Wittgensteinian Criticism of Ideas on Thinking Machines

Abstract

In this paper I analyze Wittgenstein’s criticism of several assumptions that are crucial for a large part of cognitive science. In my opinion, theorists of cognitive science have not yet seriously considered Wittgenstein’s criticisms and, quite surprisingly, frequently confuse the question “how does it work?” with “what does it do?” Their most “deleterious” mistake, however, is their confusion of the internal computational (or parallel) processes taking place in the brain (possibly causing mental states) with the external, socially-based, everyday criteria of recognition and classification and knowledge of the content of mental states.