ABSTRACT
Is there a special connection between seeing-as and novelty: a connection that is absent from situations where someone applies familiar concepts in straightforward and familiar cases? The following argument might suggest that there is no special connection. Ludwig Wittgenstein's discussion of seeing an aspect suggests a more nuanced position. On this more nuanced position, there is indeed a general connection between seeing-as and grasping concepts. Wittgenstein's discussion explores a large number of related but different perceptual phenomena. Wittgenstein is certainly interested in a general phenomenon of seeing-as. But his discussion of the novelty-involving cases highlights features that go beyond the more general phenomenon. In Wittgenstein's view, however, the putative explanations are illusory. Wittgenstein himself does not appeal to seeing-as to explain the acquisition of new concepts or the mastery of new practices. Wittgenstein argues that there is a way of grasping a rule that is not an interpretation.
