MEANING AND THE GROWTH OF UNDERSTANDING

In the beginning it seemed to us that someone was missing and that something was amiss. He was often mentioned occasionally discussed but seldom cited or credited explicitly. And when he was acknowl edged it was sometimes for reasons that seemed anachronistic and misleading. His influence could be felt in a number of areas of our dis cipline but few scholars seemed to know just how just where and to what extent. We discovered almost accidentally that we shared an in terest in his legacy in unravelling at least some portion of this riddle. Shortly thereafter we began discussing ways in which by pooling our resources with those of interested others we could move closer to a res olution. Put simply the protagonist of this riddle is Ludwig Wittgenstein (18891951) the son of a wealthy Viennese industrialist the influential Cantabrigian philosopher the rural Austrian schoolteacher. And the subject of our study is his largely unexplored legacy for developmental psychology. Although Wittgensteins thought seemed to hold special promise for the study of human development the philosopher and his work could walk virtually unrecognized through the landscape of con temporary develIn the beginning it seemed to us that someone was missing and that something was amiss. He was often mentioned occasionally discussed but seldom cited or credited explicitly. And when he was acknowl edged it was sometimes for reasons that seemed anachronistic and misleading. His influence could be felt in a number of areas of our dis cipline but few scholars seemed to know just how just where and to what extent. We discovered almost accidentally that we shared an in terest in his legacy in unravelling at least some portion of this riddle. Shortly thereafter we began discussing ways in which by pooling our resources with those of interested others we could move closer to a res olution. Put simply the protagonist of this riddle is Ludwig Wittgenstein (18891951) the son of a wealthy Viennese industrialist the influential Cantabrigian philosopher the rural Austrian schoolteacher. And the subject of our study is his largely unexplored legacy for developmental psychology. Although Wittgensteins thought seemed to hold special promise for the study of human development the philosopher and his work could walk virtually unrecognized through the landscape of con temporary devel1 Introduction: Wittgenstein and Developmental Psychology. 2 Pedagogical Elements in Wittgensteins Late Work On Certainty. 3 Rule Following Mental Models and the Developmental View. 4 Wittgenstein Contextualism and Developmental Psychology. 5 On Certainty and Universality in Human Development: Developmental Psychology Between Apriorism and Empiricism. 6 Recognition in Wittgenstein and Contemporary Thought. 7 Inner Processes and Outward Criteria: Wittgensteins Importance for Psychology. 8 Wittgensteins Forms of LifeŁ: A Cultural Template for Psychology. 9 Wittgenstein and Categorization Res