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Can thoughts be read from the brain? Neuroscience Contra Wittgenstein

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Abstract

Wittgenstein wrote: “No supposition seems to me more natural than that there is no process in the brain correlated with associating or with thinking; so that it would be impossible to read off thought-processes from brain processes.” In general, he rejects what he calls “psycho-physical parallelism.” In Sect. 1, I explain Wittgenstein’s position on this topic and how his followers defend it. In Sect. 2, I argue against Wittgenstein, contending that there is “thought” in a wider sense and that it can be “manifested” without expression. Thought does not need to be ordinarily expressed or even expressible, and it can be read off from the brain, provided one has sufficient technology, data, and understanding of the subject’s interaction with the environment. In Sect. 3, I offer results from brain-science in support of my claims.

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Notes

  1. See Hacker, 1996,192–238, Candlish, 2001, Hyman, 2011, and Wenzel, 2016. See PI 412 f.

  2. For illustration and explanation of “lack of surprise,” see Hyman, 2011, 459.

  3. Frege, 1918–1919, 69.

  4. See Klagge, 1989, 329.

  5. Malcolm, 1984, 101. Klagge, 1989, 341.

  6. Wittgenstein 1975, 242. Klagge, 2019, 197.

  7. Wittgenstein, 1992, 96. Klagge, 2019, 202.

  8. Klagge, 1989, 320.

  9. Bennett and Hacker, 2003, 2.

  10. Glock, 2001, 19.

  11. Teichmann, 2017, 18.

  12. Hacker, 2013, 392.

  13. Hacker, 2013, 376.

  14. Hacker, 2013, 356.

  15. Schröder, 1995, 139.

  16. Ibid., 148.

  17. Ibid., 144.

  18. Ibid., 145.

  19. Teichmann, 2001, 26. See PI 158.

  20. Teichmann, 2017, 28, my highlighting.

  21. Teichmann, 2017, 12.

  22. Ibid., 15.

  23. Thornton, 1998, 177.

  24. Malcolm, 1995, 193, quoting PI 445.

  25. McDowell argues that concepts go “all the way out,” and Kant already argued that the categories go “all the way down to appearance.” See Wenzel, 2005.

  26. Glock, 2015, 351.

  27. Poincaré in 1905 observed that there are two kinds of mathematical minds (deux sortes d’esprits), one “geometric,” the other “analytic.” He even said one was borne that way (Poincaré, 1970, 27).

  28. Hao Tang (2015) argues that interpreters of Wittgenstein underestimate the pre-conceptual and primitive instinctive, such as between mother and child, and the role they play in language development (127). I agree. But Tang still holds on to the idea of thought as inner speech (106) and I think this is too narrow.

  29. Jackendoff, 2012, 81.

  30. Jackendoff, 1992, 16.

  31. Ibid., 90.

  32. Hurlburt at al. 2017, 5.

  33. Ibid., 6.

  34. Ibid., 4.

  35. Varela, 1996, 341.

  36. Ibid., 61.

  37. Smallwood et al., 2012, 60.

  38. Ibid., 63.

  39. Tusche et al., 2014, 113.

  40. Ibid., 112.

  41. Karapanagiotidis et al., 2016, 272.

  42. Morton et al., 2021, 2762.

  43. Huth et al., 2016, 454.

  44. Ibid., 453.

  45. Ibid., 457.

  46. Wang et al., 2017, 3.

  47. Reber et al., 2019, (1)

  48. Ibid., (2)

  49. Ibid., 8.

  50. Horikawa et al., 2013, 639.

  51. Quiroga et al., 2014, 363.

  52. Makin et al., 2020, 575.

  53. Ibid., 575.

  54. Ibid., 579.

  55. Ibid., 580.

  56. Moses et al., 2019, 8.

  57. Ibid., 2.

  58. Fuster, 2013, 13.

  59. Ibid., 62.

  60. Ibid., 65.

  61. Ibid., 179.

  62. Monti et al., 2012, 33.

  63. Weineck et al., 2020.

  64. Ibid., 2.

  65. Ibid., 6.

  66. Hacker, 2013, 368.

  67. Schröder, 1995, 150.

  68. Teichmann, 2017, 15.

  69. See Hanfling, 1993.

  70. Schröder, 2001, 148.

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Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Paisley Livingston for many helpful suggestions along the way of writing, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, National Taiwan University, 10617, Taipei, Taiwan R.O.C.

    Christian Helmut Wenzel

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Wenzel, C.H. Can thoughts be read from the brain? Neuroscience Contra Wittgenstein. Synthese 200, 183 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03504-5

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