Editing Philosophical Investigations (section)

=== Mind ===
Wittgenstein's investigations of language lead to several issues concerning the mind. His key target of criticism is any form of extreme mentalism that posits mental states that are entirely unconnected to the subject's environment.  For Wittgenstein, thought is inevitably tied to language, which is inherently social. Part of Wittgenstein's credo is captured in the following proclamation: "An 'inner process' stands in need of outward criteria."<ref>§&nbsp;580.</ref> This follows primarily from his conclusions about private languages: a private mental state (a sensation of pain, for example) cannot be adequately discussed without public criteria for identifying it.

According to Wittgenstein, those who insist that consciousness (or any other apparently subjective mental state) is conceptually unconnected to the external world are mistaken. Wittgenstein explicitly criticises so-called [[Zombie Argument|conceivability arguments]]: "Could one imagine a stone's having consciousness?  And if anyone can do so—why should that not merely prove that such image-mongery is of no interest to us?"<ref>§&nbsp;390</ref> He considers and rejects the following reply as well:

<blockquote>But if I suppose that someone is in pain, then I am simply supposing that he has just the same as I have so often had.{{snd}}That gets us no further. It is as if I were to say: "You surely know what 'It is 5 o'clock here' means; so you also know what 'It's 5 o'clock on the sun' means. It means simply that it is just the same there as it is here when it is 5 o'clock."{{snd}}The explanation by means of <em>identity</em> does not work here.<ref>§&nbsp;350</ref></blockquote>

Thus, according to Wittgenstein, mental states are intimately connected to a subject's environment, especially to his or her linguistic environment, and conceivability or imaginability. Arguments that claim otherwise are misguided.