A Study Of Wittgenstein’s Thought On "Relation" And Its Influence On The Change Of Scientific Outlook

Subject to rationalism at first,western scientific outlook attempted to seek the truth,and then got influenced by empiricism after logical positivism.Whichever form it takes,.separation or combination of experience and rationality,confirmation or falsification,all the branches are in the framework of essentialism.Wittgenstein,an important philosopher in the 20th century,has changed from essentialism in his early philosophy to anti-essentialism in his later period.In his early years,Wittgenstein adopted the method of artificial language with focus on the analysis of the logical structure of language in the attempt to construct a set of ideal artificial language.While in his later period,giving up the pursuit of ideal artificial language,he changed his attitude towards everyday language and began to study its usage.At present,researches on this shift are generally confined to the discussion of"Language Game","Family Resemblance" and "The Form of Life".However,the analysis of the core idea of his later period,"Language Game",is mainly just a natural description of the game picture without reference to the dynamic process of"game" itself.In recent years,M.T.Hark and J.Mácha focus on "relation" in Wittgenstein’s philosophy to explore its deep meaning in his early and later philosophy,which helps to reveal the shift of Wittgenstein’s philosophy and its influence on the development of western science.With the perspective of "relation" and the method of "creative hermeneutics",this study reveals Wittgenstein’s deeper thought on the basis of his works.The research mainly follows four clues:Clue 1:from early stage to later stage.This paper analyzes "relation" in Wittgenstein’s early stage,represented by Tractatus,and in the later period,represented by Philosophical Investigations.The focus of this study is on "relation" in "Language Game" in his later period.Clue 2:from general to special.From the perspectives of internal and external relations,such Wittgenstein’s classic topics are examined as the "rule-abiding paradox" of"language game",intentionality and color words,and a more abstract special form of"number".Clue 3:from the mentioned points to the implied meaning.This paper reveals Wittgenstein’s possibly unexplained implication,a construction view on the basis of anti-essence,and then discusses its enlightenment to the field of machine intelligence from a broader perspective.Clue 4:from the West to China.Similarities and differences between Chinese and Western thoughts on "relation" are compared and their influence on the view of science is revealed.Accordingly,this study is carried out mainly from the following six perspectives:First goes Wittgenstein’s intervention in the "relation dispute".Firstly,the origin of "relation dispute" and how Wittgenstein intervenes in the debate of "relation" is discussed with internal and external relations in an unconventional sense explored.In the early 20th century,F.H.Bradley and B.Russell launched a debate on the internal and external relations,experience and reality.Russell views relation as external,and believes that relation is external to relation terms not to be merged with their properties.Bradley regards relation as inherent in items,otherwise relation would be an isolated existence.The debate triggered the reflection on the philosophical significance of the "relation" problem,in which Wittgenstein intervened and ended the tug-of-war between "item" and "relation",turning it to a language perspective.Second is the comparison of the thought on "relation" in the former and later periods,which mainly discusses the essence of Wittgenstein’s internal and external relations in the two periods,together with differences and connections.The internal relation in Wittgenstein’s early "Image Theory" refers to a logical structure correspondence between proposition and state of affairs.In Tractatus,Wittgenstein’s internal relation is more like an "inherent form",which is a relational interpretation of "Image Theory".In the later period,Wittgenstein,in Philosophical Investigations and other works,revealed the invented aspect of the "Language Game" through the discussion of "relation" with the focus on the game’s generative process.Later Wittgenstein’s "internal relation" refers to "grammatical relation" or "conceptual relation",while "external relation" refers to "factual relation".Third goes the interpretation of the thought on "internal relation" in his later philosophy.Based on the in-depth interpretation of "internal relation",discussion is placed on the long chain of the development of construction thought,and the"construction view" in Wittgenstein’s "relation" thought is thus revealed.Focusing on intentionality,color problems,mathematics and logic problems,this part focuses on the interpretation of Wittgenstein’s "internal relation":(1)internal relation is a grammatical relation without mediation;(2)internal relation comes from practice;(3)internal relation in individual item and in community can not be separated as two different types.Wittgenstein’s thought on "relations" implies a "constructive" view.Fourth is the influence of Wittgenstein’s "relation" on the western view of science,which mainly discusses the position of Lakatos’s "scientific research program",Kuhn’s "paradigm",Feyerabend’s "against all methods",and Laudan’s"scientific research tradition" in the coordinate axis from essentialism to non essentialism,as well as the correlation between them."Reality" is a hot topic in the field of philosophy of science.For this reason,the similarities between Wittgenstein and Russell’s thought on "relation" and the core view of "structural realism" are compared.New discoveries of quantum mechanics laid the foundation for the theory of "structural realism".The following questions are to be answered:"After Wittgenstein,Western science changed from essentialism to non essentialism,so what are the core features of Wittgenstein’s thought on ’relation’?" "How did this shift take place from a ’relation’ perspective?" "Which philosophers in the field of philosophy of science inherited and developed his ideas?"Fifth comes the enlightenment of "relation" thought on the newly-emerging science,with Machine Intelligence(MI)as an example.It discusses the enlightenment of Wittgenstein’s thought of "relation" on the newly-emerging science,for instance,"machine intelligence".MI’s imitation of human problem-solving ability is at a transitional stage,from formal imitation to deeper simulation.Wittgenstein’s thought on "relation" matches the "connectionism of semantic approaches" in the field of Machine Intelligence.This approach turns the research of machine intelligence from ubiquitous to limited connectionism,thus providing a potential solution to the problem of "Input Poverty".Sixth comes the similarities and differences between Chinese and Western relational philosophy and the corresponding scientific outlooks leading to the differences.In the final analysis,this difference is determined by the way of thinking.Chinese image thinking is characterized by "perceptual intuition",while western conceptual thinking is featured by logical thinking and essential abstraction.The difference in thinking mode forms two distinct relational philosophies and corresponding scientific outlooks.This part mainly discusses the characteristics,advantages and limitations of Chinese and western scientific outlooks.In today’s era,there is the need to give full play to the advantages of Chinese and western scientific outlooks for such problems as ecological crisis,so as to ensure human sustainable development.This study contributes to a deep understanding of Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language.First,"Language Game" is the core of Wittgenstein’s non essentialism.Explaining its connotation from the perspective of relation gives a deeper interpretation of Wittgenstein’s "Language Game".Second,it is helpful to understand the process of western scientific outlook from essentialism to non essentialism.Thirdly,Wittgenstein’s thought on "relation" reveals the turning point of the development of construction thinking as a new path for tracing the development of construction in cognitive sense.Fourthly,on the basis of summarizing Wittgenstein’s contribution to the transformation of scientific outlook,this paper traces the main development paths of western scientific outlook.In terms of reality,it can provide potential solutions to the problems encountered in the emerging scientific field,"Machine Intelligence" for instance.The innovation points of this dissertation:(1)A new research perspective.With a "relation" perspective,the non-essentialism of Wittgenstein’s "Language Game" is explored from a surface level to a deep level.(2)New academic points of view.The research on Wittgenstein’s thought mainly includes the following advances and innovations.First,from a relation perspective,Wittgenstein’s core thought in his later period,that is "language game",is restated,revealing the games invented aspect.Second,the core ideas of Wittgenstein’s view on relation are summarized and his later thought of non-essentialism is revealed with the implied idea of"construction".Thirdly,the inheritance and development of "relation’ is traced back with main philosophical schools of "relation" sorted out before and after Wittgenstein’s period.Fourth,the influence of Wittgenstein’s non-essentialism on the development of philosophy of science is discussed,with Wittgenstein’s unique contribution to the development of western scientific outlook.