Scene: Friday morning, 7:30 am, at the breakfast table.

ME: OK, you guys remember that I have this conference today and tomorrow?

ELDER: Yes. Are you giving a talk today?

ME: It’s tomorrow. Wanna hear my title?

ELDER: Sure.

ME: It’s called “How to Do Things with Ducks and Rabbits.”

YOUNGER: [scrunching up her face] That reminds me of that book which has the picture that kind of looks like a duck and kind of looks like a rabbit.

ME: Yes! The talk is actually about that picture so it’s good that the title makes you think of that—of the duck that looks like a rabbit.

YOUNGER: Well … it’s actually a rabbit that looks like a duck.

ME: [laughing] is it?

YOUNGER: [not laughing]: Yes.

ME: [somewhat condescendingly] Well, I think the point is that you can see it both ways.

YOUNGER: [adamant]: No, if you look at the picture you’ll see that I’m right.

I Google the picture–the one from Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, because that’s the version I’m discussing in my talk–on my phone and we all peer at it.

YOUNGER: [triumphantly] Yeah, it’s definitely a rabbit that looks like a duck.

ELDER: No, it’s a duck that looks like a rabbit—because I saw the duck before I saw the rabbit.

ME: Yeah, I think I agree with him—the duck seems more obvious. But the fact that we all see different things is the point!

YOUNGER: [Exasperated by our slowness.] No, look, do you see this [pointing to the indentation that makes the rabbit’s mouth]? Why would the duck have this thing on the back of his head? There’s no reason for it. So it’s a rabbit that looks like a duck!

ME: Huh ….

***

The more I thought about it, the more I thought she was right. Especially in Wittgenstein’s minimalist rendition of the duck-rabbit, every mark matters. A mark that isn’t doing double duty in contributing to the identity of both duck and rabbit inevitably tips the duck-rabbit more to one side of its identity than the other: in this case, towards the rabbit’s side.

As my friend Elaine recently observed, “the duck-rabbit has to do with a deficit of representation. The deficit allows it to remain ambiguous (if Wittgenstein had draw whiskers and a carrot, it couldn’t be a duck).”

He didn’t draw whiskers and a carrot, of course. But he did draw that tiny gesture of a mouth–and it’s a mark that, in enhancing the rabbitness of the rabbit slightly diminishes the duckness of the duck. Or, perhaps the mark makes us want to create a narrative about the duck; like, he’s a duck who got into an accident and has a scar on the back of his head–but you should see the other duck!

I know that Wittgenstein didn’t originate the duck-rabbit illusion but I found myself wondering how he first imagined the duck-rabbit—that is, how he first drew it.

Reader, you know what happened next. I fell down into a deep, deep duck-rabbit hole trying to find the original manuscript. I discovered that the duck-rabbit first appeared in Wittgenstein’s manuscript notes, later published as “Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology,” which are considered as preparatory studies for Part II of the Philosophical Investigations. Although Wittgenstein produced typescripts based on those manuscripts, and those typescripts are reproduced in the Collected Works, the typescripts didn’t include the original drawings. Anyway, I was desperate to see the duck-rabbit in its natural habitat, as it were, on the lined, scrawled upon note-book page.

Reader, I found it (them?)! Thanks to an absolutely amazing resource, http://www.wittgensteinsource.org, where you can freely access Wittgenstein primary sources, including manuscript facsimiles and typescripts. [1] And there he is, situated in a nice little clearing of blank page, leaving room for him to quack or … make whatever noise it is that rabbits make, in either direction.

But here’s the thing (and I’ll wonder if you agree with me). This duck-rabbit is even more rabbity than the one in the Philosophical Investigations! I can barely even make myself see this one as a duck! The mouth is much more pronounced—this poor duck has suffered some even more terrible injury resulting in a cleft skull. (There’s got to be a story there.) It almost seems implausible for Wittgenstein to claim, as he does in the manuscript version, that this drawing is, indeed, ambiguous.

I think there are two lessons that we can conclude from this here philosophical investigation.

1. It’s a good thing that Wittgenstein improved his drawing of the duck-rabbit, or else his philosophical reputation might have been very different.

2: The younger is right: it’s a motherducking rabbit. Case closed.

 

Notes

[1] See the notebook page here: http://www.wittgensteinsource.org/box_view_url_shortener?u=dr