The children’s book Duck! Rabbit! dramatizes the lesson that just because one is right, others don’t have to be wrong. An endless dispute is quickly settled once the quarrellers experience an aspect change or gestalt switch and thereby realize that the same picture can be seen in different ways. This simple scenario offers an intriguing model for arbitrating between conflicting positions by going back and forth between different aspects and thereby realizing that conflicting accounts can be equally valid.
Keywords: analysis (philosophy); aspect seeing; figure of thought; multistable figures; multistable visual perception; multistability; Kuhn, Thomas – The structure of scientific revolutions; philosophy of science
Title
Oscillations and Incommensurable Decisions
Subtitle
On the Multistable Use of Multistable Figures
Author(s)
Christoph F. E. Holzhey
Identifier
Description
The children’s book Duck! Rabbit! dramatizes the lesson that just because one is right, others don’t have to be wrong. An endless dispute is quickly settled once the quarrellers experience an aspect change or gestalt switch and thereby realize that the same picture can be seen in different ways. This simple scenario offers an intriguing model for arbitrating between conflicting positions by going back and forth between different aspects and thereby realizing that conflicting accounts can be equally valid.
Is Part Of
Place
Vienna
Publisher
Turia + Kant
Date
2014
Subject
analysis (philosophy)
aspect seeing
figure of thought
multistable figures
multistable visual perception
multistability
Kuhn, Thomas – The structure of scientific revolutions
philosophy of science
Rights
© by the author(s)
This version is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Bibliographic Citation
Christoph F. E. Holzhey, ‘Oscillations and Incommensurable Decisions: On the Multistable Use of Multistable Figures’, in Multistable Figures: On the Critical Potential of Ir/Reversible Aspect-Seeing, ed. by Christoph F. E. Holzhey, Cultural Inquiry, 8 (Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2014), pp. 215–46 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-08_10>
Language
en-GB
page start
215
page end
246
Source
Multistable Figures: On the Critical Potential of Ir/Reversible Aspect-Seeing, ed. by Christoph F. E. Holzhey, Cultural Inquiry, 8 (Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2014), pp. 215–46
Format
application/pdf

References

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Cite as: Christoph F. E. Holzhey, ‘Oscillations and Incommensurable Decisions: On the Multistable Use of Multistable Figures’, in Multistable Figures: On the Critical Potential of Ir/Reversible Aspect-Seeing, ed. by Christoph F. E. Holzhey, Cultural Inquiry, 8 (Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2014), pp. 215–46 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-08_10>