Human Beings – The Mind and the Body: Wittgensteinian-Aristotelian Reflections

Abstract

Wittgenstein dominated analytic philosophy from the 1920s until the1970s. His followers were numerous, his influence was extensive and eventhose who were not attracted by his thought were forced to orient themselvesby reference to the landmarks he had established. After the 1970s,his influence progressively waned, first in philosophy of logic and language,where Fregean and Tarskian influences came to predominate, andlater in philosophy of mind, which engaged in speculative debates concerningbrain/mind relationships, on the one hand, and the ‘mysteries of consciousness’, on the other. It is striking that this turn against Wittgenstein’s philosophy was not accompanied by a firm understanding, let alone by anargued refutation, of his grammatical overviews. Rather, these developmentsin the last decades of the twentieth century exemplified the philosophical scientism of our times.