Grue and Bleen - Kripke's Wittgenstein

Kripke's Wittgenstein

In his book Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Saul Kripke proposes a related argument that leads to skepticism about meaning rather than skepticism about induction, as part of his personal interpretation (nicknamed "Kripkenstein" by some) of the private language argument. He proposes a new form of addition, which he calls quus, which is identical with plus in all cases except those in which either of the numbers to be added are greater than 57; in which case the answer would be 5. He then asks how, given certain obvious circumstances, anyone could know that previously when I thought I had meant plus, I had not actually meant quus. Kripke then argues for an interpretation of Wittgenstein as holding that it is not possible to state the meaning of a word.

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Famous quotes containing the words kripke and/or wittgenstein:

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