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Wittgenstein, Phenomenology and Cognitive Linguistics

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Abstract

Although the literature devoted to the naturalization of mainstream phenomenology has been blooming recently, not so many efforts have been made to make the intellectual legacy from Wittgenstein, who could also be viewed as a “linguistic phenomenologist,” accessible to cognitive science. The reluctance of making Wittgenstein naturalized is sometimes backed by the worry that Wittgenstein’s criticism of the notion of “thinking” as some “internal process” is also potentially threatening the computational theory of cognition. But this worry itself is based on some serious misunderstandings of the internal/external dichotomies, the clarifications of which would greatly relieve the tension between Wittgenstein and cognitive science. Moreover, cognitive linguistics could also be viewed as the intermediate theory between Wittgenstein and cognitive science due to the affinities it bears with both Wittgenstein’s later philosophy and cognitive science.

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Xu, Y. Wittgenstein, Phenomenology and Cognitive Linguistics. Fudan J. Hum. Soc. Sci. 11, 219–236 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40647-017-0182-y

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