Paradox and Privacy: On §§201-202 of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations

Abstract

Wittgenstein's treatment of rule-following in ??185-242 of Philosophical Investigations challenges our need for, and the possibility of, of In these sections, Wittgenstein seeks to undermine a conception of rational language use as informed by an underlying logical structure which determines standards of correctness for our uses of words. Although this much would be widely accepted, its meaning is more controversial: Both Wittgenstein's intentions and the philosophical force of his efforts have remained unclear. In fact, even the local significance of ??201-202, those crucial sections in which Wittgenstein reviews and dissolves his much-discussed about rule-following and then challenges the coherence of the notion of following a rule privately, has proved elusive. This elusiveness rests in large part on failure to grasp the kind of point Wittgenstein means to make here. In this paper, I seek a deeper understanding of the lessons of Wittgenstein's investigation of rule-following by advancing a close reading of ??201-202 and by assessing what, in context, these sections actually accomplish. Properly understood, Wittgenstein awakens us to the realization that we have no standpoint from which to raise a general demand for independent normative standards for our practices. More specifically, he elicits the recognition that the effort to express such demands comes to grief; in effect, we do not know what we mean to be asking for when we require or seek foundations of language. This sort of philosophical criticism must be handled cautiously; the suggestion that we do not know what we are saying when we begin to philosophize is bound to provoke resistance. Close scrutiny of the specific ways in which the dissolution of the paradox of ?201 reflects back on the origins of our philosophical perplexity about rules will, I believe, lessen resistance here. When seen as a contribution to unearthing the genesis of philosophical concern with rules and their grounding, ??201-202 present a key part of a formidable criticism of a picture of meaning that