Wittgenstein, Ludwig - (b. 1889, Vienna, Austria, d. 1951, Cambridge, UK). Wittgenstein’s most important contribution to psychology is his articulation of skepticism about traditional philosophical theories of what it is to possess a concept, or understand a word, which explain these capacities in terms of explicit knowledge of necessary and sufficient conditions.
Wittgenstein studied mechanical engineering in Berlin and Manchester, England. His interest in engineering led to an interest in mathematics which in turn got him thinking about philosophical questions about the foundations of mathematics. He visited Frege who recommended that he study with Bertrand Russell in Cambridge. At Cambridge Wittgenstein greatly impressed Russell and began work on logic. The result of his thinking on logic was the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus which was eventually published in 1922 with Russell's help. Having thus, in his opinion, solved all the problems of philosophy left Cambridge to become a school teacher in Austria. In 1929 he returned to Cambridge to teach at Trinity College, recognizing that in fact he had more work to do in philosophy. He became professor of philosophy at Cambridge in 1939. He resigned his professorship in 1947 to concentrate on writing. By 1949 he had written all the material that was published after his death as Philosophical Investigations (1953), arguably his most important work. Wittgenstein’s most important contribution to psychology is his articulation of skepticism about traditional philosophical theories of what it is to possess a concept, or understand a word, which explain these capacities in terms of explicit knowledge of necessary and sufficient conditions. According to Wittgenstein, the knowledge required to possess a concept or use a linguistic item is an implicit, inarticulable knowledge of the ‘family resemblances’ between situations and objects. This general approach to understanding language and concept use has influenced the prototype theory of concepts, and theories of the representational capacities of connectionist computational models.
Audi, Robert, ed. (1995). The Cambridge dictionary of philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press. [bookstore]
Thanks to our sponsors: Custom logo design by logobee