‘I don't know my way about’: Mirror reversal as a curiously instructive analogue of philosophical perplexity

Abstract

AbstractWittgenstein said in the Investigations, ‘A philosophical problem has the form: “I don't know my way about”’ (§ 123). The problem of mirror reversal—specifically the twentieth‐century transatlantic controversy between the psychologist Richard Gregory, the mathematical columnist Martin Gardner, the physicist Richard Feynman and various analytic philosophers, including David Pears, Ned Block and Don Locke—is presented here as an instructive case of our not knowing our way about. ‘Why do mirrors reverse left and right but not up and down?’ We discover that our perplexity disappears as we get clearer about the employment of the familiar oppositions left and right, up and down, back and front, and others. Finding our way about in these logico‐grammatical fells, we see connections with our troubles in more vertiginous landscapes. Our disquietude may not be deep (§ 111) but the ‘battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence’ (§ 109) is surprisingly severe.