Kripke's Reading of Philosophical Investigations §201

In §201 Wittgenstein says, "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." (K, p. 7).

Kripke goes on to say that in chapter 2 "in my own way I will attempt to develop the 'paradox' in question. The 'paradox' is perhaps the central problem of Philosophical Investigations. . . . It may be regarded as a new form of philosophical scepticism". (K, p. 7).

Needless to say, commentators on Kripke's book have challenged his "development" of the paradox, have rejected his claim that the paradox is the "central problem of PI", and have heaped scorn on the idea that Wittgenstein offers us a new form of philosophical scepticism. Although it should be clear to anyone who has read other parts of this page that I am sympathetic to those who find Kripke mistaken, it will be good to lay out exactly where and how Kripke's account goes wrong.

First, there is a rather obvious problem with Kripke's claim that the paradox is the central problem of PI. That problem is that Wittgenstein himself seems to regard "the paradox" as admitting of an answer, but an answer that leads to its own difficulties. Here are the next two lines from PI §201 which follow the passage quoted by Kripke above:

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.

Now although Kripke's development of the paradox he finds in Wittgenstein seems to lead to KW saying something similar to these lines from Wittgenstein, it is odd that Kripke takes the paradox, rather than Wittgenstein's answer to it, as the key problem of PI. For it's clear that the answer to the paradox, as Wittgenstein sets it out, ends up making rule following impossible, for lack of being able to make sense of accord or conflict. But there is nothing in Kripke's text to suggest that he has any concern, or seems himself concerned with, what Wittgenstein here calls the "answer" to the paradox. Another interesting question which arises here is where, in PI, does Wittgenstein first set out, or uncover, "our paradox"? After all, the use of 'was' clearly suggests that Wittgenstein is revisiting something discussed previously in the text. Relatedly, where in PI does Wittgenstein first set out, or uncover, "the answer" to the paradox? For it also seems that Wittgenstein, at §201, is revisiting an answer to the paradox previously set out in the text. One will find no discussion of any of this in Kripke's book. In fact, it's fairly fair to say that Kripke sees himself as having the freedom to cash out the paradox as he sees fit so long as it seems to share some of the properties which Wittgenstein seems to ascribe to it and its answer at PI §201. At best, we can say in Kripke's defense here that since the exact location of the paradox and answer in PI prior to §201 is far from obvious, Kripke's ignoring of PI prior to §201, and so his ignoring Wittgenstein's own account and development of the paradox and answer in PI, is not a serious failing (but it is a failing) on his part. Still, a bit more exegesis and a lot less speculation on Kripke's part might have convinced him that his understanding and development of Wittgenstein's "paradox" may be at odds with Wittgenstein's own account of it.

Be this as it may, THE key failure on Kripke's part, by commentator's lights, is that he apparently fails to appreciate that Wittgenstein himself rejects "the paradox and its answer" as based on a misunderstanding. So much seems obvious from the second paragraph of §201. Notoriously, Kripke makes no mention of the second paragraph of §201. This fact has been pointed out by commentators ad nauseum. Simply put, Kripke is accused of failing to appreciate that §201 does not find Wittgenstein advocating a sceptical paradox which threatens the possibility of rule following and meaning and which can be answered only via a sceptical solution. On the contrary, Wittgenstein appears to say that the "paradox" is to be rejected because it is based on a misunderstanding. I think that the bottom line here is that commentators see Wittgenstein as offering, if not a straight solution then at least a non-sceptical solution to his own paradox. Since Kripke sees Wittgenstein taking the paradox seriously enough to provide a sceptical solution to it, KW is, by the lights of most commentators, hopelessly at odds with what Wittgenstein says at §201.

Of course, there are those who claim that it is possible to read Kripke so that he is not guilty of misreading §201. George Wilson is not only the most recent, but also the most thorough, of those who would save Kripke from his critics. Wilson proposes that we appreciate that Kripke's Wittgenstein gives us two different controversial or paradoxical claims. Wilson calls the first one a "basic sceptical solution", or BSC, and it contends that there are no facts about S that fix any set of properties as the standard of correctness for S's use of [some term] 'T'. The second paradoxical claim Wilson calls a "radical sceptical conclusion", or RSC, and it says that no one ever means anything by any term. According to Wilson, commentators have failed to appreciate that although KW does accept BSC, he rejects RSC. Once we appreciate this we can, says Wilson, bring KW in line with §201. For "the misunderstanding" of which Wittgenstein speaks at §201 can be identified with the misunderstanding of KW's sceptic, who supposes that BSC leads inevitably to RSC. KW himself denies this, claiming that we can accept BSC and reject RSC, by rejecting a classical realist account of meaning.

According to Wilson, commentators such as John McDowell, Colin McGinn, Elizabeth Anscombe, et. al., mistakenly suppose that Kripke takes Wittgenstein's use of 'paradox' at §201 to refer to BSC. And everyone, Wilson, McDowell, McGinn, et. al., agrees that KW pledges allegiance to BSC. But this leads to the following problem for KW. Since Wittgenstein very obviously goes on to reject his paradox as based on a misunderstanding, KW appears to accept something which Wittgenstein clearly rejects, viz., BSC. Wilson suggests that this alleged problem can be dissolved if we appreciate that Kripke takes Wittgenstein's 'paradox' to refer to RSC, not BSC. For Wilson then, Kripke sees Wittgenstein rejecting RSC as based on a misunderstanding, not BSC. Wilson goes on to claim that there is no difficulty in rendering this reading of KW compatible with §201. For KW does not, on Wilson's reading, end up accepting something which Wittgenstein rejects, viz., BSC. Rather, KW accepts BSC, rejects RSC, and this can be rendered compatible with §201.

Wilson's mistake is that he misunderstands the complaint of Kripke's critics. No one claims that Kripke takes Wittgenstein's 'paradox' to refer to BSC. So far as I can tell, no one is unaware that KW rejects RSC while accepting BSC. What leads commentators to charge Kripke with misreading §201 is that it seems to them that Wittgenstein rejects his "paradox" by rejecting BSC. The bottom line here is that, contra Wilson, commentators are not ignorant of Kripke's position. They know how Kripke reads §201. They know that Kripke alleges that Wittgenstein agrees with his sceptic about BSC while yet rejecting RSC. They also know that Kripke alleges that Wittgenstein's justification for rejecting RSC while accepting BSC rests on the rejection of a classical realist account of meaning. What Kripke's critics allege is that THIS account leaves KW at odds with §201 precisely because Wittgenstein himself can be seen to reject RSC by rejecting BSC. The whole dispute then comes down to who has Wittgenstein right, Kripke or his critics. It's clear then that there is no justification for claiming that Kripke's critics are mistaken about Kripke's reading of Wittgenstein. The only legitimate charge against Kripke's critics is that they have misread Wittgenstein.

Wilson, however, warns us that he has made no claims about how to read §201. As such, he ignores the only real issue between Kripke and his critics concerning §201. My own sympathies lie with Kripke's critics. I find nothing in §201 to support Kripke's claim that Wittgenstein accepts BSC. Nor do I see anything in §201 to support the idea that Wittgenstein rejects his paradox by shifting from a classical realist account of meaning (i.e., Tractarian truth conditions) to an assertion conditions account. On the contrary, Wittgenstein's appeal to a distinction between interpretations and graspings as the key to dissolving the paradox seems to suggest an account of rule following and rule understanding completely at odds with KW's account as a whole. By my lights, Wittgenstein's notion of "grasping a rule" seems to be just the sort of fact of meaning which KW claims does not exist.

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