Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s Sceptical Paradox: A Trilemma for Davidson

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Hossein Khani
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Alternative Solution ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Sceptical Paradox ◽  
Sceptical Argument

Davidson’s later philosophy of language has been inspired by Wittgenstein’s Investigations, but Davidson by no means sympathizes with the sceptical problem and solution Kripke attributes to Wittgenstein. Davidson criticizes the sceptical argument for relying on the rule-following conception of meaning, which is, for him, a highly problematic view. He also casts doubt on the plausibility of the sceptical solution as unjustifiably bringing in shared practices of a speech community. According to Davidson, it is rather success in mutual interpretation that explains success in the practice of meaning something by an utterance. I will argue that Davidson’s objections to the sceptical problem and solution are misplaced as they rely on a misconstrual of Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s view. I will also argue that Davidson’s alternative solution to the sceptical problem is implausible, since it fails to block the route to the sceptical problem. I will then offer a problematic trilemma for Davidson.

Universal Grammar and Philosophy of Language

2016 ◽  
pp. 60-76
Author(s):  
Peter Ludlow
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Performance Theory ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Set Point ◽  
Parametric System ◽  
Linguistic Behavior ◽  
Optimal Set ◽  
A Performance

Universal Grammar (UG) is a parametric system that establishes individual norms for language users. This is the sense in which UG is part of a competence theory instead of a performance theory. By establishing individual norms it does not control our linguistic behavior but acts as a kind of regulator that warns us when we diverge from an optimal set-point value. These warnings take the form of linguistic judgments. These linguistic judgments are surfacey—they don’t tell us what rules have been violated; they merely tell us when something is amiss, or which of two forms is more optimal. They are merely judgments of acceptability. While this approach leads us into the rule-following arguments of Wittgenstein and Kripke, those arguments can be defused if handled with care.

scholarly journals Dennis Patterson on Wittgenstein

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-106
Author(s):  
V. V. Ogleznev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Full Scale ◽  
Legal Philosophy ◽  
Legal Interpretation ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Special Approach ◽  
Legal Theorist

Dennis Patterson, modern American legal theorist, is one of the active supporters of the importance and significance of later Wittgenstein’s ideas for resolving legal philosophy problems, including legal indeterminacy problem. On the basis of Wittgenstein’s ideas about rule-following and acting in accordance with rule, he developed his own special approach to law and legal interpretation. Although there are some doubts and possible objections that he understood and interpreted «Philosophical Investigations» correctly, it should be recognized that Patterson made a full-scale (and sometimes very convincing) attempt to explicate Wittgenstein’s thoughts in a quite different context, namely, in the context of legal theory. His treatment of wittgensteinian philosophy of language continues to be interesting and sound, despite the criticisms that have been made against his approach. It is in fact very hard to find among modern legal philosophers or theorists someone who could interpret Wittgenstein in a more sophisticated way than Patterson has done

Möchte Chomsky erklären, was Wittgenstein beschreibt?

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-123
Author(s):  
Melanie Uth
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Complementary Distribution ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
Theory Of Meaning ◽  
Basic Concepts ◽  
The One ◽  
Language Meaning

AbstractThis article examines the relation between the philosophy of language proposed by the later Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations, and his ambition to cure philosophy from the mapping of linguistic expressions to extra-linguistic entities, on the one hand, and Chomsky's statements regarding language, meaning, and thought, and regarding the sense and non-sense of different fields of linguistic research, on the other. After a brief descriptive comparison of both approaches, it is argued that Chomsky's criticism on Wittgenstein's theory of meaning (Chomsky 1974 – 1996), or on Wittgenstein's basic concepts such as e. g. rule-following (Chomsky 2000 onwards), respectively, is (a) unwarranted and (b) caused by a fundamental misconception. Moreover, it is argued that the hypothesis evoked by Grewendorf (1985: 126), according to which „Chomsky would like to explain what Wittgenstein describes“, is misleading since the objects of investigation of Chomsky and Wittgenstein are in complementary distribution one to the other.

Meaning and rule-following

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry C. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Foundations Of Mathematics ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Fundamental Issue ◽  
Private Language ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Linguistic Practice ◽  
Competent Speaker ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Sceptical Conclusion

Wittgenstein’s discussion of rules and rule-following, and the recent responses to it, have been widely regarded as providing the deepest and most challenging issues surrounding the notions of meaning, understanding and intention – central notions in the philosophy of language and mind. The fundamental issue is what it is for words to have meaning, and for speakers to use words in accordance with their meanings. In Philosophical Investigations and Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, Wittgenstein explores the idea that what could give a word its meaning is a rule for its use, and that to be a competent speaker is to use words in accordance with these rules. His discussion of the nature of rules and rule-following has been highly influential, although there is no general agreement about his conclusions and final position. The view that there is no objectivity to an individual’s attempt to follow a rule in isolation provides one strand of Wittgenstein’s argument against the possibility of a private language. To some commentators, Wittgenstein’s discussion only leads to the sceptical conclusion that there are no rules to be followed and so no facts about what words mean. Others have seen him as showing why certain models of what it takes for an individual to follow a rule are inadequate and must be replaced by an appeal to a communal linguistic practice.

scholarly journals Realist and antirealist interpretations of Wittgenstein’s rule-following considerations

2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-50
Author(s):  
Andrej Jandric
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Argument ◽  
John Mcdowell ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Crispin Wright ◽  
Semantic Realism ◽  
Conceptual Distinction ◽  
Sceptical Paradox

The sceptical paradox which Kripke found in Wittgenstein?s rule-following considerations threatens the very notion of meaning. However, Kripke also offered a sceptical solution to it, according to which semantic sentences have no truth conditions, but their meaning is determined by assertability conditions instead. He presented Wittgenstein?s development as the abandoning of semantic realism of the Tractatus in favour of semantic antirealism, characteristic of Philosophical Investigations. Crispin Wright, although at points critical of Kripke?s interpretation, also understood the rule-following considerations as containing a crucial argument for antirealism. Contrary to Wright, John McDowell maintained that they offer a transcendental argument for realism. In this paper, I will argue that neither the realist nor the antirealist reading is faithfull to Wittgenstein, as his important conceptual distinction between criteria and symptoms is not adequately recoverable in any of them. Hence the upshot of rulefollowing considerations is that the distinction between realism and antirealism should not be articulated in terms of truth/assertability conditions.

scholarly journals A Neurolinguistic Approach to Performativity in Economics

2011 ◽  
pp. 50-74
Author(s):  
C. Herrmann-Pillath
Keyword(s):  
Financial Markets ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Behavioral Finance ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Conceptual Blending ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Central Notion ◽  
The Status

What makes institutions "real"? One central notion has been emerging recently in sociology, which is ‘performativity’, a term borrowed from the philosophy of language. The author proposes a neurolinguistic approach to performativity that is based on John Searle’s theory of institutions, especially his concept of a "status function" and his explanation of rule-following as a neurophysiological disposition. Positing a status function, the article shows, is a performative act. The author applies the concept of "conceptual blending" borrowed from cognitive science to the status function, and gives empirical applications from the research on performativity in financial markets. He also sketches the underlying neuroscience framework following the neural theory of metaphor, which is illustrated empirically with examples from behavioral finance and neuroeconomics.

2. Is knowledge impossible?

2019 ◽  
pp. 23-46
Author(s):  
Duncan Pritchard
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Reasons ◽  
Closure Principle ◽  
Theoretical Innovation ◽  
Radical Scepticism ◽  
Sceptical Paradox ◽  
Sceptical Hypothesis ◽  
Sceptical Argument

‘Is knowledge impossible?’ considers an influential argument that purports to show that we do not know much of what we take ourselves to know. If this argument works, then it licenses a radical sceptical doubt. It first looks at Descartes’s formulation of radical scepticism—Cartesian scepticism—which employs an important theoretical innovation known as a radical sceptical hypothesis. The closure principle is also discussed along with the radical sceptical paradox. If this radical sceptical argument works, then we not only lack knowledge of much of what we believe, but we do not even have any good epistemic reasons for believing what we do.

scholarly journals Verheggen on Davidson and Kripke on Rule-Following and Meaning

Dialogue ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-217
Author(s):  
ALEXANDER MILLER
Keyword(s):  
Rule Following ◽  
Social Character ◽  
The Social ◽  
Normativity Of Meaning ◽  
Sceptical Paradox

ABSTRACTThis paper discusses Claudine Verheggen's account of what she takes to be Donald Davidson's response to the sceptical paradox about rule-following and meaning developed in Saul Kripke's interpretation of Wittgenstein's ‘rule-following considerations.’ It focusses on questions about the normativity of meaning, the social character of meaning, and the role of triangulation in Davidson's account of the determination of meaning, and invites Verheggen to compare the non-reductionism she finds in Davidson with that developed in Crispin Wright's judgement-dependent account of meaning.

The Practice of Following Rules

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilhelm Vossenkuhl
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Default Option ◽  
Actual Use ◽  
Theory Of Language

AbstractRule following has been estimated as a major issue in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. It seemed to be a key to understand his philosophy of language, and a criterion for the correct use of words. It was further valued as a notion, which conforms to standards required in a theory of language. In this essay I shall argue that these views are neither supported in the Philosophical Investigations nor in any other of Wittgenstein’s writings. In my view rule following serves as a default option to clarify that there are no definite standards of the correct use of words and in consequence, that the actual use of a language is not to be explained at all. Any approach to an explanation of the actual language use by means of rules appears to be nonsensical and beside the point. In order to recognize this view one has to take Wittgenstein’s proposition seriously and at face value that the use of a language is a practice. Providing that only the practice counts the famous “paradox” reappears in a new light.

Rule-Following, Meaning, and Primitive Normativity

Mind ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 128 (511) ◽  
pp. 735-760 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Miller
Keyword(s):  
Inadequate Response ◽  
Private Language ◽  
John Mcdowell ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Sceptical Argument ◽  
Normative Attitude

AbstractThis paper explores the prospects for using the notion of a primitive normative attitude in responding to the sceptical argument about meaning developed in chapter 2 of Saul Kripke’s Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. It takes as its stalking-horse the response to Kripke’s Wittgenstein developed in a recent series of important works by Hannah Ginsborg. The paper concludes that Ginsborg’s attempted solution fails for a number of reasons: it depends on an inadequate response to Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s ‘finitude’ objection to reductive dispositionalism; it erroneously rejects the idea that a speaker’s understanding of an expression guides her use; it threatens to collapse into either full-blown non-reductionism or reductive dispositionalism; and there is no motive for accepting it over forms of non-reductionism such as those developed by Barry Stroud and John McDowell.

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