[Wittrs] Re: On Wittgenstein and Behaviorism
- From: "jrstern" <jrstern@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:47:29 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Glen Sizemore <gmsizemore2@...> wrote:
>
...
> So if I ask someone for a glass of water, I am really "asking their brain"?
> And you assert that this is somehow consistent with later Wittgenstein?
...
I have to say, I agree that (later) Wittgenstein would not agree
with cognitivism - as that paper Sean just posted says as well.
Yet, there is much in cognitivism that is rooted in early and
late Wittgenstein.
But, the later Wittgenstein also would try to avoid even the
"dispositions" of behaviorism. Since he already discarded rules for
explaining things - doesn't leave much. Doesn't leave anything, I'm
afraid. I've already said I view much of the later Wittgenstein as
mistaken, in just those ways.
So, would Wittgenstein approve of "brain scripts", under the
theory that a script has a grammar, and is thus proper
Wittgensteinian analysis? Well, only insofar as a sequence "has
a grammar", as anything is allowed to resemble a script in any way,
but LW insists that a sequence is not via script, but via some
normative process ... that I cannot quite put my finger on, that
is, in such a way that it is not the very rule or script
that I thought we were trying to avoid - or else is a tautogical
post hoc teleological and empty explanation, which we rather thought
Wittgenstein knows better than.
A grammar is a rule is a script, I think,
and I'm sure there are subtleties galor one can find in them one
and all, but I think the real issue is that a rule is only a rule
when an agent interprets it so, just as a page of English is only
language to an English speaker (in good visual health and with
enough light to read by yada yada), or a computer program is only
a copy of IE6 if you have a Pentium processor and it is properly
situated and powered up yada yada. I'm happy to give classic
philosophers a very broadly charitable reading, and perhaps that's
the point that Wittgenstein was feeling after, but never really
got a full grip on.
Josh
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