scholarly journals Exposition of two forms of semantic skepticism: Wittgenstein’s paradox of rule following and Kripke’s semantic paradox

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-143
Author(s):  
Ken Shigeta
Keyword(s):  
Private Language ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Semantic Paradox ◽  
Semantic Paradoxes ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
The One

Despite persistent attempts to defend Kripke?s argument (Kripke 1982), analyses of this argument seem to be reaching a consensus that it is characterized by fatal flaws in both its interpretation of Wittgenstein and its argument of meaning independent of interpretation. Most scholars who do not agree with Kripke?s view have directly contrasted his understanding of Wittgenstein (KW) with Wittgenstein?s own perspective (LW) in or after Philosophical Investigations (PI). However, I believe that those who have closely read both PI and Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language without any preconceptions have a different impression from the one that is generally accepted: that KW does not directly oppose LW. Indeed, KW seems to present one aspect of LW with precision, although the impression that KW deviates from LW in some respects remains unavoidable. In this paper, I will attempt to elucidate the underpinnings of this impression by formulating the paradoxes presented by Wittgenstein and Kripke and revealing the complicated relation between the two forms of semantic paradoxes. I will then not only propose a new interpretation of the argument about meaning contained in PI but also suggest a schema or condition for semantics that I think holds by itself, independent from exegetical matters.

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.

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.

On Rule-Following

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie McGinn
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Normative Constraint

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.

Can One Recognize Kinds of Private Objects?

1975 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-227
Author(s):  
Charles E. Marks
Keyword(s):  
Private Language ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
The Individual

In § 243 of the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein characterizes a private language as follows: “The individual words of this language are to refer to what can only be known to the person speaking; to his immediate private sensations. So another person cannot understand the language.” A private language is what each of us would need to talk of his own sensations if two philosophical theses were true: namely, (1) that only the person who has a sensation can know that he has it and what kind of sensation it is and (2) that since (1) is true, the names he applies to his own sensations can only be understood by him. If (1) and (2) were true, could a person classify and talk about his own sensations?

scholarly journals Self-organizing Systems in the Light of the Arrows of Orderedness, Symmetry, and Entropy

1970 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-73
Author(s):  
György Darvas
Keyword(s):  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Local Symmetry ◽  
Evolution Of The Universe ◽  
Global Evolution ◽  
New Material ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
The One ◽  
Global And Local ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Matter Energy

The paper makes an attempt to resolve two conceptual mingling: (a) the mingling of the two interpretations of the concept of orderedness applied in statistical thermodynamics and in symmetrology, and (b) the mingling of two interpretations of evolution applied in global and local processes. In conclusion, it formulates a new interpretation on the relation of the emergence of new material qualities in selforganizing processes on the one hand, and the evolution of the universe, on the other. The process of evolution is a sequence of emergence of new material qualities by self-organization processes, which happen in negligible small segments of the universe. Although thermodynamics looks at the universe as a closed (isolated) system, this holds for its outside boundaries only, while the universe has many subsystems inside, which are not isolated (closed), since they are in a permanent exchange of matter, energy, etc. with their environment (with the rest of the universe) through their open boundaries. Any ";;emergence";; takes place, i.e., all new qualities come into being just in these small open segments of the universe. The conditions to apply the second law of thermodynamics are not present here. Therefore, global evolution of the universe is the consequence of local symmetry decreases, local decreases of orderedness, and possible local decreases of entropy.

scholarly journals “Die Maschine als Symbol ihrer Wirkungsweise”: Wittgenstein, Reuleaux and Kinematics

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sébastien Gandon
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
General Science ◽  
Machine Model ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
The Future ◽  
Machine Configuration

In Philosophical Investigations 193–94, Wittgenstein draws a notorious analogy between the working of a machine and the application of a rule. According to the view of rule-following that Wittgenstein is criticizing, the future applications of a rule are completely determined by the rule itself, as the movements of the machine components are completely determined by the machine configuration. On what conception of the machine is such an analogy based? In this paper, I intend to show that Wittgenstein relied on quite a specific scientific tradition very active at the beginning of the twentieth century: the kinematic or the general science of machines. To explain the fundamental tenets of this line of research and its links with Wittgenstein, I focus on Franz Reuleaux (1829–1905), whose works were known to Wittgenstein.       The first payoff of this investigation is to help distance the functionalist framework from which this passage is often read: Wittgenstein’s machines are not (or not primarily) computers. The second payoff is to explain why Wittgenstein talks about machines at this place in his discussion on rule-following: it is not the machine model in itself that is criticized in PI 193–94, but the “philosophical” temptation to generalize from it.

scholarly journals Sets, lies, and analogy: a new methodological take

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulia Terzian
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Semantic Paradoxes ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Uniform Solution ◽  
The One ◽  
Graham Priest

Abstract The starting point of this paper is a claim defended most famously by Graham Priest: that given certain observed similarities between the set-theoretic and the semantic paradoxes, we should be looking for a ‘uniform solution’ to the members of both families. Despite its indisputable surface attractiveness, I argue that this claim hinges on a problematic reasoning move. This is seen most clearly, I suggest, when the claim and its underlying assumptions are examined by the lights of a novel, quite general and, I contend, promising take on inter-theoretic analogy. The ensuing discussion is intended to serve as both a possible case study and a first step towards the broader aim of the paper: namely, to initiate a wider conversation on the methodology of paradox-solving on the one hand, and the use of inter-theoretic analogies on the other.

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
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