Wittgenstein and the Problem of Rules

Abstract

The problem of rules and the private language argument are among the most renowned and disputable themes of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. Presumably today’s best known interpretation of the themes was presented in Saul Kripke’s famous and often commented book Wittgenstein on Rules and the Private Language, published in 1982. The interpretation, nicknamed “Kripkenstein”, became the target of numerous attacks of authors convinced that it did justice neither to Wittgenstein nor to the real way our language worked.
This article begins with the examination of Wittgenstein’s problem of identification of action which may be counted as justified by the rule, that is, the problem of criteria of correctness. This is Kripke’s starting point in his binding the problem of rules with the private language argument. He believes that Wittgenstein did not question the mere possibility of such a language but the possibility of any language at all. Further, we survey the rejected solutions to the problem of criteria: the mentalistic and the dispositional. This leads us toKripke’s sceptical solution: there are no reasons of actions which occur before these actions. There are certain trained ways of doing things which “tell” us what to do in typical situations but they are not criteria of correctness. Such criteria may only be public and therefore social.
In conclusion it’s argued that Kripkenstein’s view is really Wittgenstein’s view: contrary to the popular opinion Kripke did not put forward a new solution, he just gave us a different way of presenting it.