Conceptual Analysis, Theory Construction, and Conceptual Elucidation

Almost a half century after the publication of the
Philosophical Investigations, it seems important to ask why
Wittgenstein"s ideas have had so little impact on
contemporary discussions in the philosophy of mind.
A clue can be discerned by what Georges Rey
says in the introduction to his book on contemporary
philosophy of mind. Rey announces at the outset to his
readers that his treatment of the mind aspires to be
continuous with science, not with literature. He explains
that there is a recent resurgence of interest in the
philosophy of mind with "explanatory questions� about
what sort of thing a pain, a thought, a mental image, a
desire, or an emotion is. Neither materialism nor dualism
provides a "serious� theory about the mind, which will give
us a "serious� explanation of mental phenomena.
According to Rey, although old-style grammatical
investigations may have given us a "heightened sensitivity
to complexities and nuances of our ordinary mental talk,�
they "tended to occur at the expense of further theorizing
about the mental phenomena themselves� (Rey, 4).