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

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.

Verheggen on Davidson and Kripke on Rule-Following and Meaning

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.

What is the Sceptical Solution?

In chapter 3 of Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Kripke’s Wittgenstein offers a “sceptical solution" to the sceptical paradox about meaning developed in chapter 2 (according to which there are no facts in virtue of which ascriptions of meaning such as “Jones means addition by ‘+’” can be true). Although many commentators have taken the sceptical solution to be broadly analogous to non-factualist theories in other domains, such as non-cognitivism or expressivism in metaethics, the nature of the sceptical solution has not been well-understood. The main aim of this paper is to advance our understanding of the nature of the non-factualism about meaning proposed in the sceptical solution. It attempts to outline some desiderata that should be respected by interpretations of the sceptical solution and considers two objections raised against it in Barry Stroud’s paper “Wittgenstein on Meaning, Understanding and Community". It attempts to correct misconstruals of the sceptical solution that have been promulgated by Davidson and some of his followers and suggests that the sceptical solution developed by Kripke’s Wittgenstein is best viewed as a form of quasi-realism about meaning. It ends by outlining what it takes to be the most pressing challenges facing the sceptical solution.

The Sceptical Problem Is a Pseudo-Problem. Open Lecture: Does the External World Exist? Part II. The Sceptical Scenario Is Meaningless

Duncan Pritchard’s hinge-disjunctivist approach is not purely therapeutic, it represents a significant step forward. But, within it, the nature of the hinge propositions themselves is not fully disclosed. We interpret the hinge propositions as reality-rooted Wittgenstein rules.This allows us to strengthen the joint interpretation of the sceptical paradox. Finally, we express our doubts about the need for a disjunctivist component to solve/dissolve the sceptical problem. A sceptical scenario is meaningless, because any understanding involves the use of concepts, which, in turn, make sense only if they are rooted in reality. Our point of view is consistent with Jocelyn Benoist’s contextual realism, as well as with Robert Brandom’s position, according to which rationalists and materialistic reductionists share a common false semantic premise about the possibility of a clear separation and independent treatment of semantics and epistemology.

2. Is knowledge impossible?

‘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.

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

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.

Williams’ contextualism as a critique of epistemological realism

Although Williams? contextual thesis is above all a critique of one way of interpreting contextualism in epistemology, viz., simple conversational contextualisam, I will argue that this thesis has also been a very successful means for the critique of a standpoint on which that interpretation, and the entire traditional epistemology rests - epistemological realism. Accordingly, in spite of certain weaknesses in Williams? position pointed out by his critiques, in this paper I will try to show that, by interpreting the problem of scepticism as first and foremost a methodological necessity of epistemological realism, Williams succeeds in offering an enlightening diagnosis of the sceptical paradox problem which is at the centre of epistemology traditionally construed.

The Self-Hollowing Problem of the Radical Sceptical Paradox

The purpose of this paper is to provide a new solution to the radical sceptical paradox. A sceptical paradox purports to indicate the inconsistency within our fundamental epistemological commitments that are all seemingly plausible. Typically, sceptics employ an intuitively appealing epistemic principle (e.g., the closure principle, the underdetermination principle) to derive the sceptical conclusion. This paper will reveal a dilemma intrinsic to the sceptical paradox, which I refer to as the self-hollowing problem of radical scepticism. That is, on the one hand, if the sceptical conclusion turns out to be true, then the epistemic principle employed by sceptics would lose its foundation of plausibility; on the other hand, if the sceptical conclusion does not follow, then the sceptical problem would not arise. In either case, the so-called sceptical paradox cannot be a genuine paradox. This new solution has three theoretical merits: it is undercutting, less theory-laden, and widely applicable.