Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language

The book is a paradigm of analytic philosophy of language — careful construction of a thought experiment, exhaustive consideration of candidate solutions, sharp exhibition of where each fails.

"The skeptical paradox is the central problem of Philosophical Investigations. If we want to see Wittgenstein's book as having any unity, we must see the rule-following considerations as central." (Wittgenstein on Rules, ch. 2)

Kripke's framing — what would have to be the case for a meaning-attribution to be true — descends from the verificationist heritage, even though he uses it to defeat the verificationist programme.

"What is the fact about me, in virtue of which I mean addition by 'plus'? Let us consider what the fact would have to be like." (Wittgenstein on Rules, ch. 2)

The "skeptical solution" — meaning consists in community assertibility-conditions, not in independent fact — has substantial pragmatist content; Quine, Sellars, and the broader American pragmatist tradition prefigure the move.

"The skeptical solution shows that, although Wittgenstein's skeptical problem is correct, this does not lead to the consequence of solipsism or skepticism in any practical sense." (Wittgenstein on Rules, ch. 3)

The shift from individual to community as the locus of meaning-determination has structuralist affinities — meaning is constituted by relations within a system, not by reference to extra-linguistic facts.

"What was Wittgenstein's skeptical paradox? That all language, all concept formation, is impossible, indeed unintelligible. The skeptical solution is that the community gives meaning where the individual could not." (Wittgenstein on Rules, ch. 3)

Meaning as community-constructed rather than as discovered is a constructivist position; the rule-following considerations are foundational for late-twentieth-century constructivist epistemology.

"There is no 'object' for the inner private experience to refer to. Meaning is a public phenomenon." (Wittgenstein on Rules, ch. 3)

The denial of meaning-determining facts has been read (against Kripke's own commitments) as a postmodern move, dissolving the metaphysics of meaning into the contingencies of practice.

"If there is no fact about me that distinguishes my meaning plus from my meaning quus, the obvious conclusion is that there is no such fact." (Wittgenstein on Rules, ch. 2)

The exhaustive consideration of candidate facts — dispositions, mental images, brain states — that might settle meaning-attributions takes naturalist accounts seriously even in defeating them.

"A finite past of computations is consistent with infinitely many functions; any candidate fact we consider must distinguish among them." (Wittgenstein on Rules, ch. 2)

Analytic-philosophical tradition.