‘Ludwig Wittgenstein, in a series of brilliant sections in the Blue and Brown Books, argues against our normal, one might say our ‘Platonic’ assumption that we understand the expression on a face by comparing it to a state of mind that expression expresses.. No, says Wittgenstein, the expression is in the face, just as the meaning of a word is in the word. Neither the face nor the word refer to anything outside itself.’
I’d like to post something on this over at the Other Place, but would like to solicit comments here first. Quickly, a number of points. I’m not sure the ‘Platonic’ assumption described by JHM necessarily is our default understanding. I’m also not sure the word/ face analogy is helpful.
Having said that, what I’d like to write about is the notion of ‘expression’ and how W. challenges this notion, as he does in the Blue and Brown books but also, as I discovered on holiday, in Culture and Value.
Part of W.’s problem is that the structure of language goes against the grain of what he’s saying. Eg, even to say ‘the expression is in the face’ spontaneously creates a picture of a container, and the implication that this ‘container’ is different from and even indifferent towards what it contains. Having to italicise the preposition ‘in’ is itself a sign of having to push against the spontaneous meanings produced by the grammar alone.
Incidentally, doesn’t this last point in turn go against the idea that the meaning is ‘in’ the word? Isn’t it rather that Hillis Miller (and W. would see this) are trying to introduce a meaning which the words themselves resist? The nouns and prepositions and verbs seem to have a ‘co-efficient of inertia’ which deflects meanings along pre-prepared lines. If that’s the case, then there’s clearly no equivalent of this in facial expression. One would never say, I’m trying to express something but the inertia of my face is deflecting it along pre-given lines. Well, you might say it for a laugh.
Anyway, these are just random fledgling thoughts.
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