Journal of the History of Philosophy

Philosophical Investigations 201: A Wittgensteinian Reply to Kripke DONNA M. SUMMERFIELD 1~ ACCORDING TO Saul Kripke, 1 to understand the later Wittgenstein's remarks about rule-following, we need to understand Philosophical Investigations ~ol: "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." In Kripke's view, the rule-following paradox is that, for any action I perform, there is some interpretation of an expression of the rule I think I am following according to which what I do accords with the rule and another interpretation of that expression according to which what I do conflicts with the rule. To show how the paradox arises, Kripke uses the now famous example of someone who, confronted with the expression of an order, "Add 68 + 57," responds "1 ~'5." A sceptic challenges the response, claiming that, to accord with the speaker's previous intentions for the use of the plus sign, the response should have been "5," not "1 ~5," because the order-expression should be interpreted as the order to quadd, not add, the numbers 68 and 57." More generally, the sceptic's point is that, for any response made to "Add 68 + 57," there are alternative possible interpretations of the order-expression which are compatible with all possible3 evidence. Thus, the same response that is in accord with one interpretation of the order-expression is in conflict with other possible interpretations of that expression. And so there would be both accord and conflict. And so we have the paradox. Given this reading of the paradox, however, the second half of the first ' SaulKripke, Wittgensteinon Rules and PrivateLanguage (Cambridge, MA, 1982). ' To quadd is to perform the quus function,just as to add is to perform the plus function. This is the definition of the quus function: x quus y = x + y,ifx, yare lessthan 57; = 5 otherwise. Possiblerather than actuallyavailable,becauseKripke stressesthat the paradox issupposed to arise even if we take into account what only God could see by looking into the speaker's mind. [417] 418 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 28:3 JULY 1990 paragraph of Philosophical Investigations 2oi is puzzling: "The answer was: if everything can 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" (PI 2ol). In the first place, Wittgenstein says that there would be "neither accord nor conflict here," whereas Kripke's version makes it sound as though there is both accord and conflict here. However, Kripke undoubtedly would say that precisely becauseany action can be made out to accord with the expression of a rule (on one interpretation) and conflict with it (on other interpretations ), there is really neither accord nor conflict.4 More importantly, though, Wittgenstein claims to have answered the paradox by pointing out that, for the reason given in the if-then clause, there would be neither accord nor conflict. And yet, on Kripke's reading, this simply /s the paradox; it is not its solution. The structure of Wittgenstein's argument is quite different from the structure of Kripke's, as becomes clear if we compare a passage from Kripke with the previously cited first paragraph of Philosophical Investigations 2o1: "The sceptical argument, then, remains unanswered. There can be no such thing as meaning anything by any word. Each new application we make is a leap in the dark; any present intention could be interpreted so as to accord with anything we may choose to do. So there can be neither accord, nor conflict.... -5 As this passage shows, Kripke regards "there can be neither accord, nor conflict" as a restatement of the paradoxical conclusion ("There can be no such thing as meaning anything by any word" or, in Wittgenstein's words, "no course of action [can] be determined by a rule"), and he regards it as following from the premise "every course of action can be made out to accord with the rule." Like Kripke, Wittgenstein regards "no course of action [can] be determined by a rule" as...