Cole J
Med Humanit. 2007 Jun;33(1):59-64. doi: 10.1136/jmh.2006.000232.
Wittgenstein, despite being considered an analytical philosopher, has been quoted extensively by neurologists like Oliver Sacks. This paper explores how Wittgenstein, despite suggesting that science was antithetical to philosophy, made observations relevant to cognitive neuroscience. His work on the inner and the outer, the relation between language and sensation or perception, and on the embodied nature of emotion and its communication, is important for an understanding of neurological impairment beyond our experience. In some of his enigmatic short writing his insights are pertinent to patients' experience, say of pain, Capgras' Syndrome and spinal cord injury. He also made observations on movement sense, will and action. He did not engage in empirical science, nor obtain data in any conventional sense. But his genius was not confined to abstract philosophy. His powers of observation and introspection led him to explore lived experience in new ways, some of which are only now being approached empirically. The method of science, he once wrote, leads philosophy into complete darkness. Had he lived today, one hopes that even he might have changed his mind.
维特根斯坦尽管被视为分析哲学家,但像奥利弗·萨克斯这样的神经学家却广泛引用过他的话。本文探讨了维特根斯坦尽管认为科学与哲学背道而驰,但却做出了与认知神经科学相关的观察。他关于内在与外在、语言与感觉或知觉之间的关系,以及关于情感的具身性质及其交流的研究,对于理解超出我们经验范围的神经损伤很重要。在他一些晦涩难懂的短文里,他的见解与患者的经历相关,比如疼痛、卡普格拉综合征和脊髓损伤。他还对运动感觉、意志和行动进行了观察。他没有从事实证科学研究,也没有以任何传统意义上的方式获取数据。但他的天赋并不局限于抽象哲学。他的观察和内省能力使他以新的方式探索生活经验,其中一些方式直到现在才通过实证研究来探讨。他曾写道,科学方法会让哲学陷入完全的黑暗。要是他生活在今天,人们希望就连他自己或许也会改变想法。