1 Dewey, Wittgenstein, and Linguistic Instrumentalism My paper ...

empirical research supporting this “theory” of language (see Tomasello 1999, 2008a, and
2008b). 12 We also now know that having mirror neurons is immensely helpful in taking
the attitude of the other for organisms such as ourselves and many other species. 13
While decrying scientism and the pretense of even good science to completing the quest
for certainty, Dewey nonetheless thought philosophy participated in both literature and
empirical science. 14 Meanwhile, Wittgenstein insists that philosophy is separate from
science (see Tractatus § 4.111 and PI § 109).
Many consider Wittgenstein’s remarks on private language, “form of life,” and
grammar, or conventional normative rules-governed linguistic activity, as the most
prominent notions in the Investigations. They are all intimately connected. Let us
compare some remarkably resonate passages in Dewey on similar themes. We begin
with the argument against private language. For Wittgenstein, a private-language, in
which “individual words . . . are to refer to what can only be known to the person
speaking; to his immediate private sensations” is not a genuine, meaningful, rule-
governed language (PI § 243). The signs in language can only function when there is a
possibility of judging the correctness of their use; so, “the use of [a] word stands in need
of a justification which everybody understands” (PI § 261). Compare Wittgenstein to
Dewey: “Primarily meaning is intent and intent is not personal in a private and
exclusive sense” (LW 1: 142). Dewey finds that if “we had not talked with others and
they with us, we should never talk to and with ourselves” (135). Indeed, for Dewey, to
have a mind at all is to have meaning: “Through speech a person dramatically identifies
himself with potential acts and deeds; he plays many roles, not in successive stages of
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