Rule‐Following and Objective Spirit

In Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein raises difficulties for the idea that what comes before my mind when I hear, or suddenly understand, a word can impose any normative constraint on what I go on to do. The conclusion his reflections seem to force on us gives rise to a paradox: there is no such thing as going on to apply an expression in a way that accords with what is meant by it. The paradox can be seen as one horn of a dilemma, the other horn of which is Platonism about meaning. It is generally agreed that resolving the paradox means finding a middle course between the two horns of the dilemma. This chapter looks at three attempts to find the middle course: communitarianism, naturalized Platonism, and quietism. It then considers whether Charles Travis offers a way out of the dilemma which avoids the problems of the other views discussed.

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Rule-governed Practices in the Natural World

Journal of Transcendental Philosophy ◽

10.1515/jtph-2019-0016 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 161-181

Author(s):

Wolfgang Huemer

Keyword(s):

Human Nature ◽

Natural World ◽

Prima Facie ◽

Social Dimension ◽

Rule Following ◽

Contemporary Debate ◽

Person Plural ◽

The Social ◽

First Person Plural ◽

Community Rule

AbstractI address the question of whether naturalism can provide adequate means for the scientific study of rules and rule-following behavior. As the term “naturalism” is used in many different ways in the contemporary debate, I will first spell out which version of naturalism I am targeting. Then I will recall a classical argument against naturalism in a version presented by Husserl. In the main part of the paper, I will sketch a conception of rule-following behavior that is influenced by Sellars and Haugeland. I will argue that rule-following is an essential part of human nature and insist in the social dimension of rules. Moreover, I will focus on the often overlooked fact that genuine rule-following behavior requires resilience and presupposes an inclination to calibrate one’s own behavior to that of the other members of the community. Rule-following, I will argue, is possible only for social creatures who follow shared rules, which in turn presupposes a shared (first-person plural) perspective. This implies, however, that our scientific understanding of human nature has to remain incomplete as long as it does not take this perspective, which prima facie seems alien to it, into account.

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Economic and Sociological Accounts of Social Norms

Analyse & Kritik ◽

10.1515/auk-2020-0003 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 42 (1) ◽

pp. 41-96

Author(s):

Hartmut Kliemt

Keyword(s):

Social Norms ◽

Social Order ◽

Individual Behavior ◽

Rule Following ◽

Sociological Approach ◽

Economic Methods ◽

Experimental Economic ◽

Seeking Behavior

AbstractClassifying accounts of institutionalized social norms that rely on individual rule-following as ‘sociological’ and accounts based on individual opportunity-seeking behavior as ‘economic’, the paper rejects purely economic accounts on theoretical grounds. Explaining the realworkings of institutionalized social norms and social order exclusively in terms of self-regarding opportunityseeking individual behavior is impossible. An integrated sociological approach to the so-called Hobbesian problem of social order that incorporates opportunityseeking along with rule-following behavior is necessary. Such an approach emerges on the horizon if economic methods are put to good sociological use on the basis of recent experimental economic findings on rule-following behavior.

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The rule of rules

Public Choice ◽

10.1007/s11127-021-00872-3 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Alan Hamlin

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

Social Order ◽

Political Order ◽

Constitutional Political Economy ◽

Rule Following ◽

Rule Based

AbstractRules are central to the constitutional political economy (CPE) approach. On this approach, rules, of a variety of types and forms, are necessary for the emergence of a political and social order, so that all genuine political order is rule-based. The central role of rules within the CPE approach is examined starting from an explicit definitional discussion of the concept of a rule and including discussion of the nature of rule-following behavior, the supply of rules, and rule enforcement.

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