Wittgenstein, Kripke and the traps of dualism

Abstract

The article examines the sceptical paradox in the so-called “Kripkenstein” with the lenses of ecological psychology, a theory of cognition that is distinguished for taking both organisms and their environments together in its analysis of mental phenomena. The concept of affordance, which is key to this understanding of cognition, allows for an important versatility in explaining our perception of the world, most notably (for the purposes of this article) the perception of its less tangible (non-physical) aspects, the so-called “sociomaterial practices”. This approach to cognition proves to be valuable in the dissolution of the paradox by allowing mental processes to be comprehended as a collective phenomenon, with language and other rule-following practices being part of the same context as collectively-built practices which shape human reality.