Sartre's attack on the idea that consciousness has contents is, in effect, an attack on the idea that the mental possesses features that are hidden, inner and constituted or revealed by the individual's inwardly directed awareness. This attack is continued by the Austrian philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Although developing wide-ranging arguments concerning mentality in general, the focus of Wittgenstein's concern is items such as meaning and understanding – meaning something by one's use of a sign and understanding something by way of someone else's (or indeed your) use of a sign. Accordingly, I shall focus, at least initially, on these.

Wittgenstein's discussion of meaning and understanding contains both positive and negative strands. In both cases he is concerned neither to attack a certain theory of meaning nor to put forward a positive theory of his own. Rather, his concern is with a pre-theoretical picture of how language must work, a picture that, as he puts it, holds us captive.

The inner process model

There is a pre-theoretical picture of the nature of meaning that is influential in all branches of philosophical enquiry. In the Anglo-American tradition, the idea is evident in the work of John Locke, and, with a few exceptions, can be traced forwards to the work of Bertrand Russell, J. L. Austin, Paul Grice and John Searle. In the Continental tradition, the idea is likely to be associated with Condillac and, again with a few exceptions, can be traced forwards to Gadamer and Ricoeur. The view can be traced back at least as far as Plato.