Chapter Three - Wittgenstein on Rule Following and Interpretation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 December 2022
Summary
Sections 201 and 202 of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations are probably the most discussed and disputed passages of twentieth-century philosophy. In what follows, I shall give my own reading of the argumentative strategy contained in these important remarks. First, let us look at the famous passages:
§201. This was our paradox: no course of action could be determined by a rule, because any course of action can be made out to accord with the rule. The answer was: if any action can be made out to accord with the rule, then it can also be made out to conflict with it. And so there would be neither accord nor conflict here.
It can be seen that there is a misunderstanding here from the mere fact that in the course of our argument we give one interpretation after another; as if each one contented us at least for a moment, until we thought of yet another standing behind it. What this shews is that there is a way of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation, but which is exhibited in what we call “obeying the rule” and “going against it” in actual cases.
Hence there is an inclination to say: any action according to the rule is an interpretation. But we ought to restrict the term “interpretation” to the substitution of one expression of the rule for another.
§202. And hence also “obeying a rule” is a practice. And to think one is obeying a rule is not to obey a rule. Hence it is not possible to obey a rule “privately”: otherwise thinking one was obeying a rule would be the same thing as obeying it.
Next, let us take a quick look at the major steps of the argument that (in my view) underlie these remarks.
A. Let us stipulate what we shall call a “rule” to be that which imposes conditions of correctness or acceptability on a particular action, step, or move within a practice. A move, then, might be judged acceptable, admissible, permissible, correct, or not insofar as it accords with or falls afoul of the rule. A “tool” is an instrument that allows us to implement the rule.
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- Meaning, Mind, and ActionPhilosophical Essays, pp. 47 - 56Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2022