WITTGENSTEIN ON MEANING AND UNDERSTANDING Wittgenstein’s Undoing of Psychologism

Various schools in philosophy have assumed that meaning of linguistic expressions consists of being conscious of internal states or processes. This view may be called psychologism of meaning. Wittgenstein considers this to be a mistaken view which is due to a false conception of language according to which language is embedded in a fixed structure. Wittgenstein rejects this view and thus does away with Psychologism of meaning. Language, for Wittgenstein, is embedded in human ways of living (and acting). The philosophical conception of meaning, therefore, is ultimately linked with ‘doing’ )human actions) and not with objects, states or processes etc. Failure to understand this leads to psychologism of meaning and understanding. Wittgenstein has shown that the grammar of ‘meaning and understanding’ is different from that of ‘mental states and processes (including non-conscious processes’) and, for this reason; they belong to two different conceptual realms.