McGinn, Colin, Wittgenstein on Meaning, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984).

McGinn's book is one of two books devoted almost exclusively to a critique of Kripke's book (the other being Baker and Hacker's Scepticism, Rules and Language). Actually, McGinn's book attempts to examine Wittgenstein's views, as well as Kripke's views of Wittgenstein. Two chapters, one allegedly expository and one critical, are devoted to Wittgenstein's views according to McGinn, and two similar chapters are devoted to Kripke's Wittgenstein. In fact, these divisions seem rather arbitrary for there is considerable overlap of exposition and criticism in the book. Still, in many ways McGinn's book is the most thorough, evenhanded and well-argued critique of Kripke's book on the market. This is not to say that it is without fault. It is not. However, the book has a good focus, and because it is book-length, it is able to deal quite thoroughly and convincingly with Kripke's book. McGinn, by the way, is a rather severe critic of Kripke's account. As he puts it in his preface:

In the course of re-reading Wittgenstein with Kripke's interpretation in mind I came, to my surprise, to have considerable doubts about the correctness of that interpretation; in particular, I could not see that Wittgenstein introduced the community into his account of meaning and rule-following in the way Kripke suggests. At the same time, I began to think that the arguments Kripke develops were less impregnable than had first appeared to me. (McGinn, p. vii).

One of McGinn's main complaints is that Kripke's account simply assumes that semantic facts must be reducible to facts specified non-semantically. (Crispin Wright makes the same complaint in several of his papers on Kripke's account). Another is that Kripke proceeds as if the problem of justifying our meaning claims (the epistemological problem) is inseparable from the ontological or metaphysical problem of the existence of facts. This, according to McGinn, is a substantive assumption which should not be accepted uncritically.
McGinn also challenges KW's contention that a community is required for substantive rule-following.

Critical Reviews of Wittgenstein on Meaning

• Carruthers, Peter, Philosophical Books, 27, Ja 86, pp. 36-38.
• Coady, C. A., Philosophy 62, Ja 87, pp. 103-105.
• Hart, Kevin, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 64, S 86, pp. 362-364.
• Heal, Jane, Philosophical Quarterly 36, Jl 86, pp. 412-419.
• Pederman, James, F., Behaviorism, 15, Spr. 87, pp. 67-71.
• Rashid, Dan, Philosophical Investigations, 9, Jl 86, pp. 245-253.
• Tait, W. W., Ethics, 97, Ap 87, pp. 675-677.

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