Remarks on Ludwig Wittgenstein and Behaviourism

Susan Byrne
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ABSTRACT

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s systematic rejection of cognitive analysis undoubtedly leads one to interpret his
work as being fundamentally influenced by behaviourism. However, despite his private language
argument, his views on ostensive definition, and his investigation into psychological concepts and
psychology as an empirical science, this paper will show that Wittgenstein’s behaviourist influences were
both relevant and limited and thus his tentative link to methodological behaviourism should not facilitate
any distortion or misrepresentation of his philosophy or be confused with his own assertions as a logical
behaviourist.
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Ludwig Wittgenstein is considered by many to be the most influential philosopher of the

twentieth century. A mathematician and an original and revolutionary philosopher of
extraordinary genius, he proposed two philosophies that were equally influential yet
diametrically opposed, one expressed in Tractatus Logico Philosophicus (1926), and the other
in Philosophical Investigations (1953). Although distinct in origin and argument there is clear
evidence of Wittgenstein’s continuity in thought with regard to language and to his on-
going investigation in to ontology, semantics and syntax. Although a calculus view of
language is presented in the Tractatus and not in the Investigations, his analogy of a game of
chess is used both in his earlier and later works to describe the workings of language, and
thus, as Glock argues, it should be considered that the Investigations transforms rather than
abandons the Tractatus’s methodological ideas1. Testimony to this is Wittgenstein’s return
to philosophy and his abandonment of not only logical atomism - the idea that the
possibility of representation rests on the existence of sempiternal objects - but also the
idea that representation presupposes an agreement in form between a proposition and a
possible state of affairs. He continued to discuss the relationship between propositions
and facts, but now as a special case of intentionality, the ‘harmony between thought and
reality’ which obtains equally between beliefs, expectations, desires, etc., and what verifies
or fulfils them2:

‘The agreement, the harmony, of thought and reality consists in this:

if I say falsely that something is red, even the red is what it isn’t.
And when I want to explain the word ‘red’ to someone, in the sentence
‘That is not red’, I do it by pointing to something red’3.

However although Wittgenstein’s conception of two language systems are separate and
distinct, the systems are nonetheless unified in sharing several features of commonality.
The term ‘family resemblance’ is an influential and significant concept across the
domains of both philosophy and psychology but for Wittgenstein it characterises the
conception of language (rather than only language), proposition and rules. He argues
that there is no one defining feature to the meaning of a word:

‘I can think of no better expression to characterise these similarities

than ‘family resemblance; for the various resemblances between

1 Glock, H. A Wittgenstein Dictionary, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1996: 27.

2 Glock, H. A Wittgenstein Dictionary, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1996: 185.
3 Wittgenstein, Ludwig Philosophical Investigations, Oxford: Blackwell, 1953: #429.

© – Susan Byrne ‘Remarks on Ludwig Wittgenstein and Behaviourism’, in Maynooth Philosophical

Papers, Issue 5 (2008), ed. by Simon Nolan (Maynooth: Department of Philosophy, National
University of Ireland, Maynooth, 2009), pp. 49–56.
 members of a family: build, features, colour of eyes; gait, temperament,
etc. overlap and criss-cross in the same way’4.

Wittgenstein applies the term family resemblance to all language-games, and in so

doing avoids the possibility of any dissimulation arising in language use. However, he
does not deny that identical words have different meanings (homographs) and separates
this issue from the notion of ambiguity. His concept of family resemblance, and his
arguments that there are no defining features or fundamental essence in order that we
may define concepts, are an attack on essentialism, i.e. all concepts appropriately used
refer to a common underlying essence that make the thing what it is. But how does
Wittgenstein form the concept family resemblance? Arguably, the formation of this
concept is fuelled by his anti-dogmatic approach to both language and philosophy (in
contrast to his logical, analytical and quasi-realist approach in Tractatus Logico Philosophicus)
which is further compounded by his attack on essentialism. Furthermore, it can be
argued that Wittgenstein’s anti-essentialist approach is also a rejection of Plato’s Forms.
A further extension of Wittgenstein’s notion of family resemblance is clearly
exemplified in his key concept language-game. The term language-game appeared first in
a Cambridge lecture (1932) which was then later, amongst other lectures, dictated to two
of Wittgenstein’s pupils (Francis Skinner and Alice Ambrose) 5 . In The Brown Book
language-games are first explained as ‘ways of using signs’ and a system of
communication. For Wittgenstein a language-game is not a doctrine or a theory of
language, and to consider it as a theoretical notion or as a key constituent part of a theory
to explain language is a further misconception of his work. But one must question
whether it is possible to give an accurate description of a language-game at all? Here one
is reminded of when Wittgenstein asks:

‘What does it mean to know what a game is? What does it mean,
to know it and not be able to say it? Is this knowledge somehow
equivalent to an unformulated definition? So that if it were formulated
I should be able to recognise it as the expression of my knowledge?
Isn’t my knowledge, my concept of a game, completely expressed in the
explanations that I could give? That is, in my describing examples of various
kinds of game; shewing how all sorts of other games can be constructed on the
analogy of these; saying that I should scarcely include this or this among games;
and so on’6

For Wittgenstein, the technique of language-games was to break the tendency,

and thus the expectation, of being able to answer questions such as: ‘What is time?’,
‘What is meaning?’, ‘What is thought?’ and ‘What are numbers?’ Connected with the
inclination to look for a substance corresponding to a substantive is the idea that, for any
given concept, there is an ‘essence’ – something that is common to all the things
subsumed under a general term. In the Blue Book one can see clearly how Wittgenstein
seeks to replace this notion of essence with the more flexible idea of family
resemblances. The search for essences is an example of the ‘craving for generality’ that
springs from our preoccupation with the method of science 7 . Furthermore, language

4Ibid.:#67
5 R.R., cited in: Wittgenstein, L. The Blue and Brown Books – Preliminary Studies for the ‘Philosophical Investigations’,
Oxford: Blackwell, 1958: v.
6 Wittgenstein, Ludwig Philosophical Investigations, Oxford: Blackwell, 1953: #75.
7 Monk, R. Ludwig Wittgenstein – The Duty of Genius, London: Vintage, 1991: 336

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functions in life, and so his term ‘form of life’ or a ‘life-form’ evolves8: words acquire
meaning as part of an activity or as part of a form. What is interesting to acknowledge
here is that his term ‘form of life’ appears a mere five times in the Investigations9 and yet
here again one can see how Wittgenstein has been misrepresented as a behaviourist
rather than a philosopher describing a form of behaviour – such as ‘language’ or
‘ostension’, and similarly often the language-game itself is seen as a ‘game’ and thus a tool
for examining and understanding ‘behaviour’.
Wittgenstein’s interest in psychology as a philosopher has fuelled many debates
about his behavioural viewpoints. His interest in this discipline is exemplified clearly in
many of his works, such as : The Blue and Brown Books, Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology
Volumes 1 & 2, and Part II of the Investigations. However, despite his significant and
relentless attention in this area, Wittgenstein rejects all cognitive analysis and asserts that
philosophy is not a cognitive discipline (thus his failure to address the biological aspect of
language development 10 ). Glock maintains that there are no propositions expressing
philosophical knowledge – and cannot emulate the methods of science…..Wittgenstein’s
methodological views are based on the conviction that, unlike science, philosophy is
concerned not with truth, or matters of fact, but with meaning11. Wittgenstein’s main
concern in the Investigations can be found in language and behaviour, a language system
that is essentially a theory of language, that is, a language-game view of life. Ray Monk
describes the language-game as ‘a (usually fictitious) primitive form of language in which
one particular aspect of our language – say, the role of names – is highlighted by being
separated from the complicated contexts in which it is usually embedded. The idea is
that we will be able to ‘see the connection’ between this simplified case and language as it
is used in real life’ 12 . For Wittgenstein philosophical problems evince conceptual
confusions which arise out of the distortion or misapprehension of words with which we
are perfectly familiar outside philosophy. These problems should not be answered by
constructing theories, but dissolved by describing the rules for the use of the words
concerned13.
Wittgenstein clearly understands the role of context in an account of linguistic
interaction; nonetheless, he uses the term ‘context’ sparingly. Yet again, in the
Investigations this term ‘context’ appears only six times and always in the ordinary rather
than the technical sense. This is so because he idiosyncratically reconceptualises
linguistic interaction in terms of language-games and forms of life. Thus, according to
Wittgenstein, a hierarchy of embedding consists of words and expressions embedded in
language-games, which in turn, are embedded in a variety of forms of life (for instance,
biological, social or cultural)14. In the Investigations he is concerned with how the role of
language is involved in human behaviour, thus the Investigations becomes his investigation
into the workings of language and grammar, rather than an investigation into behaviour
despite the argument that in order to ascertain whether one understands a concept or
word one is directed towards another’s behaviour for the answer. Fundamentally,
knowledge of language and language use are seen not only in linguistic terms but also in
the behaviour of the individual: to fully grasp and understand a word is to be able to use

8 Wittgenstein, Ludwig Philosophical Investigations, Oxford: Blackwell, 1953: #19

9 Curry, Michael R.: in Orang, M., Thrift, N., (eds) Thinking Space, London: Routledge, 2000: 89.
10 Hathcock, D. Wittgenstein, Behaviourism, and Language Acquisition;
http://www.drury.edu/multinl/story.cfm?ID=2435&NLID=166, 2000.
11 Glock, H. A Wittgenstein Dictionary, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1996: 27.
12 Monk, R., How to Read Wittgenstein, London: Granta Books, 2005: 74.
13 Glock, H. A Wittgenstein Dictionary, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1996: 27.
14 Kopytko, R. Philosophy and Pragmatics: A Language-game with Ludwig Wittgenstein, Journal of Pragmatics, 39

(2007) 792-812.

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it; the ability to use is actualised and shown in the using and thus this use is reflected in
behaviour.
Analytical or logical behaviourism, with its historical roots in logical positivism as
exemplified in the earlier work of Wittgenstein, is a theory within philosophy about the
meaning or semantics of mental terms or concepts. It states that the very idea of a
mental state or condition is the idea of a behavioural disposition or family of behavioural
tendencies (could this term be aligned to Wittgenstein’s concept ‘family resemblance’?).
For example, when a belief is attributed to someone, one is not saying that he or she is in
a particular internal state or condition. Instead one is characterising the person in terms
of what he or she might do in particular situations or environmental interactions. This
type of behaviourism – analytical – can be seen clearly in the work of Gilbert Ryle (1900
– 1976) and arguably a version of this type of behaviourism can also be traced in the
work of Daniel Dennett on the ascription of states of consciousness via a method he
calls ‘heterophenomenology’. Similarly, Willard Van Orman Quine took a behaviourist
approach to the study of language. He claimed that the notion of psychological or
mental activity has no place in a scientific account in either the origins or the meaning of
speech. To talk in a scientifically disciplined manner about the meaning of an utterance
is to talk about stimuli for the utterance, its so-called ‘stimulus meaning’15. However, this
interpretation of analytic or logical behaviourism raises the question of whether
Wittgenstein actually fitted this category? Would it be more accurate to suggest that
Wittgenstein has been misinterpreted as a behaviourist in the psychological sense rather
than any philosophical one? Furthermore, according to behaviourism, mental state
descriptions are really disguised or shorthand versions of behavioural descriptions. Thus,
they cannot be invoked to explain the same chunks of behaviour. Aside from providing
a rich description of mental phenomena throughout the Investigations, Wittgenstein
himself explicitly rejects the accusation16:

‘Are you not really a behaviourist in disguise? Aren’t you at bottom really
saying that everything except human behaviour is a fiction? – If I do speak of a fiction,
then it is of a grammatical fiction’17

Furthermore, Wittgenstein asks how does the philosophical problem – even if it

is only conceptual - about mental processes and states, and about behaviourism arise?

The first step is he one that altogether escapes notice. We talk of

processes and states and leave their nature undecided. Sometimes
perhaps we shall know more about them – we think. But that is just
what commits us to a particular way of looking at the matter. For we
have a definite concept of what it means to learn to know a process better…..So
we have to deny the yet uncomprehended process in the
yet unexplored medium. And now it looks as if we had denied mental processes.
And naturally we don’t want to deny them18.

Here Wittgenstein acknowledges – to an extent – that there is more to know

15 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Behaviourism: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviourism/,

2007.
16 Thornton, T. Wittgenstein on Language and Thought: The Philosophy of Content, ,Edinburgh: Edinburgh

University Press: 1988: 120.

17 Wittgenstein, Ludwig Philosophical Investigations, Oxford: Blackwell, 1953: #307.
18 Ibid. # 308.

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about the nature, and perhaps arguably ‘essence’, of mental processes and states even if
for now one must deny the ‘uncomprehended process’ in the ‘unexplored medium’. One
could reasonably suggest here that in light of the developments within cognitive
psychology as a science that the then ‘uncomprehended process’ is now considered to be
mental processes such as attention, perception, memory, knowledge, reasoning and
language, and that the ‘unexplored medium’ refers to the mind?
Wittgenstein’s later philosophy of psychology retains points of contact with
logical behaviourism. It rejects the dualist account of the mental as inalienable and
epistemically private. It accepts, albeit as an empirical fact, that language-learning (and
thereby the possession of a complex mental life) is founded on brute ‘training’
(Abrichtung), rather than genuine EXPLANATION, and presupposes natural patterns of
behaviour and reaction, to be activated by certain stimuli. And it claims that the
ascription of psychological predicates to other people is logically connected with
behaviour 19 . However, Wittgenstein’s connection in his later philosophy to logical
behaviourism is not sufficient to assert that he was a behaviourist – indeed
methodological behaviourism and logical behaviourism are sufficiently distinct, and
similarly even though he systematically rejects cognitive analysis he does not deny the
existence of a complex mental life, particularly when he refers to mentalistic concepts:

‘We are tempted to think that the action of language

consists of two parts: an inorganic part, the handling of signs,
and an organic part, which we may call understanding these signs,
meaning them, interpreting them, thinking. These latter activities
seem to take place in a queer kind of medium, the mind; and the
mechanism of the mind, the nature of which, it seems, we don’t
quite understand, can bring about effects which no material
mechanism could’20.

One of the best ways to understand language-games is to see them as a network

of connections, or at least producing an understanding that allows one to see
connections. Furthermore, while language-games are primitive forms of language they
are supposed to be ‘complete’. Teaching practices, by contrast, are fragments of
language:

‘They are more or less akin to what in ordinary language

we call games……We are not, however, regarding the language-games
which we describe as incomplete parts of a language, but as languages
complete in themselves, as complete systems of human
communication…’21.

Wittgenstein tried to show that not all meaningful uses of language are
meaningful in the same way; for example, names derive their meaning from a definite
association or correlation with a specific object or person; however, not all words are
names - the thing or person that is the bearer of the name is not itself or herself the
meaning of the name22.

19 Glock, H. A Wittgenstein Dictionary, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1996: 57.

20 Wittgenstein, L. cited in: Monk, R., How to Read Wittgenstein, London: Granta Books, 2005: 74
21 Wittgenstein, L. The Blue Book, London: Blackwell Publishing, 1958: 81.
22 Monk, R. How to Read Wittgenstein, London: Granta Books, 2005: 73.

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 Was Wittgenstein a behaviourist? is undoubtedly a contentious question and
one that has been asked by not only many eminent psychologists but also by
philosophers, scholars and critics. It is a factious area of enquiry with many complex
matters to consider before any judgement can be made. In psychology, behaviourism is
the view that human activity is accounted for by descriptions of one’s behaviour. For
example, Mary Jo is visibly upset. The description of her behaviour includes using the
terms crying, anxious and sobbing; it is from observing Mary Jo’s behaviour - crying,
anxious and sobbing – that one can give an account or description of her behaviour.
However, in philosophy, and in particular with reference to the philosophy of mind,
logical behaviourism argues that one’s mental concepts can be defined in terms of one’s
behaviour, in the sense that statements about one’s mind can be translated into
statements about one’s behaviour, thus there is an interconnection between concepts and
behaviour, and mind and behaviour. The general term ‘behaviourist’ has been applied to
Wittgenstein, perhaps only because he places an emphasis on meaning and ‘meaning as
use’ within a social context (how one is using language), and yet no detailed examination
and specific definition of the type of behaviourism he is supposed to have held is
available. Thornton argues that there are close ties between mental states and behaviour.
Because mental states content depends on linguistic content, being able to form mental
states requires underlying practical abilities to use and explain signs. These practical
abilities pay a constitutive role in the formation of mental states. Thus, there is an a-
priori and analytic connection between mental states and behaviour. However, one has
to ask whether that connection is sufficient to warrant the generality of Wittgenstein
being labelled a behaviourist?23
Behaviourism, as a prominent paradigm in the 1940s and 50s, placed an emphasis
on the study of learning rather than focusing on psychological functioning; behaviourists
were interested in seeing and understanding the effects of stimulus-response reactions –
that which is considered to be ‘observable’ and ‘objective’ as opposed to that which is
‘inward’ or a form of introspection both of which are neither observable or objective.
When Wittgenstein was working on the Investigations, behaviourism was at the same time
concerned with attempting to put forward a ‘theory of behaviour’. (One could arguably
align this with the assertion that Wittgenstein’s language-game, as explicated in the
Investigations, similarly constitutes a ‘theory of language’.) The proposed theory of
behaviour was based on the principles of conditioning, S-R reactions, and on
environmental determinants of behaviour. (However, some problems that have been
associated with behaviourism include the issue that environmental stimuli are accounted
for while internal factors such as past knowledge and experience are ignored. It is
because of dissatisfaction with behaviourism that the development of the cognitive
approach was born.)
Without exception, logic would have played an important role without
Wittgenstein, due mainly to Frege, Russell and Carnap but it was Wittgenstein who
provided a powerful methodological rationale for its role, and who brought language into
the equation24. He characterises logical truths not in terms of form or structure, but by
reference to linguistic behaviour. He views language as essentially guided by norms. It is
this normativist conception of language which allows him to make sense of, rather than
to reject, the notion of logical necessity 25 . The Investigations shows clearly how
Wittgenstein abandoned logical atomism but retained the idea of a ‘phenomenological’

23 Thornton, T. Wittgenstein on Language and Thought: The Philosophy of Content, ,Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press: 1988: 120.
24 Glock, H. A Wittgenstein Dictionary, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1996: 28
25 Ibid.: 135

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primary language hidden beneath the surface of ordinary language 26 . Wittgenstein
wanted to write a book to continue, and later to correct, his earlier work (The Tractatus).
For many, as Bryan Magee states, to understand Wittgenstein is to understand his
‘matter’ and thus it is no surprise to observe how often he has been misunderstood and
misinterpreted, by both scholars and critics. The Investigations is exemplary of this:
Wittgenstein never suggests that language is a ‘game’ but that language is similar to games
in terms of its network of connections and family resemblances. Furthermore, because
of the structure and terseness of the Investigations, the complex nature of the language-
game can be difficult to access and understand; nonetheless the Investigations is a
continuation of his ideas about language and its constituent parts: ontology, semantics
and syntax. It is questionable whether Wittgenstein ever abandoned the calculus view of
language. However, by the time the Blue and Brown Books were circulating he had
replaced the term ‘calculus’ with ‘language-game’ and thus this would indicate a definite
shift in his conception of language. However, both the calculus and language-game are
rule-governed but it is Wittgenstein’s conception of these rules, and their application,
that has altered: ‘if anyone utters a sentence and means or understands it he is operating a
calculus according to definite rules’ 27 . Wittgenstein claims that the calculus view of
language does not reflect the essential nature of reality but is autonomous. For him, the
‘meaning’ of a mathematical sign, like that of a chess piece, is the sum of the rules that
determine its possible moves28. What differentiates applied mathematics and language
from chess and pure mathematics is merely their ‘application’, the way in which they
engage with other (linguistics and non linguistic) activities29. Just as the calculus view of
language highlights similarities between language and formal systems, the term language-
game highlights the similarities between language and games, and thus the link to
behaviour can be seen yet again.
A further anomaly in Wittgenstein’s alleged allegiance to behaviourism can be
identified when he suggests that language is impossible to transcend and that it can never
be explained from an ‘outside’ perspective but is only explicable from within the
workings of language itself: language is obscured when ‘instead of looking at the whole
language-game, we only look at the contexts, the phrases of language in which the word is
used’30. (One could argue here that when he denies the explanation of language from an
outside perspective he is in fact disclaiming a form of behaviourism.) The language-game
is language in action, and for Wittgenstein as a logical behaviourist it is also language as
behaviour. Speaking a language and using words is an analogy to playing games, also
behavioural: both (using words and playing games) are human activities, social and
shared communal processes that are systematic and are rule-governed. However,
although he did not abandon the idea that language is rule-governed, he clarified it,
comparing language no longer to a calculus but to a game. Unlike these analogies, the
idea that language is rule-governed is not just a heuristic device; understanding a language
involves mastery of techniques concerning the application of rules. Wittgenstein
continues to stress the link between language, meaning and rules (ontology, semantics
and syntax)31: ‘following according to rule is FUNDAMENTAL to our language-game’32.

26 Ibid.: 23.
27 Wittgenstein, Ludwig Philosophical Investigations, Oxford: Blackwell, 1953: #81.
28 Glock, H. A Wittgenstein Dictionary, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1996: 23.
29 Wittgenstein, Ludwig in Ludwig Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle (1929-1932) 103-5, 124, 150-1, 163, 170;

MS 166 28-9; Laws II #88; cited in Glock, H. A Wittgenstein Dictionary, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1996:
193.
30 Wittgenstein, L. The Brown Book, London: Blackwell Publishing, 1958: 108.
31 Glock, H. A Wittgenstein Dictionary, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1996: 151
32Wittgenstein, L. Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics [1937-44], ed. G.H. von Wright, R. Rhees & G.

E. M. Anscombe, tr. G.E.M. Anscombe, re. edn, Oxford: Blackwell, 1978:330.

55
Both language and games are contextual and share several features rather than one
defining characteristic that suggest how they should be categorised. However, although
the language-game is rule-driven, the rules are applied loosely as opposed to strict and
rigorous rules that one might apply to science. A language-game does not always follow
strict rules:

‘It is not everywhere circumscribed by rules; but no more are

there any rules for how high one throws the ball in tennis, or how hard;
yet tennis is a game for all that and has rules too.’33

A language-game refers to a social based context where human beings relate to, engage
with and understand one another. As in games, a language-game will have (or develop)
its own rules for understanding and interpreting the many and varied aspects of its use of
language. However, this does not prevent contradictions or some confusion arising
when aspects of one language-game may be set aside with similar aspects to another
language-game.
Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mind has often been interpreted – or arguably
misinterpreted - as a form of behaviourism. However, as a behaviourist, or perhaps a
philosopher with behaviourist viewpoints, he introduced language in a broader context
and with no specific link to cognitive processing. Wittgenstein asks how does language
function in life and what roles does language play in human thinking and in human
behaviour, and it is these fundamental questions that separate him from a behaviourist
stance and anchor him firmly in logic and language. Similarly, his interest in establishing
broader descriptions as opposed to concrete definitions distinguishes his language-game
as innovative and impossible to describe. Furthermore describing or labelling
Wittgenstein as a behaviourist is arguably a profound misconception of his work and
distorts any potential appreciation and understanding of his philosophy. Perhaps all one
can conclude is that while he was open to some vague behaviourist assumptions within
the paradigm of psychology at the time of the Investigations, he was without doubt and
exception, a logical behaviourist in the fullest sense, and remained so even as he
undermined positivism in his later works.
Perhaps, at best, we are left asking the more relevant and integral question: would
Wittgenstein have clarified his position in his psychological writings in philosophy if he
knew how much he was going to be misinterpreted and misunderstood, particularly in
relation to behaviourism?

33 Wittgenstein, L. Philosophical Investigations, Oxford: Blackwell, 1953: #68.

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