The danger of words: a Wittgensteinian lesson for developmentalists

Borrowing from Wittgenstein's and Drury's ideas, this article shows that, b y overlooking Wittgenstein's message about the danger of words and the impo rtance of the grammar and clarification of concepts, some developmentalists sometimes fall prey to the fallacy of the alchemists, the fallacy of Molie re's doctor, the fallacy of the "missing hippopotamus", the fallacy of Van Helmont, and the fallacy of "Pickwickian senses". As a result of these fall acies, the field of development (and psychology) is paved with ungrounded c oncepts, circular explanations, untenable reifications, misleading and nons ensical conclusions, and a mix-up of language-games. We suggest that to rem edy such state of affairs psychologists should not ignore or overlook Wittg enstein's message about the danger of words to bewitch our thought, and sho uld take his conceptual or grammatical investigations, not suspiciously, bu t as a preliminary and indispensable step to set the stage for appropriate factual and functional investigations, and for intelligible, coherent, and meaningful theoretical presumptions. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rig hts reserved.