Wittgenstein’s Inspiring View of Nature:

On Connecting Philosophy and Science Aright

 
Daniel D. Hutto
Professor of Philosophical Psychology
School of Humanities and Social Inquiry
Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts
University of Wollongong
NSW 2522, Australia
Tel: +61 2 4221 3987
Email:  ddhutto@uow.edu.au

Glenda Satne
School of Humanities and Social Inquiry
Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts
University of Wollongong
NSW 2522, Australia
Tel: +61 2 4221 3987
Email:  gsatne@uow.edu.au

Department of Philosophy
Alberto Hurtado University
Alameda 1869 of. 304.
Santiago, Chile
Abstract: This paper explicates Wittgenstein vision of our place in nature and shows in what
ways it is unlike and more fruitful than the picture of nature promoted by exclusive scientific
naturalists. Wittgenstein’s vision of nature is bound up with and supports his signature view
that the task of philosophy is distinctively descriptive rather than explanatory. Highlighting
what makes Wittgenstein’s vision of nature special, it has been claimed that to the extent that
he qualifies as a naturalist of any sort he ought to be regarded as a liberal naturalist
(Macarthur, forthcoming). We argue, by contrast, that focusing solely on the liberality of
Wittgenstein’s view of nature risks overlooking and downplaying the ways in which his
philosophical clarifications can act as platform for productively engaging with the sciences in
their explanatory endeavors. We argue that Wittgenstein’s vision of nature allows for a more
relaxed form of naturalism in which philosophy can be a productive partner for scientific
inquiry and investigation. Although this feature of Wittgenstein’s vision of nature is not
something that he himself emphasized, given his interests and concerns, it is an inspiring
vision in an age in which philosophy must find its feet with and alongside the sciences.
3

Wittgenstein’s Inspiring View of Nature:

On Connecting Philosophy and Science Aright

Daniel D. Hutto and Glenda Satne

“Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes,

and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does.
This tendency is the real source of metaphysics,
and leads the philosopher into complete darkness”

- Wittgenstein, Blue and Brown Books, p. 18.

This paper explicates Wittgenstein vision of our place in nature and shows in what ways it is
unlike and more fruitful than the picture of nature promoted by exclusive scientific naturalists.
Wittgenstein’s vision of nature is bound up with and supports his signature view that the task
of philosophy is distinctively descriptive rather than explanatory.
Highlighting what makes Wittgenstein’s vision of nature special, it has been claimed that
to the extent that he qualifies as a naturalist of any sort he ought to be regarded as a liberal
naturalist (Macarthur, forthcoming). We argue, by contrast, that focusing solely on the
liberality of Wittgenstein’s view of nature risks overlooking and downplaying the ways in
which his philosophical clarifications can act as platform for productively engaging with the
sciences in their explanatory endeavors.
We argue that Wittgenstein’s vision of nature allows for a more relaxed form of naturalism
in which philosophy can be a productive partner for scientific inquiry and investigation.
Although this feature of Wittgenstein’s vision of nature is not something that he himself
emphasized, given his interests and concerns, it is an inspiring vision in an age in which
philosophy must find its feet with and alongside the sciences.
The structure of the paper is as follows. Section one provides some background on the
sense in which a number of authors have tried to justify counting Wittgenstein as subscribing
to a particular brand of naturalism. Section two elaborates on the ways that Wittgenstein’s
vision of nature is unlike that promoted by mainstream scientific naturalism and why the
former makes philosophy’s descriptive work foundational. Finally, section three provides
reasons for thinking that if we are to build a viable naturalism inspired by Wittgenstein’s
vision of nature we must go beyond the attempt to classify him as liberal naturalist. Only then
will it be possible to develop a form of naturalism that can challenge the versions of purely
scientific naturalism that remain popular in mainstream philosophy today.

1. Wittgenstein’s Naturalism?
 
Wittgenstein, a naturalist? The very idea! Even those with only a passing acquaintance of
Wittgenstein and his corpus might regard any attempt to cast him as a naturalist as not just
deeply confused about his signature approach to philosophy but an abominable
misrepresentation of it. At first glance, to call Wittgenstein a naturalist of any kind might
seem to indicate a fundamental failure to appreciate what was most central to his thinking –
namely, a thoroughgoing rejection of the idea that philosophy is in any way like the sciences
or that it should be modeled on them. If Wittgenstein is known for anything, it is the idea that
philosophy is not in the business of explanation and that it should be beholden to any kind of
metaphysical vision of the nature of things.
Even acknowledging all of the above, a great many very astute readers of Wittgenstein
count him as espousing some brand of naturalism (Strawson 1985; Pears 1995; Medina 2004;
Cavell 2004, McGinn 2010, 2014, Macarthur forthcoming). The reason that it is possible to
regard Wittgenstein as any kind of naturalist at all is down the fact that there is a good deal of
flex in how we understand naturalism. In philosophy, it is frequently observed that the notion
has multiple meanings. Moreover, since many of these meanings conflict with and exclude
one another, unless we put some constraints on our usage, to say of anyone that they embrace
naturalism without further ado, is to make a vague and indeterminate remark.
It goes without saying that Wittgenstein would have had no truck with any kind of purely
scientific naturalism – a naturalism that, however broadly construed, makes science – or,
more likely, the sciences– the sole and exclusive arbiter of what there is in the natural world
and what we know about it. Thus, if we take exclusive scientific naturalism as the standard or
default way of understanding naturalism then Wittgenstein will only qualify as a naturalist, if
at all, if we understand him to be a naturalist of a very different stripe.
Medina (2004) holds that Wittgenstein is just such a peculiar sort of naturalist if the
exclusive scientific naturalism of the mainstream is taken as the baseline. He discerns in
Wittgenstein’ work what he describes as “a provocative kind of social naturalism” (p. 80).
Wittgenstein’s peculiar sort of naturalism is, according to Medina, most prominent in his
post-Investigations writings. Even so, he also finds this naturalistic strand at play in his early
work as well, in the Philosophical Investigations and before.1 Certainly, it is prominent in
Wittgenstein’s talk of ‘the natural history of human beings’; ‘forms of life’; ‘facts of living’;
‘primitive reactions’; ‘ways of going on’; ‘very general facts of nature’; and the like.
5

Macarthur (forthcoming) is surely right to hold that such language seems “to turn on some
idea of nature or, rather, human nature” (p. 36).
Medina’s stress on the post-Investigations corpus fits with Strawson’s (1985) presentation
of Wittgenstein’s anti-skeptical stance, as exemplified in On Certainty, as “naturalistic”. The
approach Wittgenstein adopted there was naturalist in the sense that instead of promising an
ingenious philosophical “proof” of the reality of the external world and our knowledge of it,
Wittgenstein’s reminders of the role that certainties play in our practices, reveal why it is
simply unreasonable against the background of those practices to offer the sort of justification
demanded by philosophical sceptics. Wittgenstein undermines the sceptic by confronting her
observations about what must be presupposed about the nature and character of our lives in
order to get such global skeptical worries off the ground in the first place.
Nevertheless, a naturalistic stance can be found prominently in Wittgenstein’s earlier
writings too. The central task of philosophy, as Wittgenstein construes it in the Investigations
is to “bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use” (PI 116). Given our
penchant for misleading philosophical pictures, this is no easy business. It requires
overcoming some super-naturalist tendencies in our thought. Thus, in a very fundamental
sense, in overcoming bewitching philosophical sirens, “what we are in effect doing is
bringing ourselves back from unnaturalness to naturalness” (Macarthur 2017, p. 43). In this
regard, as Cavell said of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations some time ago, it may be
construed as “a naturalizing of philosophy” (2004, p. 275).
Hamilton (2015) also sees that a case could be made for thinking that a quietist
interpretation of Wittgenstein rests on a certain kind of naturalism. Yet he is cautious about
counting Wittgenstein as an out-and-out naturalist. He stops short of doing so despite
acknowledging ‘an element of naturalism’ in Wittgenstein’s philosophy. The element in
Wittgenstein’s thought of which he speaks is the fact that Wittgenstein regards human beings
as part of the natural rather than the divine order.
However, in the end, Hamilton (2015) argues that Wittgenstein’s originality makes it
impossible to subsume his philosophy under the banner of any sort of naturalism. This is
because, for him, the work of any truly innovative philosophical genius in philosophy – as
Wittgenstein doubtless was – is not suited to be contained and captured under any kind of
‘ism’. Of course, this might be thought to be especially true in Wittgenstein’s case, given his
anti-doctrinal, anti-theoretical approach to philosophy.
Picking up on this feature of Wittgenstein’s method, Macarthur (forthcoming)
acknowledges the difficulty we face in counting Wittgenstein as some kind of naturalist “if
we suppose, not unreasonably, that the term “naturalism” refers to a philosophical doctrine or
set of such” (p. 33). Nevertheless, this does not deter him from holding, while echoing
Hamilton’s cautionary language, that there are, “aspects of Wittgenstein’s work that we might
want to count as elements of something that deserves the name of naturalism” (Macarthur
forthcoming, p. 42).
It is, no doubt, an interesting question whether –technically speaking– Wittgenstein did or
did not subscribe to some or other brand of naturalism. However, we wish to make it clear
from the outset that our interest in this paper is not to settle that question. Ours is not an
attempt to try to claim or appropriate Wittgenstein as a member of the naturalist camp per se,
however peculiarly construed. Instead of defending the claim the he embraced some kind of
naturalism, we hold that the vision of nature that can be found in Wittgenstein’s philosophy is
a useful and inspiring vision – one that can be fruitfully used as a platform for advancing and
defending what we take to be a viable form of naturalism; a liberating, relaxed naturalism.
Our preferred variety of naturalism is articulated to various degrees in several publications,
and its most developed version is found in the last of these (Hutto 2013, Hutto and Satne
2015, Hutto and Satne, forthcoming). It is an amalgamated naturalism which seeks to
incorporate several strands of naturalistic thought, but which is primarily inspired by and
builds upon Wittgenstein’s philosophy. We take the end product to be the most viable and
balanced sort of naturalism on today’s market. In what follows, to echo Medina (2004), we
aim to show how the philosophy of the later Wittgenstein provides the platform for new
thinking about how philosophy and the sciences can constructively connect by having
“inspired a naturalism that avoids the pitfalls of reductionism” (p. 81).

2. Wittgenstein’s Vision of Nature

Philosophical naturalists of all varieties are united in recognizing the bankruptcy of armchair
theorizing and seeing a need to get beyond the sort of old school essence hunting that has
typified philosophical analysis down the ages. This classical way of doing philosophy has
been charged with being “modally immodest” (Machery 2017, p. 1). To prosecute it
successfully would require philosophers to exercise unearthly mental powers for deciding,
based on a tribunal of cases, between mere possibilities and absolute necessities. Such
specialized mental abilities would be required to divine the essential nature of some quarry –
say, causation, knowledge or justice – not merely as such things make accidental appearances
in this, our world, but the properties they possess “in every possible world” (Machery 2017, p.
2). Such an analysis would reveal the ultimate and essential nature of any analysum.
Philosophy, understood by such traditional lights, is “dominated by a tradition of explanation”
(Malcolm 1993, p. 24).
Though analytic metaphysics takes its inspiration from the empirical sciences –
paraphrasing Wittgenstein, such an approach to philosophy is mesmerized by the method of
the sciences – it aspires nonetheless to be a thoroughly “non-empirical or a priori study”
7

(Macarthur 2017 p. 264). It is marked out as being “insensitive to empirical research”

(Macarthur 2017 p. 264). Indeed, as Macarthur (2017) characterizes it, analytic metaphysics is
ultimately an exercise in advancing dogma in that it attempts to put forward claims about
reality “whose truth is taken to be authoritatively established independently of the empirical”
(p. 265).
A fundamental methodological problem with analytic metaphysics, so understood, is that it
seems we are simply not equipped with the amazing intellectual capacities needed for
evaluating the relevant possibilities and determine a priori what is necessary and sufficient for
something to be a phenomenon of a given kind. But this is not the only fundamental problem
with such an approach. For, as Kornblith (2017) observes, because of the way they set up
things up from the start, “armchair approaches to many areas of philosophy are likely to go
badly astray, losing contact with the very phenomena they seek to illuminate” (p. 159, see
also 155). Recognition of these deep sorts of problem drives the naturalistic ambition to
reorient “philosophy toward more humble, but ultimately more important intellectual
endeavors” (Machery 2017, p. 1).
So far, so good. Wittgenstein did more than anyone to bring the dangers of dogmatic
metaphysical thinking to light and to free us from them. But while all naturalists recognize
this common threat and the need to get beyond it, they disagree about how precisely this is to
be achieved.
As Machery (2017) asks, if our job is not that of engaging in metaphysical quests to
discover essences then “What are philosophers to do?” (Machery 2017, p. 208). His answer,
like many post-Quinean naturalists, is simple: we must look to “our best science” (Machery
2017, p. 1). It is precisely at this juncture that exclusive scientific naturalists –given their
complete deference to our best science in adjudicating philosophical issues– and Wittgenstein,
part company.
In outlining what form a naturalistic methodology for philosophy should look like
Kornblith (2017) insists that “philosophical investigations must involve empirical
investigations” (p. 145). He tells us, “one cannot adequately engage with the phenomena
philosophers seek to understand without engaging with empirical work” (Kornblith 2017 p.
145). Although, if appropriately tempered and tamed in their scope these claims might be
acceptable, they are worrisome in the form they take when advanced by exclusive scientific
naturalists. The trouble is that such naturalists see the work of philosophy as making sense of
what there is –including our capacity to have a scientific worldview– using nothing other than
the resources provided by the empirical sciences themselves.
It is an important feature of exclusive scientific naturalism that although our quotidian
conceptual schemes may provide a starting point for philosophical work they have no
inherently important status. For exclusive scientific naturalists, all our answers about what
there is must ultimately come in the form of scientific theorizing and explanation, albeit
empirically informed scientific theorizing and explanation.
In other words, this brand of philosophical naturalism assumes that there is a significant
gap between our pre-theoretical or folk concepts and the facts about any given topic. Our
everyday use of concepts is thus not a target of interest in and of itself. This is why we are
told that the concern of scientific naturalists is “first and foremost with certain phenomena,
not our concepts of those phenomena” (Kornblith 2017, p. 141).
On this way of construing things, our everyday concepts may, at best, be a means of
getting at what is of genuine interest to us – namely, worldly phenomena. With this target in
mind, attending to our concepts is only useful to philosophy insofar as those concepts succeed
in latching on to the natural or even some socially constructed kinds that we seek to
investigate further. Allegedly, this is because “the ability reliably to recognize many instances
of a phenomenon does not in any way entail that the characterizations we would give of that
phenomenon prior to empirical investigation are themselves accurate” Kornblith 2017, p.
149, emphases added). As such, our everyday thought and talk can, at most, play a quite
limited role in philosophy – that of setting up targets for investigation insofar as they pick out
phenomena of which we will eventually gain a proper scientific theoretical understanding.
Philosophy, which by these lights is understood as being continuous with the sciences,
makes contributions primarily by means of theoretical speculation and conjecture. In this
respect philosophy has a part to play in providing an accurate characterization of phenomena
of interest but “empirical input to philosophical theorizing is absolutely essential if
philosophical theories are adequately to engage with the phenomena we seek to understand”
(Kornblith 2017 p. 150).
The bottom line is that, on this exclusively scientific conception of philosophical
naturalism, there is simply no value in getting clear about our everyday use of concepts per se,
there is only value in better understanding the worldly phenomena that such ordinary concepts
may pick out – e.g. knowledge, causation, justice and so on. It is precisely because exclusive
scientific naturalists understand ordinary concepts as being limited in this respect that they see
it as pivotal to philosophy that the subject matter of its investigations should be solely worldly
phenomena. Ultimately, it is this way of understanding what is an appropriate philosophical
target that allegedly justifies the special “relevance of the kinds of empirical investigations
characteristic of the sciences” (Kornblith 2017, p. 152).
It is precisely and foundationally over the question of the status of everyday concepts that
Wittgenstein and today’s exclusive scientific naturalists go their separate ways. Taking an
opposing view, Wittgenstein does not regard our everyday concepts as merely pre-theoretical,
pre-scientific conceptions – the sort of thing that might feature in low-grade folk theories
about a given topic and which might lead us philosophically astray.
9

Our quotidian concepts are nothing like constructs of folk theories, rather they are deeply
enmeshed and figure integrally in our lives and practices. 2 Getting clear about our everyday
concepts is thus, in large part, a matter of reminding ourselves of our natural and enculturated
ways of going on, and the general facts that give our ways of going on their purpose and
point. Unavoidably, in seeking to illuminate our understanding of some philosophically
interesting topic we must look at how our concepts actually function in our lives, and that
requires looking at the practices and surrounding circumstances in which our use of concepts
operate.
Thus, Wittgenstein tells us “the concept of pain is characterized by its particular function
in our life” (Z §532); that “Pain has this position in our life; has these connexions; (That is to
say: we only call ‘pain’ what has this position, these connexions)” (Z §533). Or again, “Only
surrounded by certain normal manifestations of life is there such a thing as an expression of
pain. Only surrounded by an even more far-reaching particular manifestation of life, such a
thing as the expression of sorrow or affection” (Z §534). Similarly, we are told: “We learn the
word ‘think’ under particular circumstances (LWPPI §41); “The surroundings give it its
importance” (PI §583).
For Wittgenstein, in order to get clear about our concepts and our use of words requires
attending to and reminding ourselves of the practices that surround such uses – those which
give them life and sustain them. Indeed, we can see the importance of this method by
imagining situations in which the concepts in question are put to different use. This is a matter
of “finding and inventing intermediate cases” (cf. PI §122). We shed light on how we use our
concepts by noting similarities and dissimilarities by setting up such objects of comparison
with other possible uses and what would make them possible (PI §130).
For example, in Zettel, Wittgenstein conjures up a tribe that employs two different
concepts of ‘pain’, “one is applied where there is visible damage and is linked with tending,
pity and so on. The other is used for stomach-ache for example, and is tied up with mockery
of anyone who complains” (Z §380). Accordingly, unless members of this imagined tribe can
locate some kind of outer bodily damage they will not regard the person as experiencing what
they would call ‘pain’. Their notion of pain operates quite differently than does ours. Or, as
Wittgenstein puts it, they, “have concepts which cut across ours” (Z §379).
Their understanding of pain is different, but related to ours. The crucial thing is that in
order to imagine their concept of pain we would need to imagine important differences in
their lives. This, in turn, requires that we imagine a number of relevant background facts to be
different – not everything, of course, but quite a lot. For example, an indefinite number of
other psychological facts and related practices would have to be otherwise than they are for us
for such a concept of pain to take root. Although there is no need to concoct an exact list of
differences, it is easy to see how operating with the imagined concept of pain would both
depend upon and require a range of different connections, associations and activities to be in
place in the lives of these people.
Here we can see that our concepts our bound up with our ways of living and acting. 3 The
above example is a salient reminder that our use of concepts is rooted in our form of life, our
ways of acting and practices – all of which depends on the world being a certain way. Of
course, it is a contingent matter that the world is such that we use our concepts as we do. If
certain general facts of nature were different, then we can expect that our practices and
concepts would also be different.

And if things were quite different from what they actually are – if there were for instance
no characteristic expression of pain, of fear, of joy; if rule became exception and exception
rule; or if both became phenomena of roughly equal frequency – this would make our
normal language-games lose their point – the procedure of putting a lump of cheese on a
balance and fixing the price by the turn of the scale would lose its point if it frequently
happened for such lumps to suddenly grow and shrink for no obvious reason (PI §142, se
also OC §63; PI §230e).

Contingent worldly facts constrain our practices and, thus, our use of concepts, but they do
not fully determine the latter. Even so, while there is a degree of latitude in how we use
concepts, it is not the case that just anything goes. Thus, in responding to the charge of his
imagined interlocutor that on Wittgenstein’s account ‘what grammar permits’ is ‘surely
arbitrary’, the latter answers “Is it arbitrary? – It is not every sentence-like formation that we
know how to do something with, not every technique has an application in our life; and when
we are tempted in philosophy to count some quite useless things as a proposition, that is often
because we have not considered its application sufficiently (PI §520; emphasis added).
In sum, the vision of nature Wittgenstein promotes regards everyday concepts not as low-
grade theoretical constructs but as deeply bound up with the ways of acting that reflect our
particular form of life. Famously, Wittgenstein tells us that his use of the “term ‘language-
game’ is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an
activity, or of a form of life” (PI §23); that “Only in the stream of thought and life do words
have meaning” (Z §173); and that “Our talk gets its meaning from the rest of our
proceedings” (OC §229).
Crucially, for all of these reasons, the descriptive, clarifying work of philosophy –its
conceptual investigations– have an empirical dimension. Wittgenstein insists: “Don’t think,
but look” (PI §66); “Let the use of words teach you their meaning” (PI p. 220e; LWPPI
§856); “One cannot guess how a word functions. One has to look at its use and learn from
that” (PI §340 – see also PI §43).
11

Yet although the conceptual investigations Wittgenstein recommends have an empirical

dimension, they are not scientific in character. If we are to get clear about how we use our
concepts we must not “advance any kind of theory. There must not be anything hypothetical
in our considerations. We must do away with all explanation, and description alone must take
its place” (PI §109). Attempts to theorize and explain the phenomena of interest will only get
in the way because, “we want to understand something that is already in plain view. For this
is what we seem in some sense not to understand” (PI §89; §109; §126; §127).
To get clear about philosophically interesting topics what is needed is precisely not
hypotheses or theories; neither of the philosophical nor the scientific variety. Rather the
process of getting clear about philosophically interesting topics has two main steps. First, we
must dispel philosophical confusions that prevent us from understanding some topic of
concern. Second, we must clarify and elucidate how we use those concepts in ordinary
circumstances; this means getting back to the rough and ready ground of our everyday
practices. Critically, with respect to this second step, “Grammar does not tell us how language
must be constructed in order to fulfil its purpose, in order to have such-and-such an effect on
human beings. It only describes and in no way explains” (PI §496).
All in all, philosophy, done well, dispels picture-driven confusions and supplies reminders
that bring us back from metaphysical, super-naturalist superstitions to the mundane and the
ordinary. Done in this vein philosophy aims to put us in touch with “the manifest world of our
everyday lives, but with newly opened eyes” (Macarthur forthcoming, p. 35): it seeks to
reveal how we actually understand, think and talk about the topic under scrutiny.
We can vividly see the difference between Wittgenstein’s descriptive approach to
clarifying topics in philosophy and that which exclusive scientific naturalists recommend by
concentrating on how each would handle the case of understanding memory. 4 Here is it
proves instructive to quote Kornblith (2017) at length. He tells us that:

the phenomena of memory is, in fact, nothing like what it seems from the first-person
perspective. When one remembers an event, it seems one is able to bring forth from mental
storage, an account of that event in either propositional or imagistic form which was
placed in storage at the time the event was perceived. In fact, however, the processes of
storage and retrieval both involve a great deal of construction and reconstruction. More
than this, the first-person perspective on memory leaves out entirely the fundamental
process of encoding. Memory does not involve the passive storage and retrieval process
which the first-person perspective seems to present. It is, instead, shot through with
inference at every stage (p. 148).
 According to Kornblith (2017), our everyday conception memory has been holding back a
proper understanding of this central psychological phenomenon. Our everyday folk
understanding of it, which he takes to be inspired directly from our first-person experience of
memory, has prevented us from achieving an accurate understanding of the true nature of
memory. By Kornblith’s lights, by replacing our misguided everyday conception, better
scientific theorizing has improved the situation.
Is this assessment credible? Does our ordinary conception of memory have the character
Kornblith proposes? Is our pre-theoretical conception of it, in fact, based directly on what he
construes to be as the deliverances of our first-personal perspective on memory? Minimal
reflection on this case reveals that Kornblith’s depiction of our ordinary, pre-theoretical
understanding of memory to be entangled, in a complicated way, with a philosophically-
loaded picture of the character and basis of our everyday thinking about memory. Indeed,
from a Wittgensteinian perspective Kornblith (2017) offers a vastly overly-simplified and
deeply naïve account of our ordinary conception of memory. In particular, he confuses our
everyday concept of memory with a philosophically inspired picture of that concept.
It is certainly true that that deep philosophical confusions about memory abound and that
they have held back our thinking about this topic. But getting clear about the nature of such
confusions – and the pictures that drive them – requires careful and detailed philosophical
investigation, not better scientific theorizing. Also, we must get clear about the shape of our
everyday thought and talk about memory and what it is really commits to. Moreover, we must
disentangle our everyday concept of memory from familiar depictions of it that are fostered
by philosophical pictures threaten to obscure it from our sight.
Why should we think that looking to our ordinary uses of the concept is needed to
appropriately characterize the nature of memory? For one thing, it is not as if the account of
memory currently provided by the empirical sciences of the mind is philosophically
untroubled. Far from illuminating the true nature of memory, characterizing memory in terms
of underlying and fundamental process of ‘encoding’ and as being ‘shot through with
inferences’ are both proposals that desperately stand in need of philosophical scrutiny (see
Hutto 2016, Hutto and Myin 2017, Ch. 2 and 9). Thus, contra Kornblith’s sanguine analysis
of the current state-of-the-art in the field of memory research, it would appear that there is a
good deal more work to be done therein in demystifying current theorizing by “destabilizing,
Cartesian premises of thought and Platonic methods of thinking” (Moyal-Sharrock 2009, p.
214).5
What do we find if we go looking in a Wittgensteinian fashion at our everyday thought
and talk about memory? We find complexity: there is not simple concept or picture of
memory that makes perspicuous “the multifarious ways in which we remember something”
(Moyal-Sharrock 2009, p. 217). As Moyal-Sharrock highlights with choice quotations from
13

Wittgenstein, it turns out that, “Different sorts of memories are to be distinguished” (WL, p.
56); that “Remembering, then, isn’t at all the mental process that one imagines at first sight. If
I say, rightly, ‘‘I remember it,’’ the most varied things may happen; perhaps even just that I
say it (PG p. 42, original emphasis).
There is a rich fabric to the many and varied things that we count as instances of
remembering – and if we want to get a grip on the concept and thereby clarify the role of
memory play in our lives –if we want to appropriately characterize what remembering is for
us– then we have no choice but to engage in the sort of pains-taking philosophical descriptive,
elucidatory work that Wittgenstein recommends.
Memory is mixed and multifarious. Contravening the classical philosophical craving for
simplicity, Wittgenstein enjoins us not to attempt to impose an artificial order on our concepts
but to realize that “what is ragged should be left ragged” (PI 33). After all: “It is not to be
expected of this word that it should have a unified employment; we should rather expect the
opposite” (Z §112, see also LWPPI §966).6
Indeed, Wittgenstein’s interest in exposing the many different ways that we think and talk
about various topics is what led him to think the motto ‘I’ll teach you differences’ from King
Lear, as appropriate for the Investigations. As Malcolm (1993) reports, an equally good
motto, one Wittgenstein considered, is ‘You’d be surprised’ (p. 44).
In the end, it seems reasonable to agree with Kornblith (2017) that “we philosophers must
have an accurate view of the phenomena we seek to ask questions about if our investigations
are to result in any genuine understanding” (p. 148). Crucially, however, it is precisely over
the issue of how we are to achieve an accurate view, or perspicuous presentation, of the
subject matters of interest that the paths of Wittgensteinians and more exclusive scientific
naturalists diverge. It is exactly at this juncture that Wittgenstein’s famous injunction against
explanation-seeking theorizing proves to be pivotal. His lesson still holds good today: if we
are to achieve an appropriate characterization of a given philosophical subject matter we must
describe and clarify not theorize.

3. Liberal or Relaxed Naturalism?

The analysis of the preceding section reveals that if Wittgenstein embraced any kind of
naturalism he certainly did not embrace exclusive scientific naturalism. Thus, if we want to
count Wittgenstein as a naturalist then the naturalism he subscribes to “must be understood in
such a way that it is not at all in the same line of explanatory work as orthodox [scientific]
naturalism” (Macarthur forthcoming, p. 45). Indeed, to the extent that it is fair to ascribe
naturalistic tendencies to Wittgenstein’s thought it is important to recognize that he “does not
put any explanatory weight on a notion of nature in philosophy” (Macarthur forthcoming, p.
47).
That Wittgenstein may be a liberal naturalist is perfectly in tune with seeing his
philosophical agenda as completely quietist, as only offering up a means to help free us from
philosophical pictures and the pernicious explanatory tendencies associated with promoting
them.7 Accordingly, this is a matter of recognizing that what appear to be problems that stand
in need of answers from an explanatory philosophical theory are in fact only puzzles we have
fashioned ourselves: “a confusion or difficulty in understanding that has the misleading form
of a problem” (Macarthur 2017, p. 255). And the way out of this confusion, as we have seen
above, is not through the supply of a better theory, but rather requires doses of philosophical
therapy. Therapy is needed because, as Macarthur (2017) observes, “one cannot be told to
give up metaphysical thinking. Successful treatment requires that one undergoes something
like a conversion experience” (p. 254).
Quietist readings of Wittgenstein’s philosophy lay great stress on knowing the limits of
philosophy and respecting them by not seeking explanations. Knowing when not to seek or
demand explanations is meant to keep us free from the call of a mystifying metaphysics. This
is why it is so important to know when one’s philosophical spade is turned; to know when,
despite our temptations to ask for explanations, we can do no more and no better than to
properly describe.
Thus, in place of “the unanalysable, specific, indefinable: the fact that we act in such-and-
such ways, e.g. punish certain actions, establish the state of affairs thus and so, give orders,
render accounts, describe colours, take an interest in others’ feelings. What has to be
accepted, the given – it might be said – are facts of living [forms of life]” (RPPI §630; PI p.
226). We must realize that explanations are not always possible; we must accept that, at root,
the only answer we can give for why we do what we do is that it is natural for us to act in
certain ways: “Why do I not satisfy myself that I have two feet when I want to get up from a
chair? There is no why. I simply don’t. That is how I act.” (OC §148).
Highlighting the non-explanatory and utterly quietist character of Wittgenstein’s
philosophy, Macarthur (forthcoming) maintains that, “we might say that Wittgenstein is a
liberal naturalist in the sense that Mario De Caro and I have defined it” (p. 46, see De Caro
and Macarthur 2004; De Caro and Macarthur 2010). Liberal naturalism, so defined, aims to
articulate a non-reductive form of naturalism – one that embraces a “more inclusive
conception of nature than any provided by the natural sciences” (De Caro and Macarthur
2004, p. 1). It allows that there can be a multiplicity of kinds of things in nature, and a
multiplicity of legitimate ways of understanding and investigating them. Its guiding idea is
that “there are whole domains of fact with respect to which present-day science tells us
nothing at all” (Putnam 1990, p. 143).
15

According to Macarthur (forthcoming) Wittgenstein too can be seen as embracing this

same tolerant vision and thus he “can be read as demystifying the notion of nature by being
prepared to recognize the reality of non-scientific things (i.e. things that are not the posits of
any successful explanatory science)” (p. 47).8 The liberal naturalist claim is clear enough a
way of responding to the excesses of exclusive scientific naturalism. It is a direct denial that
only the successful sciences have the authority to say what is what and what is real. Amongst
the many ordinary things that exist but which the sciences are silent are table, chairs, artworks
and other socially crafted artifacts. Most of all, the people who create such things – and their
interests and purposes – fall entirely outside of the purview of the purely scientific. We are
told that “Persons and artifacts are too subjective to figure in the objective explanations of
science” (Macarthur forthcoming, p. 39). Yet to exclude such things from the list of natural
existents because they fail to figure on the inventory of things that the sciences can recognize
and objectively investigate would be sheer and unwarranted prejudice. So say liberal
naturalists.
There are two main problems with liberal naturalism: First, it has difficulty in making its
metaphysical claims coherent and keeping its metaphysics under control. Second, it does not
provide an account of how philosophy and various sciences might positively connect. 9
These problems are exacerbated when liberal naturalists try to help themselves to the
results of the natural sciences. Thus, they claim that science can make valuable contributions
to our understanding of nature and do not reject that philosophy might be informed by
science. In this regard, proponents of liberal naturalism hold that “science plays an important
role in ruling out certain supernatural explanations and posits as otiose (say because they do
not have sufficient or strong enough connections to the empirical)” (Macarthur forthcoming,
p. 47). Moreover, they tell us that this is a wholly consistent position because “one can have
respect for the conclusions of natural science, indeed for the conclusions of the successful
sciences in general, and still hold that there is more in the world than is dreamt of in scientific
theorizing; and by “more” I do not mean anything supernatural. I mean persons, chairs,
buildings, clothing, and the like” (Macarthur forthcoming, p. 39, emphasis added).
Ostensibly, liberal naturalists want to respect science and give it its due, but they offer no
detailed, positive account of how that is to be achieved. As such, it is unclear how such a
dialogue is meant to work given that the pluralism about ontology and methodology they
sketch does not by itself provide us with a unified picture of what may seem otherwise
divided pockets of nature.
This lacuna should perhaps come as no surprise, bearing in mind, that by liberal naturalist
lights, “the role of Wittgenstein’s naturalism is non-constructive and dialectical” (Macarthur
forthcoming, p. 45). Indeed, in stressing its non-explanatory, quietist credentials liberal
naturalism bills itself as a “negative discipline” (Macarthur forthcoming, p. 46, emphasis
added).10 In tune with its wholly negative character, liberal naturalism presents a picture of
nature that divides it into diverse domains of disconnected fact without providing even the
prospect of developing a satisfying positive account of how philosophy and the sciences
might productively interact with one another.
A prime example of such interaction, as we saw in the previous section, is how we can
gain a better understanding of memory by means of philosophical clarification and how such
elucidatory work can set up clearer targets for purely scientific investigation. Indeed, there are
grounds for thinking that conceptual elucidations of this sort have already “impacted on
neuroscientific research, and should continue to do so” (Moyal-Sharrock 2009, p. 214). 11 In
their turn, scientific discoveries can help us clarify our philosophical descriptions by putting
us in further contact with the facts we are inquiring about.
By comparison, to adopt the liberal naturalist stance is to place a ban on any possible
scientific explanation of persons and human artifacts. For these items are put not only beyond
the reach of philosophical explanation, but out of the reach of any and all scientific
explanation, due to their allegedly subjective character. The situation here is reminiscent of
the familiar prohibition that some Wittgensteinians sought to place on explaining
the existence of language games and forms of life.
Malcolm (1993), for example, tells us that “One could not explain why those people do not
have those forms of life – nor why we do have them. Neither philosophy nor science can
explain this” (p. 82, emphasis added). Thus, when it comes to explaining the existence of
language games and their associated forms of life, we are told “this is where explanation has
reached its limit” (Malcolm 1993, p. 82).
It is certainly true that our language games and forms of life do not admit of philosophical
explanations and that when engaged in descriptive, clarificatory philosophy we are not at all
concerned with speculating about possible causes of how we came to have the natural
tendencies that we happen to have.12 Nevertheless, there is much that the sciences can do to
shed light on the existence and origins of our particular forms of life and our language games
(for example, see Hutto and Satne 2015). So that we do not lose sight of this, it is important to
note that Wittgenstein’s injunction against philosophical explanation was not a rejection of
explanation simpliciter. It was restricted to prohibiting the sorts of explanations that
metaphysically ambitious philosophers hope to supply. It did not rule out that, when freed of
metaphysical mystification and with the appropriately clarification in place, we might gain
empirical insight into and even be capable of explaining the origins and character of our
particular form of life.13

5. Conclusion
17

Wittgenstein’s vision of nature provides the platform for a balanced, relaxed naturalism. It
enables us to does more than simply reject reductionism and embrace a tolerant pluralism.
Used in the right way it allows us to see how philosophy and various sciences, using their
own special methods can take an interest in the same subject matter in complementary, non-
competing ways.
What we need, and what Wittgenstein supplies, is a more open conception of nature – one
that does not expand nature to include a variety of special sorts of facts, but rather places the
relevant facts in plain view, once obscuring obstacles to our sight have been removed. Though
it remains controversial whether or not Wittgenstein officially belongs among the ranks of
naturalists, one thing is certain: he has given us an inspiring vision of nature that shows how
philosophy and the sciences can productively connect.

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19

Notes
1
This is so even though Medina (2004) recognizes that there are some difficulties in attributing a
naturalistic background to the Philosophical Investigations or On Certainty due to the “persistence of
some central views of Wittgenstein’s first philosophy in those books” (p. 80).

2
Our everyday concepts are not theoretical constructs, they are not grounded in hypotheses about facts of
experience. Thus “Children do not learn that books exist, that armchairs exist, etc. etc., – they learn to
fetch books, sit in armchairs, etc., etc. Later questions about the existence of things do of course arise. ‘Is
there such a thing as a unicorn?’ and so on. But such a question is possible only because as a rule no
corresponding question presents itself. (OC §476). Relatedly, “My life shews that I know or am certain
that there is chair over there, or door, and so on. – I will tell a friend, e.g., “Take that chair over there”,
“Shut the door”, etc., etc. (OC §7).

3
There are strong affinities between Wittgenstein’s view of concepts and those of enactivists (see Hutto
2013 for a discussion).

4
This choice of topic is especially apt given that in the philosophy of mind, “empirically informed work
has largely taken over the field” (Kornblith 2017 p. 154).

5
This should hardly come as a surprise. After all, it is not just philosophers who are prone to become
attached to and promote misleading philosophical pictures (see Malcolm 1993, p. 78, for a discussion).

6
Indeed, complexity in our concepts is to be expected. As Horwich (2012) explains, “our linguo-
conceptual practices … are extremely messy. For the most part, these practices evolved not for the sake of
helping us to understand the world, but to serve a variety of more humdrum practical purposes and to
serve them in a way that conduces to the complex contingencies of our nature, our culture and our
environment. So we should not be surprised to find, as we do find, that it is no easy matter to provide
examples of ordinary notions governed by simple commitments (Horwich 2012, p. 35). Our concepts are
thus “ineradicably messy” (Horwich 2012, p. 36); their “usage isn’t nicely systematizable” (Horwich
2012, p. 36).

7
Macarthur (forthcoming) is wholly clear that what is on offer “is a metaphysical quietist version of liberal
naturalism, one that avoids supernatural theological commitments in philosophy as well as refusing to
give science an unwarranted ontological significance” (p. 46).

8
Liberal naturalism is permissive enough to make room for non-superstitious forms of religious sentiment
and practices (see, e.g. Malcom 1993, p. 47). Thus, a liberal naturalist interpretation is well-placed to
 explain Wittgenstein’s “relatively sympathetic treatment of the religious world-picture of Christianity in
comparison to the naturalistic world-picture” (Macarthur forthcoming, p. 53),

9
For a more detailed assessment of Liberal Naturalism in this regard, see Hutto and Satne (forthcoming).

10
As Macarthur (forthcoming) characterizes it, liberal naturalism is comprised of two denials and an
affirmation (where, in fact, what is affirmed is entailed by the second denial). Thus, it consists: firstly, of a
denial that reality is, or contains, any supernatural beings; secondly, of a denial that reality is exhausted by
the collected scientific images of the world; and, finally, of the affirmation that there are plurality of non-
scientific and scientific forms of knowing and/or understanding.

11
Beyond this, philosophers can do not more than to simply clarify concepts. There are other, quite distinct
potential contributions that they can make to properly scientific theorizing, for example “by providing
hypothesis and original speculations, by synthesizing a swath of empirical and theoretical works, and by
suggesting or conducing empirical research. Philosophers also contribute to the methodological progress
of various sciences” (Machery 2017, p. 208).

12
On this score, Wittgenstein is clear about the sharp divide between philosophical and scientific questions:
“I may find scientific questions interesting, but they never really grip me. Only conceptual and aesthetic
questions do that. At bottom, I am indifferent to the solution of scientific problems; but not the other sort”
(C&V, p. 79e).

13
This claim is wholly consistent with it being that case that it is “unreasonable demand that everything
should be explained” (Malcolm 1993, p. 81).