Conclusion: Wittgenstein and the Turing Test

Abstract

After dealing at length with the interpretation of Wittgenstein’s work, I will now show in what way his analysis of psychological concepts is important for present-day developments in psychology and philosophy. The relevance of conceptual analyses of ordinary psychological concepts to empirical psychology has already been illustrated in previous chapters by reconstructions of the criticism which Wittgenstein levels at the psychology of notably James and Kohler. My view is that all empirical research makes use of concepts and can therefore benefit from logical specification of them. The importance of specification is all the greater when the concepts are largely rooted in the context of everyday life, as so often in psychology. In everyday life the use of concepts like ‘thinking’, ‘observing’, ‘hoping’, or ‘imagining’ is highly complex and related in the most subtle manner to ways of life and specific situations that are difficult to pinpoint. If there is an inadequate grasp of the complicated way in which these concepts are embedded in language-games and forms of life — and in fact there is, according to Wittgenstein — the transfer of these concepts to empirical psychology will often be problematic too.