Abstract

This study is an exposition and criticism of the Wittgensteinian critique of mental acts and processes. It is shown that Wittgenstein and many of his followers propose and defend a number of philosophical theses which can be discussed together under the rubric of "The Myth of Mental Acts and Processes". These theses include the view that the mind does not have a mysterious "inner nature", and, more specifically, that the words we presume to use in reference to supposed cognitive acts and processes do not have a referential function at all, or at most refer to our behaviors and the social circumstances within which these behaviors occur. ;While Part I provides a systematic and sympathetic rendering of the anti-essentialistic Wittgensteinian position on the nature of the mind, Part II examines this position in a critical light. It is argued that there are three related assumptions about language underlying the Wittgensteinian critique of mental acts and processes. These assumptions are the criterion theory of meaning, the thesis of publicity, and the thesis of linguistic primacy. Relying on recent discussions of meaning, meaning change and natural kinds of philosophers such as Hilary Putnam and Saul Kripke, Part II criticizes Wittgenstein's anti-essentialism and thus dissolves the main philosophical support for the "no nature" view of the mind. It is argued that mental acts and processes are not myths and that they are, contrary to the point of view adopted by philosophers like Malcolm, open to introspective and natural scientific investigation. In support of this claim the work of the Wurzburg psychologists and D. O. Hebb are cited as examples of the direction from which positive contributions to our understanding of the nature of the mind are likely to arise. ;The excesses of Wittgenstein's nominalism and relativism are not, it is argued, to be corrected by a wholesale conversion to essentialism and realism. "Perspectival realism" as an approach to the mind is introduced as a balanced synthesis lying somewhere on the spectrum between Malcolm and Kripke. According to perspectival realism the point of view that one takes upon the mind is a contribution of the mind as subject or investigator, whereas the discoveries that one makes about the mind from within each perspective are a non-arbitrary and essential contribution of the mind as object. Thus the "nature of the mind" can be understood differently as one approaches it from each of several points of view. It is argued that a proper and useful understanding of the mind can only be achieved through a juxtaposition and synthesis of material, functional, experiential, and agential perspectives. Whether the perspectives are themselves ultimate and/or essential to the mind's self-understanding are questions left open for a later inquiry