed but its peculiar ◇◇◇costume only to find
that what had seemed mere costumes were the essential features of the
case.
(We acted as though we had tried to find the real
artichoke by stripping it of its leaves.)
The use of the word “deriving” is indeed exhibited in
70), i.e., this example showed us one of the
family of cases in which this word is used.
And the explanation of the use of this word, as that of the use of the
word “reading” or “being guided by
symbols”, essentially consists in describing a selection of
examples exhibiting characteristic features, some examples showing
these
76.
features in
exaggerated
forˇm, others in transitional phases, exaggeration, others showing transitions, | certain
series of examples showing the trailing off of such features.
Imagine that someone wished to give you an idea of the facial
characteristics of a certain family, the So-and-so's,
he would do it by showing you a set of family portraits and by drawing
your attention to certain characteristic features, and his main task
would consist in the proper arrangement of these pictures,
which, e.g., would enable you to see how certain
influences gradually changed the features, in what characteristic ways
the members of the family aged, what features appeared more strongly
as they did so. | | |