Wittgenstein and contemporary theories of word learning

Wittgenstein's positions on word learning, rules of use, and the impossibility of a private language, as expounded in his Philosophical Investigations, are examined in relation to issues of early child word learning. Current theoretical positions in the cognitivist mode are contrasted with the social cultural pragmatic approach, and each is compared to the principles that Wittgenstein advanced. Bloom's [(2000). How children learn the meanings of words. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press] version of the cognitivist theory rejects most of the principles that Wittgenstein advanced, relying on innate cognitive endowments to explain children's success in word learning, using the word-referent mapping paradigm. Nelson's “use without meaning” and Tomasello's [(2003). Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press] social-pragmatic model of learning from use are presented as representative of Wittgensteinian principles that meaning exists in and is inferred from the uses of words within communal activities (“language games” in “forms of life”).     

Wittgenstein and the memory debate

In this paper, I survey the impact on neuropsychology of Wittgenstein's elucidations of memory. Wittgenstein discredited the storage and imprint models of memory, dissolved the conceptual link between memory and mental images or representations and, upholding the context-sensitivity of memory, made room for a family resemblance concept of memory, where remembering can also amount to doing or saying something. While neuropsychology is still generally under the spell of archival and physiological notions of memory, Wittgenstein's reconceptions can be seen at work in its leading-edge practitioners. However, neuroscientists, generally, are finding memory difficult to demarcate from other cognitive and noncognitive processes, and I suggest this is largely due to their considering automatic responses as part of memory, termed nondeclarative or implicit memory. Taking my lead from Wittgenstein's On Certainty, I argue that there is only remembering where there is also some kind of mnemonic effort or attention, and, therefore, that so-called implicit memory is not memory at all, but a basic, noncognitive certainty.     

Psychology and personalism by William Stern

In 1916, shortly after his move from Breslau to Hamburg, William Stern wrote in a letter dated October 10 and addressed to his colleague and friend, the Freiburg philosopher Jonas Cohn, that the second volume of a planned three-volume series setting forth that comprehensive system of thought called ‘critical personalism’ was “essentially finished.” He wrote further that that work, in combination with a “little booklet” (Broschüre) titled Psychology and Personalism (Die Psychologie und der Personalismus) should “fashion a bridge” between his philosophical and psychological teachings. Due to a paper shortage in Germany during World War I, the larger of the two works mentioned by Stern in this letter would not actually appear until 2 years later. The “little booklet,” however, could be published sooner, and in fact appeared in 1917. What follows is a translation of that work. It sets forth the principle tenets of critical personalism in a relatively concise and accessible way, and is thus not only worthy of attention in its own right but also offers readers of this Special Issue helpful background for the papers that follow.I am very grateful to Lothar Laux and Karl-Heinz Renner for their careful reading of an earlier draft of my translation against the original publication. As native speakers of German, Laux and Renner made numerous suggestions that I gladly implemented in the interest of improving the quality of the translation. For such infelicities as remain I take full responsibility.     

Is Wittgenstein's Resort to Ordinary Language an Appeal to Empirical facts?

There are two widely held views in the literature as regards Wittgenstein's philosophy. One says that Wittgenstein in his later work appeals to ordinary language in his effort to show how the philosophical problems can be dissolved, and the other says that his investigation is a grammatical one. This paper undertakes to examine what is meant by a grammatical investigation, especially in view of the fact that this investigation relies on empirical facts that have to do with linguistic usage. The examination is carried out by concentrating on what Wittgenstein has to say on the issue of knowledge – in particular, how the way we use the word contributes to the dismissal of Moore's answer to the challenge of scepticism. The conclusion is that Wittgenstein's resort to ordinary language is not typically empirical. The examples of ordinary usage that he cites may be contingent, but they could not have been different given the language games they are part of. The correct use of words Wittgenstein appeals to is not fixed by some kind of essence, but neither is it decided by a majority rule. It gets entrenched in a complex nexus of practices. Wittgenstein's reference to "use" instead of 'usage"and to "linguistic facts" instead of "sociological facts" lends support more to a logical than to an empirical investigation.     

Emergence and reduction in dynamical cognitive science

This paper examines the widespread intuition that the dynamical approach to cognitive science is importantly related to emergentism about the mind. The explanatory practices adopted by dynamical cognitive science rule out some conceptions of emergence; covering law explanations require a deducibility relationship between explanans and explanandum, whereas canonical theories of emergence require the absence of such deducibility. A response to this problem - one which would save the intuition that dynamics and emergence are related - is to reconstrue the concept of emergence as a relationship between laws. I call this “nomological emergence” and comment on the extent to which dynamicists would find it acceptable. Alternatively, dynamical cognitive science might be viewed as fitting better with the kind of “functional reductionism” which has recently been developed by authors such as Jaegwon Kim. Which of these two alternatives is preferable remains an open question pending the further development of dynamical cognitive science, particularly in its “non-classical” forms.     

An artificial opposition between grammaticality and frequency: comment on

In a recent Cognition paper (Cognition 85 (2002) B21), Bornkessel, Schlesewsky, and Friederici report ERP data that they claim “show that online processing difficulties induced by word order variations in German cannot be attributed to the relative infrequency of the constructions in question, but rather appear to reflect the application of grammatical principles during parsing” (p. B21). In this commentary we demonstrate that the posited contrast between grammatical principles and construction (in)frequency as sources of parsing problems is artificial because it is based on factually incorrect assumptions about the grammar of German and on inaccurate corpus frequency data concerning the German constructions involved.     

The ‘circumstances’ of gestures: Proto-interrogatives and private gestures

The later Wittgenstein's emphasis on the social usage of language has been very influential in psychology, particularly in language acquisition research. This move toward a pragmatic position should also be applied to gestures in pre-linguistic children and to objects in the everyday contexts of use. The shared ‘forms of life’ presupposed by language involve pre-linguistic gestures and material ‘things’.Research on early communication has focused on proto-declarative and proto-imperative gestures. I extend this focus and propose further types of gestures: ‘proto-interrogatives’ - in which children “ask” for help or regulation from adults, and three types of ‘private gestures’ - ostensive, indexical and symbolic - in which children regulate their own behaviour. This diversity of gestures becomes apparent when objects are taken seriously. Wittgenstein's ‘language-games’ necessarily apply to games with objects and gestures as well: social meaning in all cases is emergent within the context of these ‘sign games’ and ‘circumstances.’     

The "Iowa Way" revisited

This paper attempts to bridge the gap between past and present stuttering therapy approaches. Specifically, the ideas and methods of Wendell Johnson and Dean Williams are compared to current approaches used in treating mental illness and communication disorders in which there is an emphasis on focusing on what is “right” with the individual and spending less time focusing on the “disorder”. There is particular emphasis on tying Johnson's and Williams’ overall philosophy to modern psychological approaches rooted in “Positive Psychology”, to highlight how these early ideas in stuttering therapy may help us to discover the common factors that underlie the success of several different stuttering therapy approaches, independent of the specific techniques employed. It is proposed that future research on clinical efficacy in stuttering should use focused hypotheses techniques to investigate common factors that make therapy effective across individuals and therapy approaches.Educational objectives: The reader will be able to: (1) summarize the basic philosophy of the “Iowa” approach to stuttering as laid out by Wendell Johnson and Dean Williams; (2) describe current therapeutic techniques that incorporate “positive psychology”; (3) discuss possible common factors that influence therapy outcome that are independent of the therapeutic technique employed.     

Informational length and order of presentation as determinants of persuasion

The present paper explores the notion that an important difference between prior operational definitions of “cue” or “heuristic” information versus “message argument” information has to do with differential processing difficulty, and relative ordinal position of these two information types. In previous work, “cue/heuristic” information typically differed from “message argument” information not only in its contents, but also in it being (1) briefer, and (2) presented prior to the message information. We find that it is relative brevity and ordinal position rather than contents that ultimately explain the differences in persuasive impact between “cue/heuristic” versus “message argument” information. In so far as both “cues” and “message arguments” can vary in brevity and order with which they are presented, these findings are consistent with the view that these two information types do not necessarily differ in their persuasive impact.     

Special Sciences: still a flawed argument after all these years

Jerry Fodor has argued that the multiple realizability argument, as discussed in his original “Special Sciences” article, “refutes psychophysical reductionism once and for all.” I argue that his argument in “Special Sciences” does no such thing. Furthermore, if one endorses the physicalism that most supporters of the “Special Sciences” view endorse, special science laws must be reducible, in principle. The compatibility of MR with reduction, however, need not threaten the autonomy of the special sciences.     

Processing typology and why psychologists need to know about it

This paper illustrates an interdisciplinary research program based on cross-linguistic comparison that is of relevance for psychologists working on language processing, so-called “processing typology” [Hawkins, J. A. (1994). A performance theory of order and constituency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; (2004). Efficiency and complexity in grammars. Oxford: Oxford University Press]. Its most original feature is the hypothesis that patterns and preferences found in performance in languages with several structures of a given type (e.g. preferences among alternative word orders) are the same patterns and preferences one finds across languages in the fixed conventions of grammars that permit less variation (i.e. in fixed word orders). Data supporting this “performance-grammar correspondence hypothesis” are summarized. One of its consequences is that principles of performance can be used to make predictions for patterns of grammatical variation, while preferences in grammars become relevant for the testing of psycholinguistic ideas. Two proposed principles of ordering in performance, in terms of “end weight” and “memory cost”, are criticized on the basis of cross-linguistic data. Both predict an asymmetry in ordering, whereby some category A precedes B. But end weight is not a valid cross-linguistic asymmetry, and memory cost cannot explain certain asymmetries for which it has been invoked when different language types are considered. The paper argues for greater mutual awareness between processing theorists and language typologists, for more consideration of non-European grammars and language types in psycholinguistics, and for a greater appeal to processing in the explanation of typological variation.     

Callings in career: A typological approach to essential and optional components

A sense of calling in career is supposed to have positive implications for individuals and organizations but current theoretical development is plagued with incongruent conceptualizations of what does or does not constitute a calling. The present study used cluster analysis to identify essential and optional components of a presence of calling among 407 German undergraduate students from different majors. Three types of calling merged: “negative career self-centered”, “pro-social religious”, and “positive varied work orientation”. All types could be described as vocational identity achieved (high commitment/high self-exploration), high in career confidence and career engagement. Not defining characteristics were centrality of work or religion, endorsement of specific work values, or positivity of core self-evaluations. The results suggest that callings entail intense self-exploration and might be beneficial because they correspond with identity achievement and promote career confidence and engagement while not necessarily having pro-social orientations. Suggestions for future research, theory and practice are suggested.     

Get an Apprenticeship before School Is Out: How German Adolescents Adjust Vocational Aspirations When Getting Close to a Developmental Deadline

Opportunities to attain important life goals are sequenced in age-graded trajectories that wax and wane throughout life. A prime example of such age-graded opportunity structures is the transition from school to work. The institutions of vocational training in Germany closely scaffold this transition and provide developmental deadlines for attaining the critical transition, namely finding an apprenticeship position. Adjustments of vocational aspirations are investigated with regard to the social prestige of three indicators of aspirations, “dream job,” “vocation I am interested in,” and apprenticeships applied for. Findings indicate that adolescents progressively adjusted their “dream job” to “job I am interested in” as the deadline approaches. Moreover, overall adolescents matched their school performance to the social prestige of apprenticeships for which they applied. Boys and girls whose motivational orientation did not match their gender prototype attained particularly high levels of achievement and aspiration.     

How are Bayesian models really used? Reply to

In response to the proposal that cognitive phenomena might be best understood in terms of cognitive theories (Endress, 2013), Frank (2013) outlined an important research program, suggesting that Bayesian models should be used as rigorous, mathematically attractive implementations of psychological theories. This research program is important and promising. However, I show that it is not followed in practice. I then turn to Frank’s defense of the assumption that learners prefer more specific rules (the “size principle”), and show that the results allegedly supporting this assumption do not provide any support for it. Further, I demonstrate that, in contrast to Frank’s criticisms, there is no circularity in an account of rule-learning based on “common-sense psychology”, and that Frank’s other criticisms of this account are unsupported. I conclude that the research program outlined by Frank is important and promising, but needs to be followed in practice. Be that as it might, the rule-learning experiments discussed by Frank are still better explained by simple psychological mechanisms.     

The embodied cognition theory and the motor component of “yes” and “no” verbal responses

Most of the experiments which give theories of embodied cognition their empirical anchorage only take into consideration the motor responses induced by the task or the motor component of the visual stimulus. And yet, these motor responses are often associated with a linguistic answer. Our hypothesis is that “YES” and “NO” verbal responses have a motor component. In a first experiment we showed that producing a verbal response (YES vs. NO) involves motor planning (pushing vs. pulling): participants push a lever more quickly when they have to answer “yes” than “no”, and conversely, they pull a lever more quickly when they have to answer “no” than “yes”. Moreover, in a second experiment, we showed that perceiving the words “YES” and “NO”, on its own, leads to the same motor planning than when “yes” and “no” answers actually have to be produced. Participants detect the word “YES” faster when they have to push a lever than when they have to pull it and conversely they detect the word “NO” faster when they have to pull the lever than when they have to push it down. These results are discussed in reference to “online” and “offline embodiment” concepts and to the cognitive linguistic theories.     

Sick? Or slow? On the origins of intelligence as a psychological object

This paper examines the first moments of the emergence of “psychometrics” as a discipline, using a history of the Binet–Simon test (precursor to the Stanford–Binet) to engage the question of how intelligence became a “psychological object.” To begin to answer this, we used a previously-unexamined set of French texts to highlight the negotiations and collaborations that led Alfred Binet (1857–1911) to identify “mental testing” as a research area worth pursuing. This included a long-standing rivalry with Désiré-Magloire Bourneville (1840–1909), who argued for decades that psychiatrists ought to be the professional arbiters of which children would be removed from the standard curriculum and referred to special education classes in asylums. In contrast, Binet sought to keep children in schools and conceived of a way for psychologists to do this. Supported by the Société libre de l'étude psychologique de l'enfant [Free society for the psychological study of the child], and by a number of collaborators and friends, he thus undertook to create a “metric” scale of intelligence—and the associated testing apparatus—to legitimize the role of psychologists in a to-that-point psychiatric domain: identifying and treating “the abnormal”. The result was a change in the earlier law requiring all healthy French children to attend school, between the ages of 6 and 13, to recognize instead that otherwise normal children sometimes need special help: they are “slow” (arriéré), but not “sick.” This conceptualization of intelligence was then carried forward, through the test's influence on Lewis Terman (1877–1956) and Lightner Witmer (1867–1956), to shape virtually all subsequent thinking about intelligence testing and its role in society.     

Logic and Sin: Wittgenstein's Philosophical Education at the Limits of Language

Unfortunately, Wittgenstein has entered the philosophical canon, an entrance that has served to reify interpretations of his work. In this essay I refer to recent books by Richard Eldridge (1997) and Phillip Shields (1998) which allow us again to see The Philosophical Investigations as something more than a stultifying relic. Specifically, these authors, by reading Wittgenstein's work not merely as text but also as performance, allow us to enact our own liberating performances of that work. To engage in such enactments of freedom is the essence of philosophical education in the sense established by extra-canonical writers such as Socrates and the Stoics, on the one hand, and Emerson and James, on the other. At least this is so if my use of the work of classicist Pierre Hadot, on the one hand, and brief reference to literary critic Richard Poirier, on the other, is at all successful in illuminating theses from Eldridge and Shields on the nature of Wittgensteinian philosophy.     

Wittgenstein and the discursive analysis of emotion

This paper explores the implications of Wittgenstein's analysis of language, emotion and expression for contemporary theory and research on emotion. According to Wittgenstein, emotional expressions operate as public manifestations of emotional experience. As a result, it is meaningful to say third-person observers can “know” another's emotional experience. Building upon these ideas, a discursive approach to the analysis of emotional states is proposed. Everyday emotion words specify the public criteria that people use to “read experience off” another's emotional expressions. The identification of emotion proceeds through a dialectical process involving judgment and reflection. Observers (a) use everyday emotion words to make intuitive, pre-reflective classification of another's emotional experience; (b) reflect upon and make explicit the public criteria that mediate their implicit pre-reflective judgments; and (c) continue the judgment-reflection cycle until the meaning of the other's expressions is exhausted. The discursive approach is illustrated through an analysis of expressed emotion within psychotherapeutic dialogue.     

Making sense of Turiel's dispute with Kohlberg: the case of the child's moral competence

This study attempts to make conceptual and empirical sense of Turiel's dispute with Kohlberg concerning the child's moral competence. Forty-eight children from two age-levels (24 6-year-olds, and 24 8-year-olds; Experiment 1), and 20 young adults aged between 17 and 21 years (Experiment 2) were confronted with hypothetical situations in which two apparently immoral acts (stealing and lying) were right if a principled or reversible exchange of perspectives were adopted. Contrary to what would be expected from Turiel's claim about the child's sophisticated moral competence, children, but not young adults, judged the acts at hand more in accord with a pattern of pseudo-moral necessity or fuzzy traces of morality than with a pattern of a developing idea of principled morality or “necessary” moral knowledge. The paper also argues that one is in a better position to make sense of Turiel's dispute with Kohlberg when one becomes aware of (a) Wittgenstein's idea of grammatical investigations, (b) Piaget's distinction between false, true, and necessary (cognitive) knowledge, and (c) Kohlberg's distinction between pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional moral reasoning as a distinction that, to an extent, corresponds in the moral domain to Piaget's epistemic types of knowledge in the cognitive domain.