Aspect perception and conceptual perception. Wittgenstein on seeing and understanding

Abstract

Aspect perception is one of Wittgenstein’s central concerns in his remarks on the philosophy of psychology. One can read in the Philosophische Untersuchungen  that his goal is to determine its place among what he calls “experience concepts” (as one knows, experience concepts, Erfahrungsbegriffe, are a subset of Erlebnisbegriffe). Gemutsbewegungen (=emotions), for instance, fall under Erlebnisbegriffe but are not experiences.    However, this place is not easy to figure out because aspect perception has numerous relations with the various psychological concepts Wittgenstein has dealt with. Those concepts are everyday concepts such as thought, understanding etc. and their main feature, according to the Bemerkungen uber die Philosophie der Psychologie seems to be that their use at the first person, present tense, is expressive and that the other uses are descriptive.