Wittgenstein and the Transmission of Traditions

1990 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 41-60
Author(s):  
Anthony O'Hear
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Saul Kripke ◽  
Private Language ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Considerable Discussion

In this country, we tend to look at Wittgenstein in a rather ahistorical way. We see his concerns as fundamentally logico-linguistic, following on first from the work of Frege and Russell, and then referring back indirectly to the concerns of the British empiricists, to those of Locke and Hume, say, on such matters as the reference of our talk about sensations and scepticism about the external world. Recently there has been considerable discussion of the extent to which Wittgenstein's own analysis of the private language and of rule-following might not itself be a new version of a fundamentally Humean scepticism: according to Saul Kripke, Wittgenstein's arguments amount to a demonstration that there is no more reason for speakers of a language to follow the rules governing the concepts of that language in the same way than on the Humean account there is any reason for an effect to follow its causes (Kripke, 1981).

How Private Must an Objectionably Private Language Be?

1998 ◽  
pp. 62-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Lillegard
Keyword(s):  
Community Correction ◽  
Private Language ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Private Practices ◽  
Simon Blackburn ◽  
Mental Events

Some philosophers, taking their cue from Philosophical Investigations (PI) 243-315, suppose that a private language is objectionable only when its terms refer to Cartesian mental events. Others (notably Kripke) have focused on PI 201 and the surrounding remarks about rule following, and have explicated the notion of an objectionable private language as (roughly) that of a language used by just one isolated individual unsupported at any time by any source of external or community correction and approval. I attempt to defend Kripke's account against some objections proffered by Simon Blackburn. Blackburn supposes that individuals are no worse off than communities with respect to the difficulties raised by Kripke, and argues that the "paradox" of PI 201 can be avoided by a proper understanding of extended dispositions, and by grasping the possibility of private practices. But Blackburn misconstrues what it is to go on in the "same" way in following a rule, and ignores the place of constitutive rules in practices.

Rule-Following, Explanation-Transcendence, and Private Language

Mind ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 117 (466) ◽  
pp. 303-328
Author(s):  
Cyrus Panjvani
Keyword(s):  
Private Language ◽  
Rule Following

Kripkenstein and Mathematics as the Language of Nature

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 130-140
Author(s):  
Nour Khairi ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Private Language ◽  
Mathematical Operation ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Skeptical Paradox ◽  
The Way

This paper addresses the skeptical paradox highlighted in Saul Kripke’s work Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. The skeptical paradox stands in the way of many attempts to fix meaning in the rule-following of a language. This paper closely assesses the ‘straight solutions’ to this problem with regards to another type of language; mathematics. A conclusion is made that if we cannot sufficiently locate where the meaning lies in a mathematical operation; if we cannot describe how it is that we follow a rule in mathematics, we ought to tread lightly in characterising it as the language of nature.

Rules and the Rule-Following Argument

1990 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Schauer
Keyword(s):  
Saul Kripke ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Crispin Wright

Sparked by books by Saul Kripke and Crispin Wright, the last several years have seen a renewal of interest in Wittgenstein’s remarks on rules. A large part of the contemporary discussion centers on what it is to follow a rule, how it is that human beings come to follow them, and what facts, mental or otherwise, determine or explain why some but not other logically equivalent extensions of a rule are deemed to constitute a following of the rule.

Language and the Society of Others

Philosophy ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 67 (261) ◽  
pp. 329-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Private Language ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Critical Fields ◽  
Private Language Argument ◽  
Language User

The solitary language user is again stalking the critical fields of Europe (and America, one should add). This pre-social individual, abstracted from all social and historical context, has been seemingly revived after what many of us saw as a death-blow dealt by Wittgenstein in his analysis of the notion of following a rule, and his related discussions bringing out the impossibilities of a ‘private’ language—what has come to be known as Wittgenstein's ‘private language argument’. Just what a ‘private language’ is has become the issue. Did Wittgenstein show that language-use and rule-following essentially and necessarily involved others, and were therefore necessarily social in character (thus showing that to be human and to be rational was necessarily to be social—as Aristotle had it)? Or did his arguments bear only against the notion of a language which was essentially and necessarily private, one which could not in principle be taught to another?

R L Gregory and Others: The Wrong Picture of the Picture Theory of Perception

Perception ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 269-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Katz
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Infinite Regress ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Perceptual Knowledge ◽  
Picture Theory

It is the position of R L Gregory and other cognitive theorists that perceptual knowledge conceived as an inner picture leads to an infinite regress, but that perceptual knowledge conceived as an abstract or coded representation does not. It is argued here that this view is mistaken. All inner representations, whether pictorial or abstract, lead to the regress because all representations, inner or outer, require interpretation, and hence an interpreter. The problem will not disappear, furthermore, by formalizing the representation because rule-following is not equivalent to interpretation. The regress can only be avoided if the whole organism is made the interpreter, and representations are given their appropriate place: in the external world, not inside heads.

scholarly journals Davidson’s Answer to Kripke’s Sceptic

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivia Sultanescu ◽  
Claudine Verheggen
Keyword(s):  
Saul Kripke ◽  
Private Language ◽  
The World ◽  
To Come ◽  
Satisfactory Answer

According to the sceptic Saul Kripke envisages in his celebrated book on Wittgenstein on rules and private language, there are no facts about an individual that determine what she means by any given expression. If there are no such facts, the question then is, what justifies the claim that she does use expressions meaningfully? Kripke’s answer, in a nutshell, is that she by and large uses her expressions in conformity with the linguistic standards of the community she belongs to. While Kripke’s sceptical problem has gripped philosophers for over three decades, few, if any, have been satisfied by his proposed solution, and many have struggled to come up with one of their own. The purpose of this paper is to show that a more satisfactory answer to Kripke’s challenge can be developed on the basis of Donald Davidson’s writings on triangulation, the idea of two individuals interacting simultaneously with each other and the world they share. It follows from the triangulation argument that the facts that can be regarded as determining meaning are irreducible. Yet, contra Kripke, they are not mysterious, for the argument does spell out what is needed for an individual’s expressions to be meaningful.

scholarly journals Seguir regras e significado: o argumento cético-semântico revisitado

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 144-173
Author(s):  
Vinicius De Faria dos Santos
Keyword(s):  
Saul Kripke ◽  
Private Language ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Skeptical Paradox ◽  
Proper Response ◽  
The Way

No presente artigo proponho-me a reconstruir, o mais claramente possível o “paradoxo cético” a partir do modo como apresentado por Saul Kripke em seu Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (1982). Seu argumento sustenta que não há fatos ou razões que justifiquem nosso emprego de termos como dotados de significados. Para tanto, interponho as distinções que julgo pertinentes à adequada compreensão do tema, formulando os requisitos necessários à sua adequada resposta, a saber, o ontológico, o normativo e o da identificação extensional no tempo. Ao final, contrasto o ceticismo ora objeto de análise com sua versão epistemológica clássica. AbstractIn the present paper I propose to rebuild as clearly as possible the “skeptical paradox” from the way presented by Saul Kripke in his Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (1982). His argument maintains that there are no facts or reasons justifying our use of terms as having meaning. Therefore, I interpose the distinctions that I consider relevant to the proper understanding of the subject and I formulate the requirements necessary for its proper response, namely the ontological, the normative and the extensional identification in time. Finally, I contrast semantic skepticism with its classical epistemological version.

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