Wittgenstein über die Bildung von Begriffen

Abstract Wittgenstein on the formation of concepts This article envisages Wittgenstein‘s account of concepts from a somewhat unusual angle. Instead of directly addressing the topic of ‛family resemblance’, it rather targets a misleading philosophical picture of concepts. According to this picture, concepts have ‛counterparts’ contained in the things that fall under them (§1). It is in the course of a critique of this idea that Wittgenstein introduces an alternative view of concepts that is guided by the picture of family resemblances (§2). However, attempts to spell-out a family resemblant conception of concepts have long been known to be subject to the so-called problem of ‛wide open texture’. According to this problem, extending a concept in a way that is guided by resemblances between its instances threatens its content with arbitrariness (§3). Examining existing solutions, the article provides a view of concepts as neither determined by how things are nor as merely contingent expressions of historically changeable speaker dispositions (§§4 – 5). Rather, concepts are shown to be logical achievements whose expansion in the face of unprecedented circumstances brings about an increase of knowledge that is reflected in them (§§6 – 7). It is then argued that the logico-epistemic dimension of our use of concept words is interspersed with contingent features which might conceal their rational form (§8). The article ends with remarks that seek to exhibit the account of concepts presented before as a foil of Wittgenstein‘s critique of culture (§9).