Family resemblance (German:Familienähnlichkeit) is a philosophical idea made popular byLudwig Wittgenstein, with the best known exposition given in his posthumously published bookPhilosophical Investigations (1953).[1] It argues that things which could be thought to be connected by one essential common feature may in fact be connected by a series of overlappingsimilarities, where no one feature is common to all of the things. Games, which Wittgenstein used as an example to explain the notion, have become the paradigmatic example of a group that is related by family resemblances. It has been suggested that Wittgenstein picked up the idea and the term fromFriedrich Nietzsche, who had been using it, as did many nineteenth century philologists, when discussinglanguage families.[2]
The first occurrence of the termfamily resemblance is found inArthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860;The World As Will and Representation §§17, 27, 28) who attributed the term to the school developed byFriedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775–1854). As demonstrated,[3] Schopenhauer's polemical target isHenrik Steffens (1773–1845), a student of Schelling. The next occurrence appeared in a note from 1930, commenting onOswald Spengler's ideas.[4] The notion itself features widely in Wittgenstein's later work, and in theInvestigations it is introduced in response to questions about the general form ofpropositions and the essence of language – questions which were central to Wittgenstein throughout his philosophical career. This suggests that family resemblance was of prime importance for Wittgenstein's later philosophy; however, like many of his ideas, it is hard to find precise agreement within the secondary literature on either its place within Wittgenstein's later thought or on its wider philosophical significance.
Since the publication of theInvestigations, the notion of family resemblance has been discussed extensively not only in the philosophical literature, but also, for example, in works dealing with classification where the approach is described as "polythetic", distinguishing it from the traditional approach known now as "monothetic".Prototype theory is a recent development incognitive science where this idea has also been explored. As the idea gained popularity, earlier instances of its occurrence were rediscovered e.g. in 18th-centurytaxonomy,[5] in the writings ofLev Vygotsky[6] orWładysław Tatarkiewicz.[7]
The local context where the topic of family resemblances appears is Wittgenstein's critique of language. InPhilosophical Investigations §65-71 the plurality of language uses is compared to the plurality of games. Next it is asserted that games have common features but no one feature is found in all of them. The whole argument has become famous under the heading 'language games'.
The larger context in which Wittgenstein's philosophy is seen to develop considers his uncompromising opposition to essences, mental entities and other forms of idealism which were accepted as a matter of fact incontinental philosophy at the turn of the preceding century. In his view, the main cause for such errors is language and its uncritical use. In the received view, concepts, categories or classes are taken to rely on necessary features common to all items covered by them.Abstraction is the procedure which acknowledges this necessity and derivesessences, but in the absence of a single common feature, it is bound to fail.
The term "Family resemblance" as feature of Wittgenstein's philosophy owes much to its translation in English. Wittgenstein, who wrote mostly in German, used the compound wordFamilienähnlichkeit, but as he lectured and conversed in English he used 'family likeness' (e.g.The Blue Book, p. 17,33;The Brown Book,§66). However, in thePhilosophical Investigations the separate wordÄhnlichkeit has been translated as 'similarity' (§§11,130,185,444) and on two occasions (§§9,90) it is given as 'like'. The German family-word is common, and it is found inGrimm's dictionary; a rare occurrence of 'family likeness' has been noted in a lecture byJ. F. Moulton in 1877.[8]
Games are the main example considered by Wittgenstein in his text, where he also mentions numbers and makes an analogy with a thread. He develops his argument further by insisting that in such cases there is not a clear-cut boundary, but there arises some ambiguity if this indefiniteness can be separated from the main point.
In §66 Wittgenstein invites us to
consider for example the proceedings that we call "games"...[to] look and see whether there is anything common to all.
The section mentions card games, board games, ball games, games like ring-a-ring-a-roses and concludes:
And we can go through the many, many other groups of games in the same way; we can see how similarities crop up and disappear.And the result of this examination is: we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities.
The following §67 begins by stating:
I can think of no better expression to characterize these similarities than "family resemblances"; for the various resemblances between members of a family: build, features, colour of eyes, gait, temperament, etc. etc. overlap and criss-cross in the same way. – And I shall say: "games" form a family.
and extends the illustration
for instance the kinds of number form a family in the same way. Why do we call something a "number"? Well, perhaps because it has a direct relationship with several things that have hitherto been called number; and this can be said to give it an indirect relationship to other things we call the same name. And we extend our concept of number as in spinning a thread we twist fibre on fibre. And the strength of the thread does not reside in the fact that some one fibre runs through its whole length, but in the overlapping of many fibres.
The problem of boundaries begins in §68
I can give the concept 'number' rigid limits ... that is, use the word "number" for a rigidly limited concept, but I can also use it so that the extension of the concept is not closed by a frontier. And this is how we do use the word "game". For how is the concept of a game bounded? What still counts as a game and what no longer does? Can you give the boundary? No. You can draw one; for none has so far been drawn. (But that never troubled you before when you used the word "game".)
There are some simplemodels[6][9]which can be derived from the text of §66-9. The most simple one, which fits Wittgenstein's exposition, seems to be thesorites type. It consists in a collection of itemsItem_1,Item_2,Item_3... described by features A, B, C, D, ...:
Item_1: A B C D
Item_2: B C D E
Item_3: C D E F
Item_4: D E F G
Item_5: E F G H
......... . . . .
In this example, which presents an indefinitely extended ordered family, resemblance is seen in shared features: each item shares three features with his neighbors e.g.Item_2 is likeItem_1 in respects B, C, D, and likeItem_3 in respects C, D, E. Obviously what we call 'resemblance' involves different aspects in each particular case. It is also seen to be of a different 'degree' and here it fades with 'distance':Item_1 andItem_5 have nothing in common.
Another simple model is described as:
Item_1: A B C
Item_2: B C D
Item_3: A C D
Item_4: A B D
It exhibits the presence of a constant degree of resemblance, and theabsence of a common feature without extending to infinity.
Wittgenstein rejects thedisjunction of features or 'properties', i.e. the set {A, B, C, D,..}, as something shared by all items. He admits that a 'sharing' is common to all, but deems that it is only verbal:
if someone wished to say: "There is something common to all these constructions – namely the disjunction of all their common properties" – I should reply: Now you are only playing with words. One might as well say: "Something runs through the whole thread – namely the continuous overlapping of those fibres".
Philosophical Investigations is the primary text used in discussing family resemblances, although the topic appears also in other works by Wittgenstein, notablyThe Brown Book.[20] Many contributions to the discussion are by people involved in philosophical research but concerned with more pragmatic questions such as taxonomy[5] orinformation processing.[21]Hans Sluga has observed that "the notion of family resemblance... draws on two quite different sets of ideas, two different vocabularies, but treats them as if they were one and the same. The first is the vocabulary of kinship, of descent, of some sort of real and causal connection...the second is that of similarity, resemblance, affinity and correspondence."[22]
Wittgenstein's insistence that boundaries do not really exist but can be traced arbitrarily has been described asconventionalism and more generally the acceptance of his conception has been seen to present a refinednominalism.[23][further explanation needed]
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