Thinking with Images (original) (raw)

We really begin to think when we do not know what to think. When we know what to think, we are certainly thinking, but it is distinctly different from what and how we think when we do not know what to think. It is not rare that we do not know what to think. At any time, we can be taken aback by something that is unfamiliar, maybe only momentarily so, and while this can lead us quickly to the comfort of what we know, to what we know to think, the experience can also linger, leading us to think without knowing what to think. In the latter case, especially when what we experience is not just unfamiliar or new to us but quite captivating or strange, what we think and how we think, because we do not know what to think, is colored by uncertainty: we do not know what to think or whether we will ever know what to think. When we know what to think, thinking is more like following a rule.1 This is true even where we are only momentarily at a loss for what to think. In those cases, comparable to cases where we know what to think, we search for the rule that applies to situations like it which we have confronted before. Perhaps we consult another rule that measures the similarity of the unfamiliar with what we know we know. Having found it, we apply the rule, and the result is ordinarily the hoped for resolution of the perceived difficulty and a return to the certainty of knowing what to think. When we do not know what to think, it appears that there is no rule that will resolve the difficulty we confront. Perhaps it happens, as in cases like those just described, that we just need to learn a rule we do not already know. Having learned the new rule and applying it to the situation in front of us, we have the impression that we know what to think; it is another case of following a rule. It may also turn out that we already know the rule but its application is not immediately obvious to us. When we realize the relevance of the rule we know, and apply it, we know what to think, and we are, once again, following a rule. When we do not know what to think, it is not always a matter of learning the rule or of ascertaining the relevance of the appropriate rule. Sometimes it is the case that there just is no rule, and because there is no rule, we are made to think, really think about the situation we confront. This situation is the one we may face in encounters with certain works of art, specific artworks for the appreciation of which no rule applies or for which the application of a rule seems not entirely appropriate. In fact, encounters with artworks are often valued precisely for the challenge they present to our rule-bound ways of thinking.2 What I have in mind is nothing like what Martin Heidegger may have been after when he asked " Was heisst Denken, " what is called or calls for thinking?3 What and how we think when we do not know what to think is not the essence of thinking, what thinking really is. It is a kind of thinking we do when we confront situations or engage certain objects, especially certain artworks, which make us think