Language and mind in Wittgenstein's philosophy

Abstract

This article aims to analyze how it is possible to approach, in Wittgenstein, the existence of an inner state when we adopt the expressive resources of language. In this sense, the arguments of Wittgenstein, particularly in Philosophical Investigations and Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology, enable the detachment of the philosophy of mind from an understanding that insists to separate the physical and the mental as distinct and independent in substances and qualities. In general, the first objection to the philosophy of mind would consist in claiming that the artificial models of human cognition are able to replicate specific characteristics of the human mental life such as the case of the qualia. A second objection supported throughout the article is, on the one hand, the clarification of the grammatical confusion and the pseudo-problems that are associated to the expressivity of the inner experiences and, on the other hand, to establish a criticism to the functionalist model of mind. Finally, we point out that the ambiguity in the expression of the mental content [or signification of the mental content] is in the epistemological niceties (not ontological) of the relation between language, mind and society.