Agreement or Contrariety? A Dialogue

Abstract

In one of his blog posts, Martin Lenz refers to Wittgenstein’s Rabbit-duck; a picture puzzle that can interpretated as depicting a rabbit or a duck. The point of this analogy is that what we are perceiving corresponds to our personal experiences which can be shaped in discussions with others even though we remain incapable to grasp both pictures at once. The starting point of the following dialogue is exactly such a Rabbit-duck-illusion. Reading Lenz’ chapter on Spinoza again and again, I remained unsure whether contrariety or agreement is the fundamental relation which warrants his claim that minds are intrinsically social. The aim of this text is to enter into dialogue on this subject and examine the problems and advantages of both readings. Must it necessarily be the case that contrariety and agreement are mutually exclusive like the two parts of the Rabbit-duck?

Keywords

• spinoza
• martin lenz
• agreement
• contrariety
• conatus