Commentary on passages from Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, pp. 15-37

• Many readers, I should suppose, have long been impatient to protest that our problem arises only because of a ridiculous model of the instruction I gave myself regarding 'addition'. Surely I did not merely give myself some finite number of examples, from which I am supposed to extrapolate the whole table ("Let '+' be the function instantiated by the following examples: . . . "). No doubt infinitely many functions are compatible with that. . . . Rather, I learned -- and internalized instructions for -- a rule which determines how addition is to be continued. . . . This set of [instructions], I may suppose, I explicitly gave myself at some earlier time. It is engraved on my mind as on a slate. It is incompatible with the hypothesis that I meant quus. . . . Despite the initial plausibility of this objection, the sceptic's response is all too obvious. True, if 'count', as I used the word in the past, referred to the act of counting (and my other past words are correctly interpreted in the standard way), then 'plus' must have stood for addition. But I applied 'count', like 'plus', to finitely many past cases. Thus the sceptic can question my present interpretation of my past usage of 'count' as he did with 'plus'. . . . [T]he point is perfectly general: if 'plus' is explained in terms of 'counting', a nonstandard interpretation of the latter will yield a nonstandard interpretation of the former. (K, pp. 15-16).

  
  COMMENTARY: Depending on one's reaction to this passage, the sceptical problem is going to seem either absurd or profound. For this passage reveals that the sceptic, in order to hang onto the idea that someone might, for all anyone can tell, have a bent use of 'plus', (to use Blackburn's phrase), has to suppose that many other terms are also being used in a bent way. But surely it is one thing to allow the possibility that someone has a bent use of 'plus' but quite another to suppose that someone who gives the usual explanation for what s/he meant by 'plus' nonetheless has a bent use of 'plus' because it's possible that the terms of the explanation are being used "bently", and so on! By my lights, this is simply to multiply the number of absurdities one must believe in order to accept the sceptic's original claim about our use of 'plus'. In short, that the sceptic is forced to reinterpret the whole of our lingo in order to save his original hypothesis that we meant quus rather than plus is a sign of desperation, revealing the absurdity of his original hypothesis.
  Nor is the sceptic's ploy here to be identified with "Wittgenstein's well-known remarks about "a rule for interpreting a rule"." (As Kripke suggests on p. 17). This can be seen most clearly by seeing just how different Wittgenstein's own remarks are from that of Kripke's sceptic. A careful reading of, e.g., PI §§185-187, reveals that Wittgenstein sees no problem at all in our saying that we meant a rule to be carried on one way rather than another at the time that we gave expression to it. In particular, Wittgenstein allows that if I order someone to "Add 2", it's perfectly legitimate to say that I mean him/her to write 1002 after 1000 and 1004 after 1002, etc., and that I know that this is how my order ought to be followed. Of course, it's also part of Wittgenstein's story that how I meant the order to be followed, and my knowledge of how the order ought to be followed, is not to be identified with the "correct" way to follow the order. Nor are we to suppose that my meaning that someone ought to write 1002 after 1000 is the same as my thinking of this step, along with all the others, when I gave the order. (As Wittgenstein says at §693, the grammar of "to mean" is different from that of "to think").
  The fact that signs admit of multiple or continual interpretation is not enough to show that we never really know what we're saying or meaning. This can be seen by considering an analogous argument from Plato's Republic (Book V), where Socrates contends (or can be read as contending) that the flux of the everyday world renders it unknowable, in a rather fussy sense of knowledge. But the proper reply to Socrates is to say that knowing, e.g., that Helen is beautiful, is quite compatible with admitting the possibility that she becomes ugly sometime in the future, or that she may in some other sense, e.g., personality, be ugly. Similarly, knowing what I mean by 'plus' or 'count' is compatible with acknowledging the possibility of alternative interpretations. I hold that we understand perfectly well what we mean by 'addition' and 'counting', etc., and so claim, not that 'counting' doesn't admit of nonstandard interpretations (which interpretations must be grasped by me!), but rather that any such interpretation can be recognized as either at odds with or in line with my grasp of the rule. Indeed, to say that the rule is "engraved on my mind like a slate" is to say that I am quite capable of recognizing when it has been followed, when interpretations agree or conflict with it, etc., and when not. Insofar as the sceptic allows that the rule for 'plus' is engraved on my mind, there is simply no room left for any doubts about my understanding of the rule, nor, of course, any doubts about whether the sceptic's suggested interpretation agrees or disagrees with my grasp of the rule.
  My point here is similar to that made by Wittgenstein at PI §201, viz., the fact that we are able to understand the competing interpretations given by the sceptic shows that we are not the slaves of reinterpretations (i.e., the substitution of one sign for another) of signs or rules; for we have our grasp of them to go on. It is our grasp that allows us to recognize that the quus interpretation of 'plus' differs radically from the plus interpretation of 'plus'. Once we see this, we can appreciate that "there is a misunderstanding" in the sceptical challenge. (Cf. PI §201).
  
  

• How can I justify my present application of . . . a rule, when a sceptic could easily interpret it so as to yield any of an indefinite number of other results? It seems that my application of it is an unjustified stab in the dark. I apply the rule blindly. (K, p. 17).
  
  COMMENTARY: I like this passage because it reveals, quite succinctly, that the main problem with the fact that signs/words/rules admit of multiple and continual interpretation is not really that we are unable to tell one interpretation from its competitors, nor, a fortiori, that we are in doubt about whether our present interpretation of our past use of the rule is correct. (Of course, I argued in my previous commentary that we are able to distinguish competing interpretations). Rather, the worry seems here to be that the mere presence of competing interpretations (ASIDE: I am just as capable as the sceptic in providing competing interpretations to my own interpretation) renders the choice between interpretations arbitrary and thereby makes our rule followings blind, unjustified leaps in the dark. One rather obvious question that never gets asked in WRPL is just what counts as an adequate justification for choosing between competing interpretations. But whatever the answer to this question, I see no reason to take the fact that there isn't a justification for choosing between competing interpretations as a basis for claiming that our applications of rules is perniciously blind or arbitrary.
  Be this as it may, there is nothing blind about plussing. What may be described as blind (in particular, if we don't make appeal to the practical application of our computations) is my act of choosing to add rather than quadd, for I must admit that I don't see quus at all but even if I did, I would avert my eyes so as to be blind to it. Still, following plus is neither arbitrary or blind. As even Kripke admits, what counts as plussing is cut and dried, indeed, it is the paradigm case of the cut and dried. Ditto for quussing.
  
  
• Given . . . that everything in my mental history is compatible both with the conclusion that I meant plus and with the conclusion that I meant quus, it is clear that the sceptical challenge is not really an epistemological one. It purports to show that nothing in my mental history of past behavior -- not even what an omniscient God would know -- could establish whether I meant plus or quus. But then it appears to follow that there was no fact about me that constituted my having meant plus rather than quus. (K, p. 21).
  
  COMMENTARY: This is the infamous, "the sceptical problem is ontological rather than epistemological" passage. Crispin Wright buys this claim and makes much of it in criticizing McGinn's treatment of Kripke's book. The key term in the passage is "purports". For the sceptical problem can be said to be ontological or metaphysical rather than epistemological, only given the success of the sceptic's argument. More particularly, that everything in one's mental history is compatible with both the plus and quus hypotheses needs to be established in order for the sceptical problem to be seen as ontological rather than epistemological. But doubters of the sceptic's argument can see the problem as epistemological. The bottom line then is that to claim that the sceptical problem is ontological rather than epistemological is of a piece with accepting that the sceptic has succeeded in showing what he purports to show. To claim that it is epistemological is of a piece with being dubious that the sceptic has successfully established what he purports to establish.
  
  
• If there was no such thing as my meaning plus rather than quus in the past, neither can there be any such thing in the present. When we initially presented the paradox, we perforce used language, taking present meanings for granted. Now we see, as we expected, that this provisional concession was indeed fictive. There can be no fact as to what I mean by 'plus', or any other word at any time. The ladder must finally be kicked away.
  
  COMMENTARY: The expectation spoken of here harks back to the passage from pages 11-12 commented on above. Once again, however, this is simply Kripke overstating things or perhaps purposely misleading readers. In particular, Kripke's claim, "there can be no fact as to what I mean by 'plus', or any other word at any time", is either false or a misleading way of stating the sceptic's conclusion that there can be no fact showing that I mean plus rather than quus by 'plus'. I've already shown that there are lots of facts about what I mean by 'plus'. Most obviously, all of my answers to computation problems involving 'plus' (both spoken aloud or uttered internally to myself) are facts about what I mean by 'plus'. And even granting that these facts are unable to rule out my meaning something other than plus by 'plus', they do permit us to say that I don't mean minus by 'plus', or times, etc. As such, it's a fact that I don't mean minus by 'plus'; it's a fact that I mean something compatible with plus; it's a fact that I mean something compatible with quus, etc. Furthermore, for those inclined to disagree with this last claim (and I have encountered some), we need to appreciate that the sceptic has done nothing to threaten our understanding of what is required of someone who means plus, or means quus, or even what is required of someone who means plus rather than quus. Indeed, the sceptic intends no such conclusion, let alone establishes such a conclusion. At most, he establishes that any facts about what someone means by 'plus', (e.g., the facts of my use of 'plus', including, of course, my answers to computation problems using 'plus') are insufficient to rule out all but a single meaning for 'plus'. But the sceptic has not, and I would contend, cannot, establish that any and all claims about what I mean by 'plus' are on an equal footing, so far as the facts of the case are concerned. To repeat, in Kripke's story, it's a fact that I don't mean minus, or times, or Ludwig Wittgenstein by 'plus'. It's also a fact that whatever I have meant by 'plus' so far, it's compatible with my meaning plus and quus.
  Putting this another way, we must avoid confusing: (1) "there can be no fact as to what I mean by 'plus'", and (2) we have no idea what facts count as confirming or disconfirming the hypothesis that someone means plus by 'plus' (or the hypothesis that someone means quus by 'plus'). Indeed, it's clear that that the sceptic denies (2) while affirming (1), for his argument for (1) depends on our recognition that the plus and quus hypotheses are compatible with my past behavior, both public and "private". So, despite appearances or suggestions to the contrary in the passage quoted above, the sceptic's claim that "there can be no fact as to what I mean by 'plus', comes to no more than the claim that the choice between the quus and plus meaning hypotheses is nonfactual. But this must not be confused with the claim that there are no facts that confirm either hypothesis. This is patently false, as the sceptic's argument for (1) shows.
  
  
• This, then, is the sceptical paradox. When I respond in one way rather than another to such a problem as '68 + 57', I can have no justification for one response rather than another. Since the sceptic who supposes that I meant quus cannot be answered, there is no fact about me that distinguishes between my meaning plus and my meaning quus. Indeed, there is no fact about me that distinguishes between my meaning a definite function by 'plus' (which determines my responses in new cases) and my meaning nothing at all. (K, p. 21)
  
  COMMENTARY: This is a nice succinct statement of the entire sceptical enterprise of WRPL. I have already, in my comments above, expressed disagreement with just about every part of this claim. But perhaps this passage allows for a nice succinct rebuttal of the entire enterprise. To begin with, it's false or misleading to say that "I can have no justification for one response rather than another" [to the problem, '68 + 57']. The sober way of stating the upshot of the sceptical challenge is as follows: "Although I can justify responding with "125" rather than "5" (by saying I meant plus rather than quus by 'plus'), I can also, according to the sceptic, equally well justify responding with "5" rather than "125" (by saying I meant quus rather than plus by 'plus'). As such, my justification for responding one way rather than another is allegedly incomplete unless and until I can somehow justify the claim that I meant plus rather than quus. This, the sceptic contends, I cannot do, for want of any facts showing that I meant plus rather than quus. But it is surely one thing for there to be, (a) no justification at all for claiming to have meant plus rather than quus, and it's another thing for (b) the facts of meaning to leave us unable to separate legitimate forms of justification (e.g., justifying saying "125" rather than "5" by saying I meant plus rather than quus) from illegitimate ones (e.g., justifying saying "125" rather than "5" by saying I meant minus rather than quus) and it's a third thing for (c) the facts of meaning (e.g., our use of 'plus' in the past, and any "introspective data", as Kripke calls it) to fail to provide a justification for responding one way rather than another by failing to rule out all meaning-competitors. By my lights, the sceptic establishes only (c) above, while only (a) and (b) could rightly be seen as yielding a case for "semantic nihilism". Thus, the sceptical challenge cannot be said to have threatened us with semantic nihilism.
  The passage's third sentence reveals a problem in the sceptic's failed attempt to threaten us with semantic nihilism noted above, viz., the illegitimate step from the past to the present. Clearly, our inability to answer the sceptic who claims that we meant quus in the past has a very simple explanation, viz., plus and quus are identical on the cases we're allowed to consider. But someone who responds with "125" (and, for the fussy, continues to go on in accord with plus and, by definition, not in accord with quus) has created a fact (s) that distinguishes his/her meaning plus and his/her meaning quus. (Again, this is Putnam's point about the empirical refutability, given access to more data, of at least one of the two meaning hypotheses. This is in sharp contrast to Quine's problem of the indeterminacy of translation).
  As for the final line of this passage, it too can mislead. It certainly suggests that the sceptic has succeeded in establishing a kind of semantic nihilism. However, recall that there are facts that distinguish between my meaning plus by 'plus' and my meaning minus, or my meaning times, or Ludwig Wittgenstein, etc., by 'plus'. If the sceptic had threatened the existence of such facts he would have established a semantic nihilism which admits of no solution, straight or sceptical. The upshot is that there are plenty of semantic facts and they do permit us to make quite a bit of sense about what others mean. So, what does the final line say and is it correct? It says, I think, that so far as any facts we have are concerned, there is really no difference between someone's responses to computation problems being determined by some "definite function" (e.g., plus or quus, etc.) and those responses being given "completely arbitrarily", at random. Not only do I think that the sceptic does not establish this, I also believe that it is wildly false. But even if I am wrong on both counts, I fail to see that the sceptical solution offered in the second part of Kripke's book leaves us any better off with respect to this "problem" of distinguishing between answers "determined by a definite function" and answers being given at random.
  
  
• Sometimes when I have contemplated the situation, I have had something of an eerie feeling. Even now as I write, I feel confident that there is something in my mind -- the meaning I attach to the 'plus' sign -- that instructs me what I ought to do in all future cases. . . . But when I concentrate on what is now in my mind, what instructions can be found there? How can I be said to be acting on the basis of these instructions when I act in the future? The infinitely many cases of the table are not in my mind for my future self to consult. To say that there is a general rule in my mind that tells me how to add in the future is only to throw the problem back on to other rules that also seem to be given only in terms of finitely many cases. What can there be in my mind that I make use of when I act in the future? It seems that the entire idea of meaning vanishes into thin air. (K, pp. 21-2).
  
  COMMENTARY: Kripke's notorious imitation of Descartes' musings in the Meditations. Kripke seems to suggest, wrongly, that the sceptical problem arises because of the nonexistence of (or the impossibility of there being) infinite tables in our heads. But even if we had, per impossibile (by our lights, of course), infinite tables in our heads, the sceptic could still wonder what justifies our use of one table rather than another. It would seem then that our "problem" is not the lack of infinite tables in our heads.
  I would add here though that I do not see why we need infinite tables to distinguish between plus and quus. If nothing else, we need only suppose that we have the usual plus table up to 68 + 57, and the quus table up to the same point, and then it's clear to all that the tables differ at the 68 + 57 case and then the sceptic would challenge our right to say that we're using (or were using) the former table rather than the latter table to get answers to computations involving '+'. But how could the sceptic challenge this? Surely we can be allowed to tell the difference between the two tables, as well as allowed to know which one we're using or were using. It seems then that our problem in answering the sceptic, whatever it's supposed to be, cannot be one that is based on our inability to tell the plus table from quus table, or our inability to know which one we've been using, since there is no such inability. The bottom line here is that even granting our inability to tell which rule we've been following, we ought not take this inability as preventing us from knowing that plus and quus are not identical functions, or preventing us from knowing what a plusser must say in the case of 68 + 57, or what a quusser must say, and that the two must say different things, etc. It is a colossal illusion of Kripke's book that the sceptical challenge, if successful, threatens our ability to add or to do basic arithmetic. I know how to add and the sceptic, even if correct, has not threatened this. I also know how to quuad and the sceptic has not threatened this. What I allegedly do not know is whether I meant plus by '+', rather than quus. As such, I don't know whether '125' accords with my use of 'plus'. But the very understanding of the sceptic's challenge requires me to recognize that my use of 'plus' may not pick out plus. But this clearly requires me to understand what function plus is. Ditto for my understanding of 'quus'. (I think this is the heart of Wittgenstein's own response to his own "paradox" at PI §201). As such, we need to wonder just how threatening the sceptical challenge really is if it serves to cast doubt on our ability to know whether we mean plus rather than quus but doesn't threaten our ability to know what each function is or know what each function requires for its correct answer in each case.
  
  
• The dispositional analysis I have heard proposed is simple. To mean addition by '+' is to be disposed, when asked for any sum 'x + y' to give the sum of x and y as the answer (in particular, to say '125' when queried about '68 + 57'); to mean quus is to be disposed when queried about any arguments, to respond with their quum (in particular answer '5' when queried about '68 +57'). . . . To a good extent this reply ought to appear to be misdirected, off target. For the sceptic created an air of puzzlement as to my justification for responding '125' rather than '5' to the addition problem as queried. . . . Does the suggested reply advance matters? How does it justify my choice of '125'? How does any of this [i.e., the dispositional response] indicate that -- now or in the past -- '125' was an answer justified in terms of instructions I gave myself, rather than a mere jack-in-the-box unjustified and arbitrary response? (K, pp. 22-3).
  
  COMMENTARY: To begin with, Kripke can be properly accused of oversimplifying the dispositional response to the sceptical challenge. I don't simply have dispositions to give sums or quums, as the case may be. I am also disposed to distinguish the two functions themselves, indeed, I am disposed to say that in cases involving numbers greater than 57, quums require no calculation at all, whereas the same cannot be said for addition. I am also disposed to utilize various techniques of calculation to determine the sum of a pair of numbers but need no such techniques for quums, when numbers are greater than 57. However, if the dispositional response is taken, as Kripke takes it, viz., I am disposed simply to answer one way rather than another to '68 + 57', then no wonder Kripke has difficulty distinguishing any answer I give from a "mere-jack-in-the-box response".
  Second, Kripke can be seen here as asking us, not so much to justify saying that we are disposed to say '125' rather than '5', and so to justify saying that our dispositions show that we mean plus rather than quus, but rather asking us to tell the sceptic how it is that the answer we're disposed to give can be justified. But this gets into quite different territory, it seems to me, from the original sceptical challenge. For the sceptic, on this analysis, is asking us to say how our dispositions serve to justify the answer we give. But this seems a question which either has a trivial answer, viz., what justifies the answer we give is our meaning of '+', and it is our dispositions that justify the claim that we mean such-and-so by '+', or else asks for too much, i.e., it's asking us to justify regarding plus as a function such that whomever is following or meaning it must say that 68 + 57 is 125. It's quite unclear how one would go about justifying that, except to say that this is what plus means. If the sceptic isn't satisfied with that then he simply asks too much.
  
  
• So it does seem that a dispositional account misconceives the sceptic's problem -- to find a past fact that justifies my present response. As a candidate for a 'fact' that determines what I mean, it fails to satisfy the basic condition on such a candidate, stressed above on p. 11, that it should tell me what I ought to do in each new instance. Ultimately, almost all objections to the dispositional account boil down to this one. (K, p. 24).
  
  COMMENTARY: This passage serves to vindicate my previous commentary. It suggests that Kripke either misunderstands the appeal to dispositions to answer the sceptical challenge or is asking for too much when he seeks a justification of my present response. Dispositionalists are not saying that my disposition to say '125' justifies my saying '125'. Rather, the past facts that determine what I mean are my dispositions to respond in particular ways, rather than other ways, to future cases. Given the dispositions which determine what I mean, we can then say that it is my meaning '+' as I do that justifies my answer to '68 + 57. Insofar as my dispositions show that I mean plus by '+', it is this, viz., my meaning plus by '+', that justifies my response of 125 to 68 + 57. Insofar as the sceptic finds this justification unsatisfactory, i.e., insofar as the sceptic supposes that my meaning plus by '+' is not enough to justify my answer of 125, he could only be asking us to show how or why it is that those who mean plus are justified to say 68 + 57 is 125. Surely this is an illegitimate request.
  Relatedly, I find it instructive that Kripke here italicizes 'tell' rather than 'ought'. Later, on p. 37, (see below) he italicizes 'should', stressing the normativity of meaning. That 'tell' rather than 'ought' is italicized suggests that here Kripke sees the sceptical problem as one of how a rule tells us what is in accord with it. But is this really a genuine problem? In some sense, there's really nothing more involved in the "telling" than simply knowing or finding out what the rule is. That is, if it's allowed that '125' is the sum of '68 + 57' then it's clear that plus tells us that we ought to say 68 + 57 is 125. There simply is no further "telling" problem. It makes one wonder if Kripke really knows what the sceptical problem is supposed to be.
  
  
• The dispositionalist theory attempts to avoid the problem of the finiteness of my actual past performance by appealing to a disposition. But in doing so, it ignores an obvious fact: not only my actual performance, but also the totality of my dispositions, is finite. (K, p. 26).
  
  COMMENTARY: First, why is Kripke so certain that "the totality of my dispositions is finite"? It seems to me that to whatever extent addition or quuaddition can be legitimately called infinite functions then our dispositions concerning the plus or quus functions can be called infinite as well. Be this as it may, it's unclear why the finiteness of my dispositions (assuming Kripke is right about this) is a problem for those who appeal to dispositions to solve the sceptical challenge. For we do not need "infinite dispositions" to scotch the idea that we meant plus rather than quus. Being disposed to say not only that 68 + 57 is 125, but also being disposed to say that 68 + 58 is 126, and 69 + 57 is 126, etc., is more than enough to show that I didn't mean quus in the past. Of course, Kripke goes on to suggest that absent infinite dispositions, at some point our dispositions peter out and the sceptic can then "redefine" quaddition so that it is a function indistinguishable from addition on all cases covered by my dispositions and then diverges from addition thereafter. The dispositionalist, Kripke claims, will be unable to refute the sceptic's new hypothesis. (K, pp. 26-7).
  Surely Kripke doesn't wish to use this argument against the dispositionalist. For it completely defangs the sceptical argument. The argument suggests that even though the appeal to dispositions serves to answer the original sceptical problem based on the original definition of quus, nonetheless the sceptic can still hypothesize that I meant quus, by changing the definition of quus so that it is defined as matching plus on all "humanly doable cases" but having it diverge "thereafter". Now even supposing that WE can make sense of Kripke's "thereafter", it seems that if quus is identical to plus on all cases we are capable of considering or imagining, then quus becomes a non-threat, for we never get to cases where it can be discovered! That I might mean a function that differs from the function I normally take myself to mean only in cases involving numbers so large that I would "die of old age before the questioner completes the question" (K, p. 27), is not much of a sceptical threat. Indeed, it sounds like a Stephen Wright joke. And yet, Kripke does seem to be offering such an argument. It seems to me that too many commentators have failed to appreciate that dispositionalism is perfectly up to the task of answering the original sceptical challenge and failed to appreciate that Kripke in effect admits this by offering his "our dispositions are finite" argument, and have failed to appreciate that this latter argument renders the sceptical challenge comical at best.
  Another worry here, raised by Simon Blackburn in his "The Individual Strikes Back", is that Kripke has expressed a scepticism about dispositions, not a scepticism about meaning.
  
  
• The dispositionalist labors under yet another, equally potent, difficulty . . . . Most of us have dispositions to make mistakes. . . . But the dispositionalist cannot say this. According to him, the function someone means is to be read off from his dispositions; it cannot be presupposed in advance which function is meant. (K, pp. 28-30).
  
  COMMENTARY: This is a particularly simple-minded complaint against dispositions. For we not only have dispositions to respond to computation problems but also dispositions to correct such responses as well. The fact that people are disposed to recognize and accept challenges to their computations keeps the dispositionalist from being confined to reading off meaning from "first-order" dispositions. As such, slips of the tongue or pen can be tolerated and accounted for on the dispositionalist picture.
  
  
• Suppose I do mean addition by '+'. What is the relation of this supposition to the question how I will respond to the problem '68 + 57'? The dispositionalist gives a descriptive account of this relation: if '+' meant addition, then I will answer '125'. But this is not the proper account of the relation, which is normative, not descriptive. The point is not that, if I meant addition by '+', I will answer '125', but that, if I intend to accord with my past meaning of '+', I should answer '125'. (K, p. 37).
  
  COMMENTARY: This is the notorious "meaning is normative, not descriptive" line, which has been made much of by both critics and supporters of Kripke. It has been read in many different ways and there is little room for consensus on its meaning and import. My complaints against the passage are, first, it distorts the dispositionalist position (see next commentary), and second, the point of the passage is overlooked in Kripke's sceptical solution. Kripke either ignores or overlooks the fact that his Wittgenstein's sceptical solution provides us with an account of meaning which fails to satisfy the normativity constraint he here uses to allegedly scotch the dispositionalist account.
  
  
• In the beginning of our discussion of the dispositional analysis, we suggested that it had a certain air of irrelevance with respect to a significant aspect of the sceptical problem -- that the fact that the sceptic can maintain the hypothesis that I meant quus shows that I had no justification for answering '125' rather than '5'. How does the dispositional analysis even appear to touch this problem? . . . Precisely the fact that our answer to the question of which function I meant is justificatory of my present response is ignored in the dispositional account and leads to all its difficulties. (K, p. 37).
  
  COMMENTARY: This passage reveals quite clearly that Kripke misunderstands the dispositionalist response to the sceptical challenge. According to dispositionalists, dispositions prevent the sceptic from maintaining the quus hypothesis. In brief, the fact that we are disposed to say 68 + 57 =125, and disposed to say, 68 + 58 =126, and also disposed to say that 68 + 57 does not equal 5, etc., shows, according to dispositionalists, that the hypothesis that I meant/mean quus is false, nonsensical, etc. For it does not even begin to do justice to the facts that are our dispositions. (This is why Kripke is forced to alter the original definition of quus in order to answer the dispositionalists. See K, p. 27, where he admits that the sceptic must alter the definition of quus so that it becomes a function which matches plus on all problems for which we have dispositions but which diverges from plus thereafter). Furthermore, as noted above, while it may be that the sceptic can hold that there is a function (indeed, infinitely many such functions, assuming, as the sceptic does, that our dispositions are finite) identical to plus on all the cases covered by our dispositions but which differs thereafter and that we could mean that function rather than plus, this is a kind of comical scepticism at best. Since our dispositions show that we don't mean quus, and also show, within reason, that we mean plus, we have all the justification we need to justify saying "125" to 68 + 57. For anyone who means plus by 'plus' should say "68 + 57 is 125". Of course, if someone's dispositions show that s/he means quus, then s/he should say, "68 + 57 is 5". As such, it's a mystery why Kripke believes that the dispositional account ignores the fact that an answer to the question of what someone means has to justify present responses. Once again, our dispositions justify claims about what we mean (what we mean is to be "read off" from our dispositions) but it is what we mean that serves to justify our present responses. It is our meanings that justify our responses and it is our dispositions that justify claims about what we mean.

For commentary on passages from p. 38 to p. 77, click here.

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