Family Resemblance - Criticism and Comments

Criticism and Comments

Philosophical Investigations is the primary text used in discussing family resemblances even though the topic appears also in other Wittgenstein's works, notably The Brown Book. Most contributions to the discussion are by people involved in philosophical research, but concern with more pragmatic questions such as taxonomy or information processing sometimes motivates the comments. 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."

The main focus for criticism is the notion of similarity which is instrumental for family resemblance. A similarity is always found for two arbitrarily selected objects, or a series of intermediaries can link them into a family. This problem has been known as underdeterminacy or open ended texture. Admittedly infinity is only potential but for any finite family some common element can be pointed out, especially if relational properties are taken into consideration. Wittgenstein's insistence that boundaries do not really exist but can be traced arbitrarily has been described as conventionalism and more generally the acceptance of his conception has been seen to present a refined nominalism.