Wittgenstein and Psychology

A Practical Guide

Rom Harré, Michael Tissaw

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351142984
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Wittgenstein made use of his insights into the nature and powers of language to search out the source of conceptual confusions in the foundations of mathematics and in philosophy of psychology. Once he has established the use account of language, his Philosophical Investigations opens out into an extensive coverage of psychological phenomena and the concepts with which we identify and manage them. In this book Harr nd Tissaw display Wittgenstein's analysis of the 'grammar' of the most important of these concepts in a systematic and accessible way. Previous studies of the psychological aspects of Wittgenstein's writings, admirable as exegeses of his thought, have paid little attention to the relevant psychology. Here, the 'adjacent' theories and empirical investigations from mainstream psychology have been described in sufficient detail to show how Wittgenstein's work impinges on psychology as it has actually been practiced. In using this book, philosophers will be able to get a sense of the relevance of Wittgenstein's philosophical psychology to the development of psychology as a science. Psychologists will be able to see how to use Wittgenstein's insights to enrich and discipline their attempts to gain an understanding of human thinking, feeling, acting and perceiving, the domain of psychology as science. The book includes an historical overview of the sources of Wittgenstein's philosophy in the Vienna of the last years of Austro-Hungary, as well as a brief presentation of the main themes of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus as it anticipated computational models of cognition. Student use is emphasized with frequent summaries and self-test questionnaires.

Part One
Origins

1 Contemporary psychology: its problems and needs

The confusion and barrenness of psychology is not to be explained by calling it a 'young science'; its state is not comparable with that of physics, for instance, in its beginnings ... For in psychology there are experimental methods and conceptual confusion ... The existence of experimental method makes us think we have the means of solving the problems which trouble us; though problem and method passing one another by.

Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations II, xiv, p. 232

Topics introduced: the nature of philosophy; causal concepts; the nature of science as classifying and explaining; needs of a scientific psychology; positivism; empiricism; ontology; Cartesianism; behaviorism; cognitivism; causal and normative explanations; discursive and cultural psychology

As indicated in our Preface, this book is based on the need, still very much alive, for psychology to find a plausible and coherent paradigm within which to conduct and interpret research. To whom shall we turn for enlightenment? We believe that invaluable insights can be found in the philosophy of psychology, and, in particular, the writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Before we undertake our exposition of the relevant topics, we need to clarify, in preliminary fashion, what we mean by 'philosophy' in this context. At later points - particularly in Chapter 7 - we will examine carefully Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy and the nature of philosophical problems.

'Philosophy'

Every human practice depends on certain taken-for-granted principles and presumptions as to the material and social contexts in which it occurs. Furthermore, these practices and our understanding of them presuppose the ability to use a system (or systems) of concepts. Philosophy, in our sense, has much to do with the critical study of such presuppositions. While it often may be that philosophers can do little more than catalogue what has been taken for granted in the sciences and other human endeavors (e.g. jurisprudence), often bringing to light presuppositions can lead to criticism and even rejection of some central principles taken for granted by a community. This has been particularly true of attempts to develop a science of human thinking, feeling, acting and perceiving - the purported domains of scientific psychology. We will find much that will help us in the project of setting scientific psychology on a sound footing through a critical review of its presuppositions in the writings of Wittgenstein.

In addition to taken-for-granted principles, every human practice depends on two main kinds of presuppositions. First, there are matters of fact that, rightly or wrongly, we take for granted. Philosophers can help us to recognize these, but of course the critical assessment of such presuppositions calls for scientific appraisal when appropriate. Second, there are matters of meaning. What do we presuppose about the meanings and interrelations of concepts we are using in some inquiry? These may be put to work in identifying and classifying phenomena, or in putting together explanations of why things are as they seem to be. The revealing and critical assessment of conceptual presuppositions is the work of philosophy. That is one of its tasks.

Here is an example of each kind of presupposition, taken from the natural sciences. As scientists, paleontologists make all sorts of inferences about the nature of animals and plants, some of which have been preserved as fossils. In order to make these inferences, paleontologists must presuppose that the processes described by the laws of nature have, as a matter of fact, remained the same for eons for example, since before the Jurassic era to the present day. In applying the Darwinian theory of natural selection to explain the fossil record, paleontologists presuppose that these creatures came into being by causal processes involving chemical reactions and physical regularities more or less as they are seen today.

For conceptual presuppositions we need look no further than the implications of the word 'evolution.' Darwin was careful to point out that the usual implication of 'improvement,' in accordance with some enduring standard, was not to be included as part of his theory of natural selection. At most we could say that the members of a later population were better adapted to life in a certain environment than the population it succeeded. The development of organic beings had no long-term goal. Which presupposition should we choose - improvement or adaptation? That is not a scientific question.

The same considerations obtain in the case of other human practices, such as making moral judgments. Many moral judgments depend on the presupposition that all people and many animals can be killed and that many display signs of fear and pain. That is a matter of fact, in the sense that we can investigate the contexts in which humans and/or animals display fear or pain. However, in making decisions as to what persons should do in specific contexts, what do we man by 'acting for the best'? Philosophers have argued about the meaning of moral goodness. Is it a matter of doing one's duty, or is it a matter of trying to assess what would bring about the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people? No scientific study of human beings could ever settle a question of this sort. Answering the question is a matter for philosophical discussion and debate.

Our study program will be directed toward learning how to bring out and critically assess the factual and conceptual presuppositions of the science of psychology, or, rather, one should say the various attempts that have been made to create such a science.

Why Wittgenstein?

Many philosophers have expressed interest in the foundations of psychology, at least since the time of Aristotle at around 385 BC. We are turning to the writings of Wittgenstein because in the twentieth century a new way of looking at human psychology came to the fore. A number of psychologists, anthropologists, communication theorists and so on pointed out the enormous importance that language plays in human life, not least as the main tool with which human beings think and coordinate their actions. Of course, it is not the only tool. Language is one among a variety of systems of objects-with-meanings, or symbols, that we put to use. For example, there are flags, models, pictures, gestures and so on that play a role in our lives because of how we use them and what we take them to mean.

What do we presuppose in making use of meaningful symbols with which to think and act? Wittgenstein was a leading figure in developing two very different accounts of what symbols mean, and consequently of what the basis of thinking might be. Roughly, his first attempt was based on the presupposition that all words, except those expressing grammatical structure, are names. So what a word means is the object it signifies. His development of this idea had implications for accounts of cognition as a kind of computation. Later in life he lost faith in this project almost completely. Why? One reason is that he realized the presupposition which underlay it - that all words are names - was mistaken. Adopting this 'false picture' distorted his and others' understanding of language and therefore of cognition in general. He returned to the task of exploring the foundations of psychology by considering very different presuppositions about language and meaning - namely, that words are tools for accomplishing all sorts of tasks. This insight has developed into an account of cognition-as-discourse.

In the course of his later studies he developed a method for identifying the kinds of mistakes about words and their meanings that lead people - including the early Wittgenstein - astray. He thought that philosophers, psychologists and mathematicians were particularly prone to fall into linguistic traps. He likened them to flies trapped in a fly-bottle. These very intelligent people, with their good intentions, buzz around hopelessly inside the bottle, never finding their way out of its opening. Wittgenstein hoped his method would 'shew the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.' In essence, his method consists in making very careful studies of the way key words are actually used and identifying the false comparisons that led to mistakes. He characterized his method as 'a surview' of relevant language. We will learn how to do this for ourselves by following some of his more important studies.

The outcome of some of these inquiries into the uses of words has helped resolve puzzles and problems that have stood in the way of fruitful development in psychology. For example, behaviorism still exercises an influence on the thought of psychologists. By following Wittgenstein's work on how we come to be able to understand what other people tell us about their private feelings, their pains and itches, we come to see that there is nothing scientifically wrong with asking people how and what they feel and incorporating the subjective states of others as data in psychological research. Behaviorism was based, in part, on mistakes about language. It is important to add that these mistakes and the eventual 'downfall' of behaviorism as a dominant paradigm in psychology have never precluded that certain behavioral principles and methods, applied in certain contexts, would not be useful.

The most important aspect of Wittgenstein's psychologically oriented studies is his emphasis on the general mistake of using causal concepts in describing and explaining psychological phenomena. Improper use of causal concepts occurs at two levels. At one level it is a mistake, for example, to think of a person's plans as causing the behavior realized from those plans. Rules do not cause rule-following behavior. Rather, the active person is the causal agent who uses plans and rules in the management of behavior, be it public action or private thought. At another level, it is a mistake to follow the pattern of the natural sciences and invent hypotheses of unobservable mental mechanisms that intervene between the relevant aspects of the situations in which a person thinks, feels, or acts. When we describe a person using words to work out who or what to blame for something, we do all that there is to be done. There is no further role for mental concepts in explaining the subsequent judgment that person makes by hypothesizing a hidden cognitive function. This is the 'mentalism' that Wittgenstein is concerned to combat at every stage of his later philosophical investigations of psychological concepts.

Learning point: philosophy and science

1. What is philosophy?
   1. It involves the bringing out and critical study of presuppositions of human practices.
   2. Every human practice depends on two kinds of presupposition
      1. Factual: facts and laws are assumed in carrying out the practice. We ask whether the factual presuppositions are true or false, well or poorly supported.
      2. (ii) Conceptual: we fix the meanings of concepts used in practice. We ask what the relevant concepts mean in practice, whether these meanings are coherent, and whether they are consistent with one another.
2. The work of philosophers is the critical study of conceptual presuppositions
   1. Philosophy of natural science
      1. Factual: we presuppose the 'uniformity of nature' (that the laws of nature are the same at all times and places).
      2. (ii) Conceptual: we could presuppose, for example, that 'evolution' means 'improvement according to a universal standard' or 'better adapted to a particular local environment.' Experiments cannot be used to choose between these alternatives.
   2. Moral philosophy
      1. Factual: we presuppose that all people and some animals can suffer pain.
      2. Conceptual: we presuppose, for example, that 'good' means 'dutiful.' Someone else might argue that 'good' means 'the greatest happiness of the greatest number.'
         In studying philosophy of psychology we will be concerned with the conceptual presuppositions of the project of trying to set up a 'scientific' psychology.
3. What does Wittgenstein contribute to our attempts to understand human activities?
   His thought and writings pertain to - and even may be viewed as integral to - the development of two major paradigms currently in use in psychology.
   1. The first is cognitive psychology as a development of logic, a position he rejected later on grounds that it involved a naïve idea of language.
   2. The second is discursive psychology, or the study of the management of meanings according to local rules. This perspective is connected with his later philosophy.
   3. Importantly, he developed a method for bringing to light fallacies and errors that come from misunderstandings of how language works, to which psychologists, mathematicians and philosophers are particularly prone.
   4. Taking all of this together, he provided insight as to the origins (in language use) of long-standing philosophical problems that have troubled psychology throughout the course of its history, modern or otherwise.
   5. In our view, Wittgenstein's most important contribution to psychology as a science was his demolition, case by case, of the mentalism that led to hypotheses of redundant mental mechanisms.

Characteristics of science and the search for a scientific psychology

What is needed for any discipline to emulate the established sciences such as physics and biology? To answer this question we must turn to some observations from the philosophy of natural science to summarize a few components that are part of any mature scientific practice. Our very brief set of observations focuses on the effort to systematically classify and explain phenomena, including the construction of explanatory models. Then we turn to the question of whether psychology could be cloned from the natural sciences.

Systems for classifying and explaining phenomena

There must be a system for classifying the concepts of a natural science, and the system should be 'true' to the nature of the phenomena to which those concepts are applied. This demand calls for an analysis of the nature of the phenomena and for the refining the concepts with which to build a suitable taxonomy. So, for example, until the distincti...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part One: Origins
• Part Two: Insights
• Part Three: Applications
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index