Wittgenstein and prototype theory

Continuing the last post, here's more from the SEP which sounds a lot like how basic categories and prototype theory are defined in cognitive science these days:

"It is here that Wittgenstein’s rejection of general explanations, and definitions based on sufficient and necessary conditions, is best pronounced. Instead of these symptoms of the philosopher’s 'craving for generality', he points to ‘family resemblance’ as the more suitable analogy for the means of connecting particular uses of the same word. There is no reason to look, as we have done traditionally—and dogmatically—for one, essential core in which the meaning of a word is located and which is, therefore, common to all uses of that word. We should, instead, travel with the word’s uses through 'a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing' (PI 66). Family resemblance also serves to exhibit the lack of boundaries and the distance from exactness that characterize different uses of the same concept. Such boundaries and exactness are the definitive traits of form—be it Platonic form, Aristotelian form, or the general form of a proposition adumbrated in the Tractatus. It is from such forms that applications of concepts can be deduced, but this is precisely what Wittgenstein now eschews in favor of appeal to similarity of a kind with family resemblance."

That connection between prototype theory and Witt is accepted in cognitive science, e.g, here. Speaking of prototype theory, see this wiki. Also see Chapter 2 in Lakoff's book Women, Fire and Dangerous Things entitled "From Wittgenstein to Rosch." A copy of the book is here. Actually read the whole thing, as it critiques philosophy based on Aristotelian necessary and sufficient conditions, later expounded on in Philosophy in the Flesh, copy here. It's also a critique of models of hierarchical complexity, which I explored in the real/false reason thread. It's why these days I prefer postmetaphysical hier(an)archical synplexity.