Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Locke and the nature of language
- 2 Frege on Sense and reference
- 3 Russell on definite descriptions
- 4 Kripke on proper names
- 5 Natural-kind terms
- 6 Quine on de re and de dicto modality
- 7 Reference and propositional attitudes
- 8 The semantics of propositional attitudes
- 9 Davidson on truth and meaning
- 10 Quine and Davidson on translation and interpretation
- 11 Quine on the indeterminacy of translation
- 12 Austin on speech acts
- 13 Grice on meaning
- 14 Kripke on the rule-following paradox
- 15 Wittgenstein on the Augustinian picture
- Glossary
- Works cited
- Index
14 - Kripke on the rule-following paradox
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Locke and the nature of language
- 2 Frege on Sense and reference
- 3 Russell on definite descriptions
- 4 Kripke on proper names
- 5 Natural-kind terms
- 6 Quine on de re and de dicto modality
- 7 Reference and propositional attitudes
- 8 The semantics of propositional attitudes
- 9 Davidson on truth and meaning
- 10 Quine and Davidson on translation and interpretation
- 11 Quine on the indeterminacy of translation
- 12 Austin on speech acts
- 13 Grice on meaning
- 14 Kripke on the rule-following paradox
- 15 Wittgenstein on the Augustinian picture
- Glossary
- Works cited
- Index
Summary
Key text
Saul Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982).
Introduction
We've seen the difficulty of explaining what it is for linguistic expressions to have meaning. But what if it could be shown that there's no fact of that matter at all about what our words mean? This dramatic sceptical claim was presented by Saul Kripke, in his Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. This work had an immediate effect, in two ways. First, it presented a striking challenge to everyone who believed that words really mean something, and provoked a minor industry of work designed to avoid the scepticism which it proposed. And, secondly, because Kripke claimed to derive his sceptical arguments from some sections of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, it led to a renewed interest in Wittgenstein's later philosophy.
In fact, it's probably better not to stress the links with Wittgenstein too heavily. Kripke himself is quite modest about the status of his work as an interpretation of Wittgenstein: he claims to be doing no more than present ‘that set of problems and arguments which I personally have gotten out of reading Wittgenstein’. And it's now quite widely agreed that, in certain crucial respects at least, Kripke misrepresents Wittgenstein. Nor is the scepticism presented here one which Kripke himself endorses: what we have is, in Kripke's words, just ‘Wittgenstein's argument as it struck Kripke, as it presented a problem for him’.
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- Information
- An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language , pp. 271 - 291Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006