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Kripkenstein on Meaning
Edited by Indrek Reiland (University of Vienna)
About this topic
| Summary | Kripkenstein or Kripke's Wittgenstein is a fictional character customarily taken to be the person committed to the views of meaning, content, and rule-following presented in Saul Kripke's Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (1982). Kripkenstein first presents us with the skeptical challenge to explain what it is for expressions to have a particular meaning in a speaker's idiolect. Consider a word like '+' which is intuitively for applying the addition function or 'table' which is for talking about tables. Kripkenstein asks what makes it the case that in one's idiolect these words are indeed for doing these things. After all, we can assume that our history of past uses is entirely compatible with '+' being for applying the quaddition function (x quus y = x plus y, if x, y < 57, = 5 otherwise) or for talking about tabairs (a tabair = anything that is a table not found at the base of the Eiffel tower or a chair found there). He then presents a skeptical argument by considering a series of potential answers and showing that they don't work. For starters, he argues that the relevant fact can't consist in a speaker's having given herself instructions how to use the expression because instructions would have to be stated in language and that would merely push back the problem. Second, he argues that it can't consist in her being disposed to use the expression in certain ways (e. g. when using ‘+’ one is disposed to give the sum, or when using ‘table’ one is disposed to do so only in the presence of tables) because, most fundamentally, this fails to make sense of the fact that using it in those ways is correct (see also the section on Normativity of Meaning and Content). Finally, he argues that we can't invoke simplicity considerations to rule out quaddition-like candidates, nor by claiming that the relevant state has a distinctive phenomenology or is primitive. Having drawn the skeptical conclusion that nothing makes It the case that expressions have particular meanings in our idiolects, Kripkenstein presents a skeptical solution which is standardly interpreted as claiming that we should construe attributions of meaning, content etc. in non-factualist terms by taking them to be justifiable or permissible when the person to whom we attribute meaning, content etc. behaves like we do. |
| Key works | Kripkenstein's discussion is presented in Kripke 1982. Important early commentaries include Forbes 1984, Blackburn 1984, and Goldfarb 1985 which defend the dispositionalist answer, Lewis 1983 which discusses invoking simplicity considerations, and McDowell 1984 and McGinn 1984 which discuss taking the state to be primitive and the relation between Wittgenstein's and Kripkenstein's views. Important later commentaries include Boghossian 1989, Pettit 1990, Wilson 1994, and several essays in Stroud 2000. Many of these papers are collected in Miller & Wright 2002. Recent discussions include Hattiangadi 2007, Ginsborg 2011, and Miller 2019. |
| Introductions | For an overview see Reiland forthcoming and Miller & Sultanescu 2022 |
Show all references
Related
Siblings
- Meaning Holism (266)
- Speaker Meaning and Linguistic Meaning (125)
- Normativity of Meaning and Content (287)
- Aspects of Meaning, Misc (168)
See also
- Rule-Following (311)
- Normativity of Meaning and Content (287)
Contents
261 found
Order:
| 1 — 50 / 261 |
- Kripke on private language.Paul Gregory - manuscript
- With factualist friends, Kripke's Wittgenstein needs no enemies: On Byrne's case for Kripke's Wittgenstein being a factualist about meaning attributions.John Humphrey - manuscript_Private Language_ is that it almost universally sees KW as offering, in his sceptical solution, an account of meaning attributions (i.e., statements of the form, "X means such-and-so by 's'"; hereafter, MAs) which takes their legitimate attribution to be a function of something other than facts or truth conditions. KW is almost universally read as having rejected any account of meaning attributions which takes them to be stating facts or corresponding to facts. In a word, KW is understood as offering (...)Remove from this listExport citation
Bookmark - Kripke’s Wittgenstein and Ginsborg’s Reductive Dispositionalism (In Persian).Ali Hossein Khani - forthcoming - Metaphysics (University of Isfahan).Kripke in his famous book on Wittgenstein’s later philosophy argues, on behalf of Wittgenstein, that there can be no fact of the matter as to what a speaker means by her words, that is, no fact that can meet the Constitution Demand and the Normativity Demand. He particularly argues against the dispositional view, according to which meaning facts are constituted by facts about the speaker's dispositions to respond in a certain way on certain occasions. He argues that facts about dispositions (...)
- Blackburn’s Wittgenstein: The Quasi-Realist.Ali Hossein Khani - forthcoming - In Ali Hossein Khani & Gary N. Kemp (eds.), Wittgenstein and Other Philosophers (Volume I). London: Routledge.
- Kripke's Wittgenstein: The Meaning Sceptic.Ali Hossein Khani - forthcoming - In Ali Hossein Khani & Gary N. Kemp (eds.), Wittgenstein and Other Philosophers (Volume I). Routledge.
- A Critical Review of the Mainstream Reading of Kripke’s Wittgenstein: On Misunderstanding Kripke’s Wittgenstein (In Persian).Ali Hossein Khani - forthcoming - Journal of Philosophical Investigations at University of Tabriz.In this paper, I will argue against certain criticisms of Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s sceptical argument and sceptical solution, made especially by Baker and Hacker, McGinn, and McDowell. I will show that their interpretation of Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s view is misplaced. According to Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s sceptical argument, there is no fact as to what someone means by her words. For Kripke, this conclusion, combined with Classical Realist view of meaning, leads to the Wittgensteinian paradox, according to which there is no such thing as (...)
- What does the 'bedrock' of rules consist of?: Mcdowell on Kripke's and Wright's interpretation of Wittgenstein.Sládeček Michal - forthcoming - Theoria 55 (4):5-20.
- Rule-Following I: The Basic Issues.Indrek Reiland - forthcoming - Philosophy Compass:e12900.‘Rule-following’ is a name for a cluster of phenomena where we seem both guided and “normatively” constrained by something general in performing particular actions. Understanding the phenomenon is important because of its connection to meaning, representation, and content. This article gives an overview of the philosophical discussion of rule-following with emphasis on Kripke’s skeptical paradox and recent work on possible solutions. Part I of this two-part contribution is devoted to the basic issues from Wittgenstein to Kripke. Part II will be (...)
- A Note to "Meaning in Time".Jaakko Reinikainen - forthcoming - In Jani Sinokki (ed.), Colloquium Volume - The Philosophical Society of Finland's Annual Colloquium 2022 in Oulu. Helsinki: Philosophical Society of Finland.As the title suggests, this paper is something of a leftover – or perhaps a new branch – to my "Meaning in Time: on temporal externalism and Kripkenstein’s skeptical challenge". In that work I essayed to portray my understanding of the sceptical challenge uncovered by Saul Kripke’s reading of Wittgenstein’s later works in a nutshell as to its nature and resolution. Here, my task is to dig a little deeper into the key phrase of the earlier paper, namely the claim (...)Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- Explaining Away Kripke’s Wittgenstein.Derek Green - 2023 - Erkenntnis 88 (3):991-1011.The paradox of rule-following that Saul Kripke finds in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations purports to show that words and thoughts have no content—that there is no intentionality. This paper refutes the paradox with a dilemma. Intentional states are posited in rational explanations, which use propositional attitudes to explain actions and thoughts. Depending on which of the two plausible views of rational explanation is right, either: the paradox is mistaken about the a priori requirements for content; or, a fatal flaw in content (...)
- A dilemma for dispositional answers to Kripkenstein’s challenge.Andrea Guardo - 2023 - Minds and Machines 33 (1):135-152.Kripkenstein’s challenge is usually described as being essentially about the use of a word in new kinds of cases ‒ the old kinds of cases being commonly considered as non-problematic. I show that this way of conceiving the challenge is neither true to Kripke’s intentions nor philosophically defensible: the Kripkean skeptic can question my answering “125” to the question “What is 68 plus 57?” even if that problem is one I have already encountered and answered. I then argue that once (...)
- Linguistic Mistakes.Indrek Reiland - 2023 - Erkenntnis 88 (5):2191-2206.Ever since the publication of Kripke’s Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, there’s been a raging debate in philosophy of language over whether meaning and thought are, in some sense, normative. Most participants in the normativity wars seem to agree that some uses of meaningful expressions are semantically correct while disagreeing over whether this entails anything normative. But what is it to say that a use of an expression is semantically correct? On the so-called orthodox construal, it is to say (...)
- Going on as one ought: Kripke and Wittgenstein on the normativity of meaning.Hannah Ginsborg - 2022 - Mind and Language 37 (5):876-892.Kripke’s thesis that meaning is normative is typically interpreted, following Boghossian, as the thesis that meaningful expressions allow of true or warranted use. I argue for an alternative interpretation centered on Wittgenstein’s conception of the normativity involved in “knowing how to go on” in one’s use of an expression. Meaning is normative for Kripke because it justifies claims, not to be saying something true, but to be going on as one ought from prevous uses of the expression. I argue that (...)
- Yet another victim of Kripkenstein’s monster: dispositions, meaning, and privilege.Andrea Guardo - 2022 - Ergo 8 (55):857-882.In metasemantics, semantic dispositionalism is the view that what makes it the case that, given the value of the relevant parameters, a certain linguistic expression refers to what it does are the speakers’ dispositions. In the literature, there is something like a consensus that the fate of dispositionalism hinges on the status of three arguments, first put forward by Saul Kripke ‒ or at least usually ascribed to him. This paper discusses a different, and strangely neglected, anti-dispositionalist argument, which develops (...)
- Teleo-Inferentialism.Ulf Hlobil - 2022 - Philosophiocal Topics 50 (1):185-211.The paper presents teleo-inferentialism, which is a novel meta-semantic theory that combines advantages of teleosemantics and normative inferentialism. Like normative inferentialism, teleo-inferentialism holds that contents are individuated by the norms that govern inferences in which they occur. This allows teleo-inferentialism to account for sophisticated concepts. Like teleosemantics, teleo-inferentialism explains conceptual norms in a naturalistically acceptable way by appeal to the broadly biological well-functioning of our innate capacities. As a test-case for teleo-inferentialism, I discuss how the view handles Kripkenstein-style meaning skepticism.
- Is semantic correctness descriptive?Aleksi Honkasalo - 2022 - Theoria 88 (5):899-907.According to the normativists, dispositionalist theories of meaning fail because meaning is normative, not descriptive. One way to understand this notion of normativity is in terms of semantic correctness conditions. Anti-normativists typically accept that meaning implies semantic correctness but deny that this in turn implies that meaning is normative. Jeffrey Kaplan has recently argued that while semantic correctness may not imply full-blown normativity, semantic correctness is not descriptive either. I contend that Kaplan's argument has two main problems. First, his focus (...)
- Kripke’s Wittgenstein.Ali Hossein Khani - 2022 - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP).Saul Kripke, in his celebrated book Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (1982), offers a novel reading of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s main remarks in his later works, especially in Philosophical Investigations (1953) and, to some extent, in Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics (1956). Kripke presents Wittgenstein as proposing a skeptical argument against a certain conception of meaning and linguistic understanding, as well as a skeptical solution to such a problem. Many philosophers have called this interpretation of Wittgenstein Kripke’s Wittgenstein or (...)
- Rules as constitutive practices defined by correlated equilibria.Ásgeir Berg Matthíasson - 2022 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 65.In this paper, I present a game-theoretic solution to the rule-following paradox in terms of what I will call basic constitutive practices. The structure of such a practice P constitutes what it is to take part in P by defining the correctness conditions of our most basic concepts as those actions that lie on the correlated equilibrium of P itself. Accordingly, an agent S meant addition by his use of the term ‘+’ because S is taking part in a basic (...)
- Rule-Following and Intentionality.Alexander Miller & Olivia Sultanescu - 2022 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Meaning in time: on temporal externalism and Kripkenstein’s skeptical challenge.Jaakko Reinikainen - 2022 - Synthese 200 (288):1-27.The main question of metasemantics, or foundational semantics, is why an expression token has the meaning (semantic value) that it in fact has. In his reading of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later work, Saul Kripke presented a skeptical challenge that threatened to make the foundational question unanswerable. My first contention in this paper is that the skeptical challenge indeed poses an insoluble paradox, but only for a certain kind of metasemantic theory, against which the challenge effectively works as a reductio ad absurdum (...)
- Meaning, Rationality, and Guidance.Olivia Sultanescu - 2022 - Philosophical Quarterly 73 (1):227-247.In Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Saul Kripke articulates a form of scepticism about meaning. Even though there is considerable disagreement among critics about the reasoning in which the sceptic engages, there is little doubt that he seeks to offer constraints for an adequate account of the facts that constitute the meaningfulness of expressions. Many of the sceptic's remarks concern the nature of the guidance involved in a speaker's meaningful uses of expressions. I propose that we understand those remarks (...)
- The Threat of Solipsism: Wittgenstein and Cavell on Meaning, Skepticism, and Finitude by Jônadas Techio.Richard Eldridge - 2021 - Review of Metaphysics 74 (4):640-642.
- Podobieństwo rodzinne a paradoks reguły.Paweł Grad - 2021 - Przeglad Filozoficzny - Nowa Seria 30 (1):71-88.I argue in the paper that the conception of family resemblance discussed by Ludwig Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations is a result of the application of Wittgenstein’s general argument against rule‑following to the pragmatics of all concepts. My argument runs as follows: First, (1) I criticize interpretations of family resemblance as a ‘local’ theory, applicable only to some concepts. Next, (2) I present and criticise a classic argument against the conception of family resemblance. In the following section, (3) I analyse attempts (...)
- Concepts, Normativity, and Self-Knowledge. On Ginsborg's Conception of Primitive Normativity.David Lauer - 2021 - In Christoph Demmerling & Dirk Schröder (eds.), Concepts in Thought, Action, and Perception. London, New York: Routledge. pp. 117-138.In a series of intriguing and far-reaching papers, Hannah Ginsborg introduced the notion of “primitive normativity” as the cornerstone of a novel account of the normativity of concepts, thought, and meaning. Her account is supposed to steer a middle course between what she regards as the two horns of a dilemma first laid out by Saul Kripke in his seminal reading of Wittgenstein’s discussion of rule-following. I propose to investigate Ginsborg’s conception. I begin by establishing the conceptual relations between the (...)Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- Kripkenstein semanttista realismia vastaan.Jaakko Reinikainen - 2021 - Ajatus 78 (11):187-219.Artikkeli käsittelee Saul Kripken Ludwig Wittgensteinin myöhemmistä töistä koostamaa merkityskeptistä haastetta, erityisesti niin kutsuttua äärellisyyden ongelmaa. Pääargumentti on, että skeptisen haasteen pääasiallinen vastaaja, semanttinen dispositionalismi, ei uusimmistakaan yrityksistä huolimatta ole kyennyt ratkaisemaan äärettömyyden ongelmaa. Ratkaistakseen ongelman dispositionalistin tulisi selittää, kuinka on mahdollista, että äärellinen puhuja voisi omata disposition käyttää jotain termiä äärettömässä määrässä tapauksia määrätyllä tavalla. Monet dispositionalistit esittävät, että ratkaisu löytyy niin kutsutuista ceteris paribus -ehdoista, joita vastaan Martin Kusch on argumentoinut. Jatkan Kuschin kritiikkiä ja osoitan ceteris paribus -strategian (...)
- Meaning Scepticism and Primitive Normativity.Olivia Sultanescu - 2021 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 102 (2):357-376.This paper examines Hannah Ginsborg's attempt to address the challenge raised by Saul Kripke's meaning sceptic. I start by identifying the two constraints that the sceptic claims must be met by a satisfactory answer. Then I try to show that Ginsborg's proposal faces a dilemma. In the first instance, I argue that it is able to meet the second constraint, but not the first. I then amend the proposal in order to make room for the first constraint. I go on (...)
- Semantic dispositionalism without exceptions.Arvid Båve - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (6):1751-1771.Semantic dispositionalism is roughly the view that meaning a certain thing by a word, or possessing a certain concept, consists in being disposed to do something, e.g., infer a certain way. Its main problem is that it seems to have so many and disparate exceptions. People can fail to infer as required due to lack of logical acumen, intoxication, confusion, deviant theories, neural malfunctioning, and so on. I present a theory stating possession conditions of concepts that are counterfactuals, rather than (...)
- Meaning under the Threat of Paradox on Two Fronts.Olga Ramirez Calle - 2020 - Analiza I Egzystencja 50:5-17.The paper defends the argument that the Resemblance Paradox (RP), or the problem of the ‘under-determination of meaning’, and the Rule-Following Paradox (RFP) are two sides of the same paradox threatening meaning from opposite extremes. After presenting the case, the paradox is reconsidered anew and the supposition that the threat is a pervasive one is challenged.
- Two epistemological arguments against two semantic dispositionalisms.Andrea Guardo - 2020 - Journal for the Philosophy of Language, Mind and the Arts 1 (1):13-25.Even though he is not very explicit about it, in “Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language” Kripke discusses two different, albeit related, skeptical theses ‒ the first one in the philosophy of mind, the second one in the philosophy of language. Usually, what Kripke says about one thesis can be easily applied to the other one, too; however, things are not always that simple. In this paper, I discuss the case of the so-called “Normativity Argument” against semantic dispositionalism (which I (...)
- Meaning relativism and subjective idealism.Andrea Guardo - 2020 - Synthese 197 (9):4047-4064.The paper discusses an objection, put forward by - among others - John McDowell, to Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s non-factualist and relativist view of semantic discourse. The objection goes roughly as follows: while it is usually possible to be a relativist about a given domain of discourse without being a relativist about anything else, relativism about semantic discourse entails global relativism, which in turn entails subjective idealism, which we can reasonably assume to be false. The paper’s first section sketches Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s ideas (...)
- The problem with descriptive correctness.Jeffrey Kaplan - 2020 - Ratio 33 (2):79-86.In the 1980s and early 1990s, the normativity of meaning was thought to be more-or-less 'incontestable.' But in the last 25 years, many philosophers of mind and language have contested it in several seemingly different ways. This, however, is somewhat illusory. There is an unappreciated commonality among most anti-normativist arguments, and this commonality, I argue, poses a problem for anti-normativism. The result, however, is not a wholesale rejection of anti-normativism. Rather, an insight from the anti-normativist position can be harnessed to (...)
- What is the Sceptical Solution?Alexander Miller - 2020 - Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy 8 (2).In chapter 3 of Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Kripke’s Wittgenstein offers a “sceptical solution" to the sceptical paradox about meaning developed in chapter 2 (according to which there are no facts in virtue of which ascriptions of meaning such as “Jones means addition by ‘+’” can be true). Although many commentators have taken the sceptical solution to be broadly analogous to non-factualist theories in other domains, such as non-cognitivism or expressivism in metaethics, the nature of the sceptical solution (...)
- On Complete Information Dispositionalism.Mons Nyquist - 2020 - Philosophia 48 (5):1915-1938.In a trio of recent articles, Johnson and Nado defend a form of metasemantic dispositionalism, arguing for a novel approach to the “error”-problem, based on speakers’ dispositional states under what they call a state of “full information”. In this article, I argue that their brand of dispositionalism fails to solve the “error”-problem, because of what I think of as counterexamples to it. In the final sections, I propose a way to amend the theory to shield it from some of the (...)
- Meaning Still Not Normative: On Assessment and Guidance.Jaakko Reinikainen - 2020 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 28 (4):510-526.ABSTRACT Is meaning essentially normative, and what does claiming that amount to? One popular interpretation is that in virtue of their nature meanings are capable of guiding subjects in their applications of concepts, for meaning is constituted by norms. However, the guidance view has been met with criticism to the effect that if semantic norms constitute facts about meaning, then they cannot simultaneously guide subjects in their applications. In response, some normativist authors have proposed that the key sense of ‘normative’ (...)
- Unfollowed Rules and the Normativity of Content.Eric V. Tracy - 2020 - Analytic Philosophy 61 (4):323-344.Foundational theories of mental content seek to identify the conditions under which a mental representation expresses, in the mind of a particular thinker, a particular content. Normativists endorse the following general sort of foundational theory of mental content: A mental representation r expresses concept C for agent S just in case S ought to use r in conformity with some particular pattern of use associated with C. In response to Normativist theories of content, Kathrin Glüer-Pagin and Åsa Wikforss propose a (...)
- Killing Kripkenstein's Monster.Jared Warren - 2020 - Noûs 54 (2):257-289.Here I defend dispositionalism about meaning and rule-following from Kripkenstein's infamous anti-dispositionalist arguments. The problems of finitude, error, and normativity are all addressed. The general lesson I draw is that Kripkenstein's arguments trade on an overly simplistic version of dispositionalism.
- Yet another skeptical solution.Andrea Guardo - 2019 - Philosophia 47 (1):117-129.The paper puts forward a new skeptical solution to Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s rule-following paradox, a solution which revolves around the idea that human communication does not require meaning facts - at least as defined by Kripke. After a brief discussion of the paradox, I explain why I think that Kripkenstein’s solution needs revision and argue that the main goal of a skeptical solution to the rule-following paradox should be that of showing that communication does not require meaning. After that, I offer (...)
- Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s Sceptical Paradox: A Trilemma for Davidson.Ali Hossein Khani - 2019 - International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 9 (1):21–37.Davidson’s later philosophy of language has been inspired by Wittgenstein’s Investigations, but Davidson by no means sympathizes with the sceptical problem and solution Kripke attributes to Wittgenstein. Davidson criticizes the sceptical argument for relying on the rule-following conception of meaning, which is, for him, a highly problematic view. He also casts doubt on the plausibility of the sceptical solution as unjustifiably bringing in shared practices of a speech community. According to Davidson, it is rather success in mutual interpretation that explains (...)
- Rule-Following, Meaning, and Primitive Normativity.Alexander Miller - 2019 - Mind 128 (511):735-760.This paper explores the prospects for using the notion of a primitive normative attitude in responding to the sceptical argument about meaning developed in chapter 2 of Saul Kripke’s Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. It takes as its stalking-horse the response to Kripke’s Wittgenstein developed in a recent series of important works by Hannah Ginsborg. The paper concludes that Ginsborg’s attempted solution fails for a number of reasons: it depends on an inadequate response to Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s ‘finitude’ objection to (...)
- Davidson’s Answer to Kripke’s Sceptic.Olivia Sultanescu & Claudine Verheggen - 2019 - Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy 7 (2):8-28.According to the sceptic Saul Kripke envisages in his celebrated book on Wittgenstein on rules and private language, there are no facts about an individual that determine what she means by any given expression. If there are no such facts, the question then is, what justifies the claim that she does use expressions meaningfully? Kripke’s answer, in a nutshell, is that she by and large uses her expressions in conformity with the linguistic standards of the community she belongs to. While (...)
- The Qua-Problem and Meaning Scepticism.Samuel Douglas - 2018 - Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations 17:71–78.When considering potential solutions to meaning-scepticism, Kripke (1982) did not consider a causal-theoretic approach. Kusch (2006) has argued that this is due to the qua-problem. I consider Kusch’s criticism of Maddy (1984) and McGinn (1984) before offering a different way to solve the qua-problem, one that is not susceptible to sceptical attack. If this solution is successful, at least one barrier to using a causal theory to refute Kripke’s scepticism is removed.
- Semantic Knowledge, Semantic Guidance, and Kripke's Wittgenstein.Derek Green - 2018 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 99 (2):186-206.Saul Kripke's influential ‘sceptical paradox’ of semantic rule-following alleges that speakers cannot have any justification for using a word one way rather than another. If it is correct, there can be no such thing as meaning anything by a word. I argue that the paradox fails to undermine meaning. Kripke never adequately motivates its excessively strict standard for the justified use of words. The paradox lacks the resources to show that its standard is truly mandatory or that speakers do not (...)
- Seguire una regola.Andrea Guardo - 2018 - Milano-Udine: Mimesis.Nelle "Ricerche filosofiche" e in altre opere Wittgenstein discute un argomento per la conclusione che non esiste qualcosa come il seguire una regola. Questa conclusione, a sua volta, sembrerebbe implicare che le parole del linguaggio non hanno un significato. E quest’ultima conclusione, infine, sembrerebbe implicare che la comunicazione è impossibile. Questa linea di pensiero è, ovviamente, paradossale: il comunicare è un fenomeno non solo possibile, ma assolutamente comune. La serie di argomenti in questione deve quindi, da qualche parte, nascondere un (...)
- Rule-Following and Primitive Normativity.Ben Sorgiovanni - 2018 - Dialectica 72 (1):141-150.In her ‘Primitive Normativity and Scepticism about Rules’ (2011b), Hannah Ginsborg proposes a novel solution to Kripke’s sceptical challenge to factualists about meaning (those who think that there is some fact about what you mean or meant by your utterances). According to Ginsborg, the fact in virtue of which you mean, say, addition by ‘plus’ is the fact that ‘you are disposed to respond to a query about (say) “68 plus 57” with “125,” where, in responding in that way, you (...)
- The Dilemma Imposed on the Realist by Putnam's and Kripkensteinian Argument.Henrik Sova - 2017 - Studia Philosophica Estonica 10 (1):62-82.In this article, I have two aims. Firstly, I argue that Hilary Putnam's model theoretic indeterminacy argument against external realism and Saul Kripke's so-called Kripkensteinian argument against semantic realism have the same dialectical structure and the same conclusion---both force the opponent to face the same dilemma. Namely: either adopt meaning minimalism or postulate unobservable semantic facts. Secondly, I analyze more closely the first horn of the dilemma---meaning minimalism. This is the position according to which there are no truth conditions for (...)
- Rule-Following and A Priori Biconditionals - A Sea of Tears?Amrei Bahr & Markus Seidel - 2016 - In Simon Derpmann & David Schweikard (eds.), Philip Pettit: Five Themes from his Work. Springer. pp. 19-31.
- The Sceptical Paradox and the Nature of the Self.Tony Cheng - 2016 - Philosophical Investigations 39 (1):3-14.In the present article, I attempt to relate Saul Kripke's “sceptical paradox” to some issues about the self; specifically, the relation between the self and its mental states and episodes. I start with a brief reconstruction of the paradox, and venture to argue that it relies crucially on a Cartesian model of the self: the sceptic regards the Wittgensteinian “infinite regress of interpretation” as the foundation of his challenge, and this is where he commits the crucial mistake. After the diagnosis, (...)
- Simplicity and elegance in Millikan’s account of productivity: reply to Martinez.Brian Leahy - 2016 - Philosophical Psychology 29 (4):503-516.This paper responds to a problem, raised by Martinez, for Millikan’s explanation of the interpretability of novel signs in terms of mapping functions. I argue that Martinez’s critique is a logically weakened version of Kripke’s skeptical argument about rule following. Responding to Martinez requires two things. First, we must correctly understand the role of simplicity and elegance in choosing the correct mapping function for a signaling system. Second, we need to understand that mapping functions are descriptions of the features that (...)
- A Note on Kripkenstein's Paradox.Gustavo Picazo - 2016 - Análisis. Revista de Investigación Filosófica 3 (1):3-9.In this note I present a solution to Kripkenstein’s paradox, based on a very simple argument: (1) natural language and rule-following are empirical phenomena; (2) no case has been described, in real life, of a person who behaves as Wittgenstein’s or Kripke’s fictional character; (3) therefore, the discussion of such a case is completely devoid of interest. I lay out the example of a ‘Kripkensteinian apple’, which has a normal weight on even days and is weightless on odd days, in (...)
- What is the Normativity of Meaning?Daniel Whiting - 2016 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 59 (3):219-238.There has been much debate over whether to accept the claim that meaning is normative. One obstacle to making progress in that debate is that it is not always clear what the claim amounts to. In this paper, I try to resolve a dispute between those who advance the claim concerning how it should be understood. More specifically, I critically examine two competing conceptions of the normativity of meaning, rejecting one and defending the other. Though the paper aims to settle (...)
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