Volume 13, April 2020
Nour Khairi
Pages 130-140
Kripkenstein and Mathematics as the Language of Nature
This paper addresses the skeptical paradox highlighted in Saul Kripke’s work Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. The skeptical paradox stands in the way of many attempts to fix meaning in the rule-following of a language. This paper closely assesses the ‘straight solutions’ to this problem with regards to another type of language; mathematics. A conclusion is made that if we cannot sufficiently locate where the meaning lies in a mathematical operation; if we cannot describe how it is that we follow a rule in mathematics, we ought to tread lightly in characterising it as the language of nature.