This article aims to defend the need to recognize the independent role of those cognitive abilities on whose behalf linguistic meaning is introduced from the proper institution of language. I call this capacity “private pattern recognition” (PPR) and argue that it plays an essential part not just in the instauration of linguistic meaning but also in other relevant cognitive phenomena such as artistic creation and understanding. Moreover, it is precisely the failure to separate both aspects that gives rise to important (...) perplexities associated with the underdetermination of meaning. The first part of the article makes a case for this thesis and addresses its compatibility with Wittgenstein's private language argument. It then focuses on the example of art to illustrate the differing roles of private pattern recognition and shared linguistic meaning. The second part of the article focuses on the paradox of resemblance (RP). It (i) considers the difficulties of Williamson's response, (ii) illustrates how they instead support the current thesis, (iii) attempts to delineate how the role of meaning should be understood, and (iv) briefly revisits the rule‐following paradox (RFP). (shrink)

It is commonly thought that mental disorder is a valid concept only in so far as it is an extension of or continuous with the concept of physical disorder. A valid extension has to meet two criteria: determination and coherence. Essentialists meet these criteria through necessary and sufficient conditions for being a disorder. Two Wittgensteinian alternatives to essentialism are considered and assessed against the two criteria. These are the family resemblance approach and the secondary sense approach. Where the focus is (...) solely on the characteristics or attributes of things, both these approaches seem to fail to meet the criteria for valid extension. However, this focus on attributes is mistaken. The criteria for valid extension are met in the case of family resemblance by the pattern of characteristics associated with a concept, and by the limits of intelligibility of applying a concept. Secondary sense, though it may have some claims to be a good account of the relation between physical and mental disorder, cannot claim to meet the two criteria of valid extension. (shrink)

I argue in the paper that the conception of family resemblance discussed by Ludwig Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations is a result of the application of Wittgenstein’s general argument against rule‑following to the pragmatics of all concepts. My argument runs as follows: First, (1) I criticize interpretations of family resemblance as a ‘local’ theory, applicable only to some concepts. Next, (2) I present and criticise a classic argument against the conception of family resemblance. In the following section, (3) I analyse attempts (...) to explicate family resemblance in terms of their possessing a common basic feature. I end my paper (4) by summarizing conclusions drawn from this critical review of literature and I briefly point to a possible solution of the difficulties generated by the concept of family resemblance. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the three interpretations of sections 65-67 in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, where he answers the question “do we call different things by the same word because of a common feature?” Interpretation A holds that we call different things by the same word because of overlapping similarities between them; Interpretation B adopts a socio-historical reading, where concepts evolved and extended historically on the basis of some similarities; and interpretation C includes aspects of the first two interpretations, but (...) sees similarities as just one of several kinds of relations and affinities between concepts which explain why we call different things by the same word. Through an investigation of Wittgenstein’s answer and the objections made to interpretation A, I argue that interpretation C, although not prominent in the secondary literature, provides better answers to the objections raised. (shrink)