Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xm8r8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-02T17:59:56.822Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Wittgenstein’s Naturalism and the Skeptical Paradox

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2024

Claudine Verheggen
Affiliation:
York University, Toronto
Get access

Summary

There is a form of naturalism which runs through Kripke’s account of rule-following. Given the overarching structure of his account, in which Wittgenstein’s naturalism is made to serve the ends of a skeptical solution to the paradox of the regress of interpretations, it inevitably has the effect of giving a reductive interpretation of it. The reductionist aspect was made clear by those, such as Crispin Wright, who made Kripke’s naturalistic element explicit, using non-normative notions in a constructive account of what going by a rule consists in. I look at Wittgenstein’s pivot toward naturalism in the early 1930s and trace its development to the discussion of rule-following in the Philosophical Investigations. I argue for a different understanding of Wittgenstein’s naturalism and its relation to the paradox of PI §201, one which allows it to escape the charges of both reductionism and an unsatisfactory form of quietism.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×