Wittgenstein On Rules and Private Language - Controversies Over Kripke's Interpretation

Controversies Over Kripke's Interpretation

Kripke could be said to diverge from the text and spirit of Philosophical Investigations in a number of ways. Kripke quotes section §201 as follows: “this was our paradox: no course of action could be determined by a rule, because every course of action can be made out to accord with the rule.” Kripke holds this passage presents the reader with a novel form of philosophical skepticism, one, he claims, that is central to Philosophical Investigations. (WRPL 7) §201 continues

"The answer was: if everything could 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."

Which seems to support Kripke’s view, but §201 continues further

"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 one 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." (PI §201 italics in original)

Thus any paradox is immediately dissolved. We can understand the difference between “obeying” and “going against” the rule in actual cases, that is, without the aid of philosophy. How do we, then, distinguish the use or misuse of a rule in actual cases? §202 provides a straightforward answer: obeying a rule is a public practice, accomplished in actual cases, not a philosophical reasoning operation.

"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." (PI §202 italics in original)

There is another reason to hold Kripke has overstated the central nature of what he calls “The Wittgensteinian Paradox” to Philosophical Investigations. In many ways this violates the spirit of Wittgenstein’s book. Throughout Philosophical Investigations are disavowals of philosophical theses. He implores his reader: “don’t think, but look!” (PI §66) Philosophy, to Wittgenstein, “simply puts everything before us, and neither explains nor deduces anything. –-Since everything lies open to view there is nothing to explain. For what is hidden, for example, is of no interest to us.” (PI §126) And then: “If one tried to advance theses in philosophy, it would never be possible to debate them, because everyone would agree to them.” (PI §128)

Kripke, however, attributes a new form of philosophical skepticism to Wittgenstein, and further attributes to him a skeptical solution. Skepticism, much less any solution to skepticism, is a thesis in itself. One does not come to skeptical arguments by ‘looking’ or by use of common sense, but from ‘thinking’ or from a philosophical perspective. Accordingly, many philosophers recognize that the view presented in Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language is philosophically important, though something of a hybrid position — as if it were a fictional thinker of Kripke's own creation — and so it is useful to have a name by which to call it. The thinker meant to hold the view is also sometimes called 'Kripke's Wittgenstein', or 'Kripkenstein' for short, or simply 'KW'.