Wittgenstein on mind and metaphysics

Anthony Kenny

pp. 37-46

in: Rosaria Egidi (ed), Wittgenstein, Berlin, Springer, 1995

Abstract

Wittgenstein is often regarded as being both positivist and behaviorist: positivist in rejecting all metaphysics, and behaviorist in denying inner human life. So far as concerns philosophy of mind, this view is based on a misunderstanding of Wittgenstein's work. He did indeed attack one particular metaphysical theory of mind: the Cartesian theory. Cartesianism is metaphysical in the sense of isolating statements about mental life from any possibility of verification or falsification in the public world. But much of Wittgenstein's work in philosophy of mind is devoted to showing the importance of distinctions between different kinds of potentiality and actuality. These distinctions were one of the major concerns of the work of Aristotle which was the first book to bear the name Metaphysics, and were a main target of classical anti-metaphysicians. In this sense Wittgenstein himself had a metaphysics of mind; and the metaphysical sensitivity which he shared with Aristotle was what enabled him to reject Cartesianism without falling into behaviorism. In this paper I will try to illustrate different forms of metaphysics, and sketch Wittgenstein's attitude to each.

Cited authors

Aristoteles

Wittgenstein Ludwig