12 - Wittgenstein's Behaviorism

Abstract

This chapter discusses Wittgenstein's behaviorism. The various doctrines called behaviorism form a set whose boundaries cannot be given a sharp definition. Wittgenstein's concern was not to criticize or reconstruct commonsense, or classical, psychological categories by adopting behaviorist assumptions. Rather, his aim was to combat individualistic forms of understanding and make the case for an approach based on sociological categories such as conventions, customs, and institutions. As a collectivist, Wittgenstein's concerns inevitably overlapped to some degree with those of the behaviorists. This is because patterns of coordinated, collective action have a strategic character. Collectivists and behaviorists are both enemies of subjectivism, but they are enemies coming from different directions, with subtly different purposes. Behaviorists dislike subjectivism because they want to stress the observable, the outer, and the public. And finally Collectivists dislike subjectivism because, subjectivism equates to individualism.