Intelligence without Essence: Rejecting the Classical Theory of Definition

摘要

"To show the fly the way out of the fly bottle"-that, Ludwig Wittgenstein said, was the aim of his philosophy. The comment, in Philosophical Investigations (PI), was directed at his fellow philosophers-including his younger self-who get caught in seemingly escapable glass traps by covetously observing success in science and its ability to give reductive explanations. But the concepts Wittgenstein and his contemporaries were interested in were highly resistant to the scientific method. He compared their endless struggle for a structured logical form applicable to everything with the fly, which constantly attempts to escape by slamming into the inside of the transparent bottle. What was needed, Wittgenstein observed, was a way out-a liberation from the glass prison of pretend obstacles philosophers had put in front of themselves, by paying attention to the role concepts really play in thought and language. "Don't think, but look!" Wittgenstein repeatedly bellows in Philosophical Investigations.