You mean, project images from my mind on a screen? You don't know how many times I've thought how amazing that would be! — Alkis Piskas

Be careful what you wish for!

But this doesn't change anything. Everyone has different mental pictures of a same object in the environment. — Alkis Piskas

In response to your comment:

you are talking about a different thing: the difference between an object that exists in the physical universe and that object as you yourself peceived it — Alkis Piskas

I gave an example where an object that exists the environment need not play a role.

It does not matter whether the mental picture is of some object that exists in the world or not. — Fooloso4

The image I have in my mind since I was a child need not be a mental picture of some object. It could be my own creation that no one else has a mental picture of.

I can't see why you call it "public"? — Alkis Piskas

In order to distinguish a mental picture, which is not public or accessible to anyone else, and a picture we can all see.

the images that we see in our mind are changing on constant basis. — Alkis Piskas

Then aren't you agreeing with me and rejecting the claim that?

Do you agree that the content of the picture/description is the same regardless of whether it is a public object or whether it is privately imagined?
— Luke — Alkis Piskas

If the content of the images in our mind are changing on a constant basis how could that content be the same as that of a public object that is not constantly changing?

It seemed wrong that what is first and primary should be some proposition or rule. What is first is being and beings not something someone, even someone regarded as wise, says about being.

Something has always bothered me ever since I first read Metaphysics. The term translated as principle.

In his recent translation of Metaphysics, Joe Sachs says the Greek term arche, is

A ruling beginning ...

and that it most often refers to a being rather than a proposition or rule.

He translates it as 'source'.

In more contemporary terms Aristotle's inquiry into the arche or source of things is ontological rather than epistemological.

Suppose neuroscientists were able to give you access to my mental picture and render a public physical picture so that everyone can see what the content of my mental picture is. It does not matter whether the mental picture is of some object that exists in the world or not. My mental picture X rendered public at T1 may differ from my mental picture X rendered public at T2. My mental image is not immutable. There are lots of things that can influence and change it. The physical image, however, does not change.

I might say that ever since I was a child I have had this image in my mind. If you asked me whether that image has changed over time I cannot give a definitive answer. I have no way of comparing that image as it was then to how it is now.

Do you agree that the content of the picture/description is the same regardless of whether it is a public object or whether it is privately imagined? — Luke

Not necessarily. As I imagine something can change.

Could you please explain the two different uses of the term 'picture'? — Luke

One is physical and can be made public, the other cannot. One remains relatively stable and unchanging the other may not. We can use one an item of comparison, the other only by the one whose mental image it is.

And I don't see Wittgenstein using the word as a verb here, either, such as "picture this...". — Luke

The first few examples of many:

2. Let us imagine a language
4. Imagine a script in which letters were used for sounds,
6. We could imagine that the language of §2 was the whole language of A and B

As I noted earlier, this begets a picture of a picture or a description of a description. This is the view that W appears to reject at PI 280. — Luke

What he rejects is that:

His private impression of the picture tells him what he imagined

it is not:

... in addition a representation (or piece of information?)

I believe that Wittgenstein makes a case for sentence 2 of PI 389 - "For however similar I make the picture to what it is supposed to represent, it may still be the picture of something else" - in sections PI 139-141. — Luke

I don't see where Wittgenstein makes the case for 2.

Paine. Thanks for quoting this:

663. If I say "I meant him" very likely a picture comes to my mind — Philosophical Investigations

What says you @Luke?

The complexity of 'philosophical' questions, that perhaps could be "shooed out of the bottle" is not the same as recognizing the complexity of the 'ordinary.' — Paine

An important point! Despite what Wittgenstein says about the ordinary it is often an overlooked aspect of his philosophy. All the focus remains on the same few linguistic tangles.

On my view, as stated in my previous post, what Wittgenstein means by this "content" is a public picture or public description of what is privately imagined. — Luke

PPF 10. What is the content of the experience of imagining? The answer is a picture, or a description.

The content of the experience of imagining is what is imagined. The experience itself is a picture or description that occurs in the mind. In order to answer the question of what that is I can draw a picture or describe the content.

The implication is that the inner picture is the outer picture. — Luke

PPF 133 should be read together with:

PPF

132. And above all do not say “Surely, my visual impression isn’t the drawing; it is this —– which I can’t show to anyone.” Of course it is not the drawing; but neither is it something of the same category, which I carry within myself.

The mental image is not a picture hanging on the wall of my mind. The two uses of the term 'picture' belong to different categories.

I take PI 280 to be denying that the picture has a double function. The picture he paints to show how he imagines the stage set does not also inform him. It does not tell him what he imagined.

... how I read sentence 3, is that the content of the mental image can only be this (i.e. whatever one imagines at a particular time) and nothing else. — Luke

Rather than repeat myself, and you repeating yourself, I am going to leave this as unresolved between us.

Your line of approach reminds me of the Meno: — Leontiskos

There are several things at issue here. The opinions we hold about the wise man (982a) refers, on the one hand, to those who desire to be wise and on the other, more generally to common opinion. Those who seek wisdom should know the opinions of the many about the wise man in order to avoid the fate of Socrates.

At the end of this paragraph he says:

... the wise man should give orders, not receive them; nor should he obey others, but the less wise should obey him.

((982a)

There is a political dimension that the philosopher must deal with. This for his own sake, for the sake of philosophy, and for the sake of the polis.

Another aspect of the problem can be stated as follows: what is our opinion about the extent to which Aristotle or anyone else is wise and can teach us to be wise.

In this extremely compact section Aristotle also says:

We consider first, then, that the wise man knows all things, so far as it is possible, without having knowledge of every one of them individually … (982a)

What does “so far as it is possible” mean? What are the limits of human knowledge?

[Added: More to follow]

I just explained to you why he doesn't do that. You seem to wish he had. — Leontiskos

I wish to inquire what he may be up to. I take it that if he doesn't he has good reason why he doesn't. I don't think that not wanting to artificially stipulate a definition of wisdom gets at what is at issue. In my opinion the reader must play an active role. The reader does so by asking questions and looking to see how the text might address these questions.

If he is inquiring into wisdom does that mean he does not know what it is to be wise? If he is not wise can he determine whether others are? If others are not wise what it the value in discussing the opinions we hold about the wise man?

If Aristotle is wise then why doesn't he impart his wisdom to others? He does say that:

In general the sign of knowledge or ignorance is the ability to teach

(981b)

What role might examining the opinions of others play in teaching others? Does he teach them to be wise?

Perhaps he does have something to teach us about being wise. Perhaps what that is is not simply a matter of what is generally assumed, that is, that what is called Wisdom is concerned with the primary causes and principles … (981b)

Why the detour into our opinions of the wise man?
— Fooloso4

Because he is inquiring into wisdom, and rather than artificially stipulate a definition of wisdom, he looks at what we already mean by it, and who we call 'wise'. In the subsequent section he assesses these widespread opinions about the wise man. — Leontiskos

If Aristotle is wise then why artificially stipulate a definition of wisdom?

If knowledge differs from opinion then why not start by telling us what the wise man knows rather than with our opinions of the wise man?

I should have noted earlier that '10' is from part 2 of PI, or in the 4th edition "Philosophy of Psychology
A Fragment".

What is the content of the experience of imagining? The answer is a picture, or a description. — Fooloso4

How else could the question be answered? More below.

Note that he distinguishes between a mental image and its description at PI 367. — Luke

Right, a description and what it describes are not the same.

Otherwise, why would he include "or a description" at PI 10? — Luke

The question is whether a description can be the content of the experience of imagining. Imagining how someone might come to regard a mental image as a superlikeness is to give a description of the steps taken. Isn't that what we are doing when we are figuring out how to respond to each other, imagining how this or that description might be persuasive? Imagining how this or that description might get the other person to see it differently?

If I say: "This is just as I pictured it would be" I am saying that my mental image is consistent with the thing pictured in that image.

You claimed that the person on the telephone and the summer house were both unlike your mental images of them. — Luke

Yes.

One wonders how you and your siblings were able to show your mental images to each other in order to compare them. — Luke

We didn't show them we described them. But I can compare my mental picture to the thing pictured.

I don't agree that he is using "picture" as a verb at PI 10. — Luke

In response to the question of the mental content I might say: "I had a picture in my mind of a man on a horse". This description can be put in the form of a public or physical picture, but a mental picture and a physical picture of that mental picture are two different things.

perhaps another way of saying this could be that it is an image of this. — Luke

The same question: an image of what? What is "this"?

Similarly, if someone were to ask what the Mona Lisa is a picture of, one could respond by pointing at it and saying "it's a picture of this". — Luke

What are you pointing to? The painting? Surely it is not a picture of the painting.

The painting is named Mona Lisa. It is believed to be a picture of Madam Lisa Giocondo. If you are pointing to the woman with that famous enigmatic smile then yes it is a picture of her. But given the smile it might be there is more to the story of what it is a picture of.

For one thing, it follows that a mental image is not a picture. — Luke

At PI 10 he says:

What is the content of the experience of imagining? The answer is a picture, or a description.

He is trying to steer us away from "an inner ostensive explanation" (PI 380). — Luke

Right, we cannot appeal to a mental image of red. This is discussed at PI 50 and the use of samples and paradigms. At PI 388 he asks:

How do I know from my mental image, what the colour really looks like?

If we cannot appeal to a mental image of a color then, with regard to color, we cannot determine that the mental image of a red object is more like the object than a physical picture of the red object.

Wittgenstein maintains a distinction between mental images and pictures at PI 389. On what grounds do you collapse this distinction? — Luke

The term picture is used in different ways. At PI 389 he is referring to a physical picture, something that others can see. But we can also picture things to ourselves as in PI 10. These pictures are mental images.

It is the interlocutor's claim that the mental image is not representative of anything and that it is simply what it is: the image of this. — Luke

He says that 1) a mental image must be more like its object than any picture. This is because 2) a picture may be of something other than what it is supposed to represent. But 3) a mental image can only be an image of this. "This" does not mean an image of itself, an image of an image. It is an image of the object that he claims a picture may fail to represent.

what is a Jackson Pollock painting the image of ... ; — Luke

I don't know. Perhaps it is not of any thing and does not represent any thing.

... but what does the mental image of a Jackson Pollock painting represent? — Luke

A Jackson Pollock painting.

You can say that the mental image of a horse is of a horse — Luke

The mental image of a horse is not a horse, it is an image of a horse.

... a mental image need not represent anything or be of anything other than what it is: this. — Luke

A mental image need not represent anything or be of anything, but this does not mean it represents itself or is of itself. It presents itself, it does not re-present itself.

I would agree with you that a picture is no different to a mental image. — Luke

I would say that a mental picture is a mental image, but a physical picture is different. My claim that this animal is a horse cannot be settled by appeal to my mental picture of a horse. But a clear physical picture (contrary to 2) can settle the issue. The picture serves as a sample or paradigm.

It is more the ordinary user — RussellA

Does the ordinary user make this claim about aliens and Trump? There is nothing ordinary about that claim.

Right, but earlier you said:

The point of PI 389 is to reject claims 1 -3
— Fooloso4

Now you are saying that claim 2 is not rejected. — Luke

When the interlocutor says at the start of 2: "For ..." the claim is that because a picture may be a picture of something else, the mental image is more like its object than any picture. This is not the same as simply saying a picture may be a picture of something else. Something specific is supposed to follow from the interlocutors claim that need not follow from the observation that a picture may be a picture of something other than what it is supposed to represent.

The point is that one's mental image is not part of the language game; only a description of one's mental image is. — Luke

And what follows from this?

A picture of X is an image of X.
— Fooloso4

I assume you mean mental image — Luke

No, I mean a picture, a painting or photograph.

3. A mental image cannot be of anything else (but itself). — Luke

The interlocutor's claim is not a mental image is a mental image of a mental image. It is an image of the object it is an image of.

The interlocutor would just be repeating himself. — Luke

1 makes no claims about an intrinsic feature of a mental images.

3. A mental image cannot be of anything else (but itself). — Luke

A mental image is not a mental image of a mental image.

I take it you don't wish (sentence 3) to say that it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of object X and of nothing else, because then all mental images would be of object X. — Luke

???

But I don't believe it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it must be the image of a particular object. — Luke

Good. Then we are in agreement on that point, but then we are back to your questionable interpretation of 3.

It is right to point out when someone misuses a word, whether a philosopher or an ordinary man, because that is when problems arise. — RussellA

It is not a matter of a misuse of a word but of a misguided demand being made on the concept "know" which leads to a denial that we know the things we know.

If W rejects sentence 2 of PI 389, as you suggest, then his position is that b) there is a necessary correspondence between a picture and what it is supposed to represent. — Luke

What is rejected is not that the picture could be of something else. What is rejected is that it follows
from the fact that it could be an picture of something else that a mental image must be more like its object than any picture.

That’s right. That may explain W’s definition of a mental image at PI 367. — Luke

Here's the problem. I describe my mental image of an object, a summer house by the lake. When I am finished by brother tells me that my mental image is not the same as his mental image of that house. We talk to my sister and dig out some old photos. It becomes clear to me that my mental image was not of image of this house and of nothing else, it was a composite image of different houses we stayed in over the years.

The same tautological claim about a mental image of X being an image of X can be made about a picture of X. A picture of X is an image of X. For the same reason that we should not conclude from this that it is an intrinsic feature of a picture that it is a picture of this and of nothing else, we should not conclude that a mental image is an image of this and nothing else.

Suppose I give you a description of my mental image of X. "It looks like this 'Y' " Someone else chimes in and describes her mental image of X: "It looks like this 'Z'". In each case the mental image of the same object is different. It is then not an intrinsic feature of a mental image of X that it is the image of this (X) and of nothing else. The mental images are both an image of X but it turns out that my mental image is actually an image of Y and her's of Z.

2. For however similar I make the picture to what it is supposed to represent, it may still be the picture of something else. — Luke

It does not follow from a) the fact that there is not a necessary correspondence between a picture and what it is supposed to represent, that b) there is a necessary connection between a mental image and what it is an image of. It does not follow that a mental image must be more like its object than any picture.

It is a tautology to say that a mental image of X is an image of X. But this does not mean that my mental image of X is anything like X. If I describe my mental image of X it may become clear that the image as described is nothing like X. It may be that it is an image of something else.

It strikes down the Trump mythology of being this successful businessman — GRWelsh

I'm not so sure it does. Those who know him already know that he is much more successful as a con artist than a businessman. This goes back long before he entered politics. The Trumpsters see all this as they are told to see it - not only is he the victim but they too are or will be the victims of a corrupt political system if not for him.

What about those who fall into neither camp? I think most see the trappings of great wealth and success and will look no further.

But I would very much like to be wrong about this.

In the Investigations, Wittgenstein seems to be making a distinction between the language of the ordinary man and the language of the philosopher, but surely he knew that this distinction didn't exist in practice in the ordinary people he came across in his daily life. — RussellA

Having spent much of his time correcting philosophers he surely did know that they are not using terms in the ordinary sense. This is a mistake he attempts to correct by pointing to the ordinary use of terms such as 'know'. If they did not make these inordinate demands on language the problems that arise as a result would dissolve.

"Enemy" being the operative term here. — baker

Yes. The enemy is anyone who questions or is critical of Trump.

Here's a CNN list of 24 former Trump aides and allies all of whom now see him as a threat to democracy. — Wayfarer

The problem is that the Trumpsters do not want to preserve democracy. Democracy is part of the problem. They want an autocratic leader who has the vision and power to do the right thing. They do not want to give the enemy an equal say in how things should be.

Firstly, I don’t read there as being any necessary correspondence with an object in sentence 3. — Luke

Sentence 1 is the interlocutor's claim - the mental image is more like its object than any picture.
Sentence 2 provides his support for this claim.
Sentence 3 is provides further support.

These three sentences are enclosed in quotation marks.

Sentence 4 is Wittgenstein's response to this chain of reasoning leading to the claim of a superlikeness. If we reject the claim of a superlikeness we should reject the whole argument chain. When the interlocutor claims that it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else, he is referring to the object it is a mental image of.

where you take the point of PI 389 to be that a picture can equally or more closely resemble an object than does a mental image — Luke

The point of PI 389 is to reject claims 1 -3 and thus a superlikeness.

I also believe these passages support my position against your assumption/reading that a mental image (like a picture) can be compared with an object for the purpose of determining the image’s resemblance or correspondence to that object. — Luke

It is, as you quoted in sentence 1, the interlocutor who makes the comparison and concludes that a mental image must be more like its object than any picture. You, I, and Wittgenstein all reject that claim.

Once again, our disagreement is over sentence 3. If not the object then what is it the mental image an image of?

What does "this" refer to?
— Fooloso4

I was quoting PI 389. — Luke

Right, but you said:

I don't see why the mental image must correspond to any object. — Luke

At PI 389 "this" refers to the mental image of a particular object. If you disagree with the interlocutor then we are in agreement.

But you also said:

However, this need not imply that Wittgenstein rejects the interlocutor's statement that "it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else". — Luke

He does reject it. He rejects it for the same reason you now seem to be rejecting it.

I think Wittgenstein might take issue with your use of "see" here. You don't really see or look at your mental image; it is what you imagine. — Luke

Take the example @Banno discusses from Zettel 14 here

"Say a picture of him suddenly floated before me."

He does not simply imagine or produce an image he sees it.

That's an obvious assumption to make (just like the assumption of a private language), but how does it relate to the text or to what Wittgenstein says at PI 389? — Luke

I am well aware that they may not look like this. It is just an image in my mind, a picture that occurs to me.

The claim made at PI 389 is that:

A mental image must be more like its object than any picture.

The point of my example is that it shows that this is not true. A photo of the person [added: I only talked to on the phone] is more like that person than my mental image of that person.

Obviously, I can't recognize something as the Amazon without having heard other people talk about it. — baker

Perhaps not, but you would know it is not part of the shared community you live in.

Why wouldn't it? — baker

It wouldn't if our way of life was not a shared way of life.

Really? So psychology, sociology, and anthropology don’t contribute theories for this? — schopenhauer1

I am not talking about doing specific things but that we do anything at all. What explanation do you have that we do things rather than doing nothing?

How do you get out of circularity of what community is? — schopenhauer1

Well, if you think a group of people living and working together with shared interests and values is circular then I see no reason why it would be necessary to get out of it.

How is it “out there”? — schopenhauer1

A community is not something "out there". It is something within which we live.

You have to justify a theory of emergence, not just posit it. — schopenhauer1

Do I? Do you think there has always been human language? Do you think there has always been human beings?

I can doubt community exists outside my perception. — schopenhauer1

Yes, you can, but when you express that doubt on a public forum you do so outside of your perception. Or do you think the forum and its participants do not exist outside your perception? Do you think the language you express your doubts in only exist within your perception?

Hinge propositions can’t just stop theorizing as that hinge needs to be grounded further. — schopenhauer1

When you are theorizing are there things that you accept? Things that are not called into doubt when you theorize? Do you realize that your assumptions about grounds functions as a hinge? Something you accept without the grounding having a ground?

But what exactly does this "shared" mean? — baker

Suppose you went to sleep and when you woke up it was 1923 or 1823. Would you realize that this is not the same world it was when you sent to sleep? Or suppose when you woke up you were in some remote fishing village or with in tripe in the Amazon. Would it be apparent that this is not this is not the same place you fell asleep in?

Is it an active and deliberate sharing, like when you offer someone an apple if you have two?

Or is it a kind of sharing we're simply born into, which is imposed on us, without having any say in it? — baker

A bit of both.

For example, how does Wittgenstein explain how it is that social facts exist outside of some sort of linguistic solipsism? — schopenhauer1

In OC Wittgenstein quotes Goethe:

In the beginning was the deed.

Language emerges out of pre-linguistic practices. Social facts include things done not just things said. That we do things is not something that Wittgenstein, or for that matter, as far as I know, anyone else attempt to explain.

So you see, there has to be a greater theory for how something like "community" obtains outside of individual perceptions if one doesn't want to maintain solipsism. — schopenhauer1

A community is not made up of individual perceptions but of shared beliefs, practices, and language. A common form of life.

How does this get beyond the Cartesian Demon? — schopenhauer1

The role of the hypothetical demon is to establish that there is something that cannot be doubted, something we can be certain of even if we are deceived about everything else. Wittgenstein has an interesting response: in order to doubt there must be things that are not doubted.

Hinge propositions are anti-philosophical. — schopenhauer1

Hinges are not anti-philosophical.

It's simply a way of stopping inquiry. — schopenhauer1

It is not a way of stopping inquiry but what inquiry turns on.

Why does the limit have to be how we use language ... — schopenhauer1

Wittgenstein does not claim it does.

... and not how it is grounded in the world or our minds? — schopenhauer1

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/840026

If to know is to hold a justified true belief, then what is the justification here? — Banno

I don't think it has anything to do with justified true belief.

The question of whether I know that the picture I have of him is a picture of him is odd. When the picture of N suddenly floated before him there was no question that it is a picture of N. It is only subsequently, after the fact, that the question arises.

Did I know it was a picture of him? — Banno

I will read and comment in that thread.

"it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else." — Luke

I don't see why the mental image must correspond to any object. — Luke

In general a mental image need not correspond to any object, but we are discussing PI 389:

389. “A mental image must be more like its object than any picture.

Your requirement that the mental image must be of one object presupposes that it can correspond or be compared to some object. — Luke

This is not my requirement. This is the interlocutor's claim:

However, this need not imply that Wittgenstein rejects the interlocutor's statement that "it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else". — Luke

Do you therefore think it follows that a picture has a superlikeness to its object, — Luke

No. As I said:

A photo of X may to varying degrees and in various ways capture a likeness of X. — Fooloso4

or is the idea of a "superlikeness" irrelevant to Wittgenstein's point here? — Luke

His point, in part, is to reject the idea of a "superlikeness". He traces that idea back to the interlocutor's assumptions.

Is his point simply that there is no distinction between a picture and a mental image? — Luke

Of course not!

On my reading, a mental image is unlike a picture because a mental image can only be "the image of this and of nothing else", — Luke

What does "

this

" refer to?

I view Wittgenstein as being critical of the interlocutor's inference that the mental image is any sort of likeness; that there can be any correspondence between a private (undescribed) mental image and its object. — Luke

Why can't my mental image be a likeness to the object it is an image of? I do not have to describe that image to myself, I see it.

A photo is a picture; a mental image is not. — Luke

A mental image is the way I picture something to myself.

If you were to describe your mental image, then maybe we could compare it to the object and find out how closely it resembles its object, but a mental image cannot be compared to its object; only a description of the mental image can. — Luke

I talk to someone on the phone who I have never met. I imagine what this person looks like. I form a mental image of them. Later I meet this person and they are very different from my mental image.

Hacker tells us that a mental image is "not a likeness [to its object] at all" since its being a mental image of X "is not determined by its likeness to X". — Luke

This is like saying a photo of X is not a likeness of X at all since it being a photo of X is not determined by its likeness to X.

A photo of X may to varying degrees and in various ways capture a likeness of X. So too, our mental images of X may to varying degrees and in various ways capture a likeness of X.

Then the mental image would be an image of the two blurred events and of nothing else. — Luke

The mental image of this refers to the one object it is an image of. Two blurred objects or events is a counterexample.

I take it he comes to regard it this way for the reasons given at PI 389 — Luke

Right.

Your reading - where you trust the picture to be like its object more than you trust the mental image to be like its object - could explain how the interlocutor comes to regard a mental image as a sub-likeness instead of a super-likeness. This might make more sense to you but it is not consistent with the text. — Luke

The interlocutor comes to regard it as a super-likeness because he assumes that it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this object and of nothing else. I think the interlocutor is wrong and I gave some reasons why. You think Wittgenstein agrees with the interlocutor's assumption, I don't.

I wish I could talk to Witt about neuroscience and his thinking. — wonderer1

That would be interesting.

This indicates that a mental image is what one imagines at a particular time, and the description will describe what one imagines at the time. — Luke

I agree.

it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else — Luke

I don't agree. Many things can influence our mental images. Two different events can get blurred in the mind.

What Wittgenstein criticises is that the interlocutor "might come to regard a mental image as a superlikeness" with an object. — Luke

How is it that he might come to regard it in this way? As I read it, because he assumes that a mental image must be more like its object than any picture. I think just the opposite is true. My mental picture of the house I used to live differs from photographs of it. I trust the photo to be more like the house.

Hacker tells us that a mental image is "not a likeness [to its object] at all" since its being a mental image of X "is not determined by its likeness to X". — Luke

Now I remember why I balk when Hacker is mentioned.

The question in hand here is, what happens with the picture theory as Wittgenstein moves on to the Investigations?

Who can give a simple, direct answer to that? — Banno

I don't know what you are looking for. The picture theory is abandoned. Wittgenstein had come to reject the idea that there is a logical structure that underlies both the world and its representation

T 218 What any picture, of whatever form, must have in common with reality, in order to be
able to depict it—correctly or incorrectly—in any way at all, is logical form, i.e. the form of
reality.

On your reading, a picture can be synonymous with a mental image. Your reading therefore seems inconsistent with Hacker's reading — Luke

I'm okay with that.

PI 389, which states: "it is an intrinsic feature of a mental image that it is the image of this and of nothing else." — Luke

It is Wittgenstein's imagined interlocutor who makes this claim in the quotations. W.'s response is:

That is how one might come to regard a mental image as a superlikeness.

One might regard a mental image in this way but a mental image is not a superlikeness. One's mental image can be quite unreliable.

My mental image may be at one time of a duck and at another time of a rabbit, but when my mental image is of a duck I cannot see it in any way other than as a duck (i.e. how I see it at the time), and the same for when my mental image is of a rabbit. — Luke

I agree that we cannot at the same time see it as both a duck and as a rabbit. But Wittgenstein was quite taken by the fact that it can flip from one to other. He discusses this in the Tractatus as well, with regard to a picture of a cube.

Perhaps what is in the imagination is not a picture because what is in the imagination (a mental image) can only be seen in one way, unlike a picture which can be seen in more than one way. — Luke

I can form different mental images of the same thing even though I cannot hold different mental images of the same thing at the same time. An image may change over time based on new experiences or the unreliability of memory.

I think that both a picture and what is pictured can be seen in different ways. Consider the duck-rabbit, for example. — Luke

When the picture itself is an object I agree, but not all pictures are objects.

When Wittgenstein says at PI 1:

These words, it seems to me, give us a particular picture of the essence of human language.

he is talking about a mental image, not an object. Another example:

“This is called a ‘leaf’ ”, I get an idea of the shape of a leaf, a picture of it in my mind.

(73)

When he says:

115. A picture held us captive. And we couldn’t get outside it, for it lay in our language, and language seemed only to repeat it to us inexorably.

he is talking about a mental image, a way in which something is conceived to be.

However, confusingly, at PPF 10 (Part II), W states:

What is the content of the experience of imagining? The answer is a picture, or a description.
— PPF 10 (Part II)

On the face of it, this appears to contradict PI 301. — Luke

The confusion evaporates when one considers that the term 'picture' is used in different ways.

When he says at 301:

What is in the imagination is not a picture, but a picture can correspond to it.

This should not be thought of as a general statement about pictures, as something that holds true for all pictures. He is talking specifically about how pain is imagined. Pain in the imagination is about what pain feels like, not about how we might picture it. See 302:

If one has to imagine someone else’s pain on the model of one’s own, this is none too easy a thing to do: for I have to imagine pain which I don’t feel on the model of pain which I do feel.