Seeing as
September 7th 2010 05:28
What's the difference in meaning between "He saw a smile" and "He saw contractions of facial muscles"?
Well, apart from the fact that the former has more information than the latter ("contractions of facial muscles" is ambiguous), the difference is the thoughts and reactions he immediately had, the way he processed things, his dispositions to react, and what was foremost in his mind. In fact, it would probably be misleading or incorrect to speak in terms of muscle movement -- he might simply not think this way.
Consider the difference between "He saw his daughter" and "He saw a girl whom he had fathered", or between "He saw a house" and "He saw a painting of a house", or between "He saw a smile" and "He saw happiness".
Three thoughts:
-- The first lesson here is that our perceptions are loaded. When you look at me smiling, you really do see a smile or a face brightening or happiness -- you don't see contraction. These things are of relevance to you, or of more relevance, and mean more to you, than muscles alone.
-- The second point is an anti-reductive and linguistic one: our nouns aren't simple givens, and don't refer just to external objects, but communicate a complex of reactions, categorisations, perspectives, beliefs, etc.
-- Thirdly, when I use a perception word, I tend to communicate something about how someone else's brain works. It's almost like reported speech. But with most other transitive verbs I'm as easily seen as revealing, giving away, something of my processing.
For instance, when someone uses a derogatory word, like "nigger", the audience knows that there's some sort of racist attitude going on. But if context doesn't make things clear, to whom do they assign the attitude -- the narrator or the character?
In "He saw the nigger", I could be describing things from his point of view.
In "He talked to the nigger", the racism could as easily be mine.
Of course, there's an important sense in which a Nazi looking at a Jew does not see a person.
Primo Levi writes about seeing a spider, and seeing it as slow, creeping death, and I've written elsewhere about realizing a car is bearing down on you, and perceiving it as looming or unavoidable death or as destiny.
When we say "he saw x as y", we more obviously imply options in how the object is conceptualised or reacted to -- he saw x as y (or perhaps as x plus y), but he could have seen x as x, or even as z.
We understand the reaction-implications of something being x; and there might also be other meanings involved here -- for instance, the implications of its being x rather than y: "He saw the house as a butterfly" might suggest his madness.
Well, apart from the fact that the former has more information than the latter ("contractions of facial muscles" is ambiguous), the difference is the thoughts and reactions he immediately had, the way he processed things, his dispositions to react, and what was foremost in his mind. In fact, it would probably be misleading or incorrect to speak in terms of muscle movement -- he might simply not think this way.
Consider the difference between "He saw his daughter" and "He saw a girl whom he had fathered", or between "He saw a house" and "He saw a painting of a house", or between "He saw a smile" and "He saw happiness".
Three thoughts:
-- The first lesson here is that our perceptions are loaded. When you look at me smiling, you really do see a smile or a face brightening or happiness -- you don't see contraction. These things are of relevance to you, or of more relevance, and mean more to you, than muscles alone.
-- The second point is an anti-reductive and linguistic one: our nouns aren't simple givens, and don't refer just to external objects, but communicate a complex of reactions, categorisations, perspectives, beliefs, etc.
-- Thirdly, when I use a perception word, I tend to communicate something about how someone else's brain works. It's almost like reported speech. But with most other transitive verbs I'm as easily seen as revealing, giving away, something of my processing.
For instance, when someone uses a derogatory word, like "nigger", the audience knows that there's some sort of racist attitude going on. But if context doesn't make things clear, to whom do they assign the attitude -- the narrator or the character?
In "He saw the nigger", I could be describing things from his point of view.
In "He talked to the nigger", the racism could as easily be mine.
***
Of course, there's an important sense in which a Nazi looking at a Jew does not see a person.
***
Primo Levi writes about seeing a spider, and seeing it as slow, creeping death, and I've written elsewhere about realizing a car is bearing down on you, and perceiving it as looming or unavoidable death or as destiny.
When we say "he saw x as y", we more obviously imply options in how the object is conceptualised or reacted to -- he saw x as y (or perhaps as x plus y), but he could have seen x as x, or even as z.
We understand the reaction-implications of something being x; and there might also be other meanings involved here -- for instance, the implications of its being x rather than y: "He saw the house as a butterfly" might suggest his madness.
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