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Wittgenstein's Ladder: Poetic Language And The Strangeness Of The Ordinary, Michael Fischer

English Faculty Research

In a frequently quoted remark from Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein comments on our overlooking things because they are familiar, or right in front of us every day: "One is unable to notice something-because it is always before one's eyes" (§129). We take these things for granted instead of appreciating their strangeness. For readers of this journal, one of these familiar things might be the very project of drawing on philosophy while discussing works of literature. Not every critic does this; the New Critics, for instance, hardly ever did. From a certain point of view, turning to philosophy feels forced or odd, …