Interpreting Wittgenstein's Paradox
Reading Wittgenstein’s “Philosophical Investigations” can be difficult. His reputation as a philosopher is interesting because it is understood that Wittgenstein would not admit to putting forth any new philosophies/theories and claimed that he was not a philosopher at all. He even went so far to say that philosophy can ruin your life. This seems an odd thing to say, coming from a philosopher, but if we understand Wittgenstein’s motivation for his work, his overall attitude seems less strange. Wittgenstein claims that if we can master the techniques of language, that we could avoid many of the philosophical holes we dig ourselves into. He claims that a clearer understanding of language will provide a clearer understanding of the topics philosophers tend to debate about and he seeks to find clarification through an understanding of meaning. As Baker and Hacker say of Wittgenstein, he “tries to identify and remove the sources of philosophical puzzles. These puzzles arise from the misuse of ordinary concepts” (Kusch, p. 238).
Remark 201, of “Philosophical Investigations”, holds a paradox and poses the question ‘how do we know the difference between thinking we are following a rule (of language) and actually following a rule (of language)? Kripke’s skeptical reading of Wittgenstein argues that this paradox cannot be reconciled. Baker and Hacker argue that Kripke is misinterpreting Wittgenstein. In this paper I will present Wittgenstein, as Baker and Hacker do, by focusing on the Paradox of Remark 201, as well as Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument, in order to show how their argument works against Kripke’s misinterpretation of Wittgenstein’s Paradox.
Interpreting Wittgenstein
Depending on which interpretation of Wittgenstein you read, you will find that there is debate over whether or not a solution is provided for the paradox presented in Remark 201. Baker and Hacker argue that Kripke ignores the solution that Wittgenstein provides in the remainder of Remark 201 and should Kripke have acknowledge the rest of Remark 201, he have realized that no paradox exists (in another reading, Kusch defends Kripke to say that Kripke does acknowledge the entire Remark but still believes that the paradox can exist in particular situations) (Kusch, p. 248). Further in this paper I will explain Kripke’s (mis)interpretation of Wittgenstein in more detail and I will also present Baker and Hackers’ attack on Kripke misrepresentation of Remark 201, but for now I think it is important to keep the details of this tension in mind as we work through the Remarks leading up to (and following) the paradox in Remark 201.
Another source of contention that must be kept in mind is the identification of two important topics of discussion; the discussion of Rule Following and the location of the Private Language Argument. Baker and Hacker state that the discussion of Rule Following (Remarks 143-242 ) precedes the Private Language Argument, contained in Remark 243. Kripke’s interpretation, according to Baker and Hacker, argues that Remarks 143-242 explain the Private Language Argument (Baker and Hacker, p. 3).
Remarks 143-242: Rule Following
Baker and Hacker argue that the discussion on Rule Following is contained in Remarks 143-242 and I will showcase some of these Remarks in order to demonstrate this. I will highlight three main points that Wittgenstein addresses regarding Rule Following: 1) there is a correct way, and an incorrect way, of understanding a rule, 2) words (and thus rules) must be able to be interpreted in different contexts while keeping the norm (that you were initially taught) in mind, and 3) there is something guiding our understanding and this is found through practice and use in the community. In the course of working through Remarks 142-242, I will interrupt myself to discuss Remark 185 as this Remark plays an important role in Kripke’s (mis)interpretation of Wittgenstein. I will also be discussing the paradox that is presented in Remark 201 and the Private Language Argument that is explained in Remark 243. This structure will keep the flow of the Remarks in order while being able to spend more time on Remark 185, 201, and 243.
1) Understanding or misunderstanding a rule:
Wittgenstein opens Remark 143 by explaining the difference between a systematic error as opposed to a random error. He states that we can know someone understands something wrongly if they make a systematic error but that a random error does not provide this information. A systematic error tells us that the pupil at least understands something, that they are understanding wrongly, but the question is then, what does it mean to understand correctly? Further to this question he asks ‘how do we know when someone understands correctly’? Remark 145-149 demonstrate the difficulty in determining when the point of understanding is reached. As Wittgenstein states in Remark 146, “understanding itself is a state which is the source of the correct use” and that this state must be more than just a mental state (Remark 152). What Wittgenstein suggests is that understanding something is more than requiring that a ‘system comes to mind’; understanding requires that we must be able to ‘go on’ and demonstrate our ability to understand.
Remark 155 addresses the question of understanding with the example of reading, as presented in Remarks. 156-175. In these Remarks, Wittgenstein explains the difference between the feeling that you are being guided while reading, as opposed to actually understanding the meaning of what is being read. He explains that with reading, I can have a feeling that I have grasped the essence of what I have read without actually have derived meaning from what I have read. The feeling (of reading) remains a mental state, but understanding (meaning) involves a a change in behavior. Demonstrating that I have grasped the meaning of a word, will be evident in my experience of being able to apply my understanding through correct interpretation; there must be a transition from the internal mental state of understanding to an observable behavior (Remark 155-157). The change in behavior is evident for Wittgenstein that understanding, not only exists internally or mentally but that the external behavior or application of the rule verifies that the word or rule is understood.
2) Learning, interpretation, and intention:
Remarks 176-184 continue on with the discussion of understanding with a look into the difference between the experience of learning something, compared to the intention we have to interpret the rule at a later time. According to Wittgenstein, I can conjure in my mind an experience of being taught, which is to say I can conjure in my mind the essence of something. If I can conjure up the formula of a series of numbers, then I have conjured up the essence or mental experience of the formula but does this imply that I will be able to apply the formula in the same way it was originally intended to be used? In other words, just because the formula has occurred to me, does this mean that I can actually execute the formula correctly?
Wittgenstein states that when I bring to mind the formula and say ‘now I can go on’ that I am right in thinking that I have the formula in mind but what I am not certain is whether or not the formula is “only short for a description of all the circumstances which set the stage” for all future instances (Remark 179). Consider the instance, suggests Wittgenstein, that I say ‘I know now how to go on’, when nothing at all has occurred to me (compare this to reading without deriving meaning from what is being read). It is misleading, says Wittgenstein to think that ‘now I can go on’ is a “description of a mental state. Rather, one could here call them a signal: “and we would judge whether it was rightly applied by what he going on to do” (Remark 180). The point Wittgenstein is drawing out suggests that ‘I know now to go on’ does not guarantee that I will be able to correctly interpret and apply the rule I am recalling from memory. Not only does the correct meaning of a word have to be grasped but one also has to intuitively grasp the correct interpretations of the meaning in order to apply the rule correctly. Once I have interpreted my understanding of the rule, through an external application, to a future event, then I can say that understanding has occurred.
The nest question Wittgenstein addresses, in so many words, is ‘how do I know that the rule that I am calling to mind, applies to the event I am encountering now, if the rule (when I learnt it) only applied to that one situation’? Or in other words, my experience thus far has been finite; how do I know that the rule that I am following is the same rule I will follow in the future if I cannot yet foresee all applications of this rule? An example and explanation of this question is provided in Remark 185 and plays an important part of Kripke’s interpretation of Wittgenstein.
Remark 185: Kripke’s Interpretation
Remark 185 presents the situation of a pupil who is being taught how to add ‘plus 2’. The pupil seems to understand the rule he is taught and successfully adds ‘plus 2’ continually to a string of numbers. The question raised is at what point do we say that the pupil understands the rule? Are we to say that he understands the rule if he successfully adds plus 2 past 1000, 10002, 10004, or for how long before we decide that ‘yes, the pupil knows how to add plus 2’. This is the problem Kripke reads (and Wittgenstein presents).
We could quite easily say that ‘yes, the pupil understands the rule because he has successfully, and consistently, added 2, beginning with zero and ending with 1000. If we do not know that he will continue to follow the rule in this fashion, counting plus 2 until he can no longer count plus 2 (at what point would this be?), then how do we know that he is following the rule correctly? Further to this, how do we know which rule he is following if we can not see the infinite possibilities of applying the rule come to fruition? Perhaps he follows the rule correctly but then upon reaching 6002, decides for whatever reason to add ‘plus 4’ because it is twice as fast than adding plus 2, or perhaps in this one instance, the rule requires him to add 4 instead of 2. Without being able to predict all future scenarios that are possible, it is difficult to say that the pupil is following the rule correctly or at all; again the question arises, at what point do we say one is following a rule? The pupil seems to understand the rule, he is applying it correctly but how do we know his application of the rule now is the same rule he applies to future events? This problem is claimed by Kripke to be a skeptical problem; “how can I know whether my current use of a rule, coheres with what I previously meant by it, given that my current use is a novel application?” (Baker and Hacker, p. 3).
Kripke rewords this question in the following way, how do we know that the pupil is using the rule PLUS and not the rule QUUS if we do not know how he will continue with the rule? Or even so, perhaps the rule comes to a point where it does in fact require one to add 4 at a particular junction? If we are unable to carry out the rule in its entirety, then it is not in our jurisdiction to conclude on what rule is being followed. The “add 2” example questions ‘how do we know that the rule someone is following ( or that I am following) is the same rule that I meant for them to follow (or the same rule I am supposed to be following)? How do I know that I have been following the correct rule if I have not yet encountered a number by which to add ‘plus 2’ actually requires that I add ‘plus 4’? (Hymers, p. 131).
Kusch defends Kripke’s interpretation of Wittgenstein as an ontological skeptic, meaning that he thinks Wittgenstein is “skeptical about the existence of meaning-determining facts, not about the idea of justification or knowledge regarding such facts” (Kusch, p. 240). Kripke interprets Wittgenstein to be saying that because there are no facts in meaning, we must know either mental facts or physical facts about the person using the word in order to understand the meaning of the word. Is this where the confidence about the belief of the use PLUS and not QUUS come from? From understanding facts about the person using the rule? Kripke argues that the confidence of my belief can not come from myself (nor from another) because my experience is finite thus far. There are no truth conditions that establish what I meant, thus the notion of truth condition is not there; there is no fact about me that differentiates a fact about the difference of plus or quus.
The ontological skepticism interpretation Kripke reads in Wittgenstein argues that I cannot know what rule I have been following because there is “no fact of the matter here for me to find out” (Hymer, p. 132). Kripke reads Wittgenstein to argue that there are no facts about meaning because everything is reducible to another interpretation and thus meaning is not found in interpretation. It seems that Kripke is somewhat correct in saying this; Wittgenstein does argue that meaning can not be understood via interpretation (see Remark 201 in the following sections). There are numerous ways in which meaning be interpreted, thus it seems that there could possibly be numerous ways by which the meaning of a rule could be interpreted (this leads to the problem of the paradox that Wittgenstein presents in Remark 201). No one rule can predict all of our actions, in any one situation, and therefore it becomes limited in it’s capabilities. The application of a rule may have determined and been applicable to our actions in the past but this experience is finite and does not predict the infinite possibilities of the future (although it may provide good reason to suggest the likelihood of the same thing occurring in the future). Thus a rule can be “misguiding” because it really can only apply to the meaning of a situation that has already past (Stern, p. 122). This leads us to an understanding of the paradox that is presented in Remark 201.
Remark 201: The Paradox
The paradox Wittgenstein presents regards rules and rule following and essentially states that the correct meaning of a word cannot be understood via interpretation because any there are numerous interpretations of meaning. Due to the numerous ways by which meaning can be interpreted, rules too become subject to this same malady. Rules can be interpreted in a variety of ways and thus Wittgenstein argues that there is not one rule which can predict all of our actions. Due to the limitations of rules, that they cannot possibly include all of the various interpretations of past, present, and future actions, and thus can be misleading. Wittgenstein states the paradox between rules and rule following in Remark 201 of the Philosophical Investigations:
“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 a rule. 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.”
In the previous Remark, Wittgenstein explains the question of interpretation through an example of playing a game of chess, by which we imagine a game of chess to involve stamping feet and yelling. These are actions we do not equate with chess but yet on this one occasion, we have insisted that the game of yelling and feet stamping is indeed, the actions involved in playing a game of chess. The question Wittgenstein asks is “would we still be inclined to say that they were playing a game? And with what right could we say so?” (Remark 200). The question refers to the problem of interpretation and thus the paradox of rule following. The question being, how do we determine that we are following understand the meaning of a rule correctly and thus know that we are following it correctly?
Wittgenstein states that every course of action can be brought in accord with a rule and that we use a ‘chain of reasoning to place one interpretation behind another’ until we think of another interpretation (Remark 201). Wittgenstein says that we should speak of interpretation as the way in which “one expression of a rule is substituted for another”, as in these ‘case to case applications’ that demonstrate how we are able to either follow the rule (play chess in the way we know), or go against it (play a game of chess by jumping and yelling) (Remark 201). This implication of rule following, seems to Wittgenstein, a consequence of the limitations training/teaching are subject to. It seems that because we are able to interpret a rule by any meaning that we must know something further than what we were taught when we were first learning a rule. The teaching/training we receive upon initially learning a rule does not teach us to understand the rule in various contexts. This harks back to an earlier Remark, 197, which states that we must be able to not only grasp the correct use of a word, but that we must also know how to correctly apply the word. The same understanding applies to rules and says Wittgenstein, this understanding comes through practice.
The difference between Kripke and Wittgenstein at this point is that Wittgenstein argues that because we cannot find meaning in interpretation that we must look to the assertibility-criteria of our community as being the judge of the meaning of words: “a proposition’s assertability-conditions are those conditions under which we are licensed in asserting that proposition, and we may be licensed even if that proposition lacks a truth value” (Hymers, p 137). Kripke argues otherwise, stating that because there are no facts about whether or not someone is actually following a rule when they say they are following a rule, that there is no way of determining which rule I have been following.The question of whether or not I have been following rule, for Kripke, becomes neither true nor false.
3) Meaning, community use, and practice:
In the later part of Remark 201, Wittgenstein implies that the solution to the paradox of what it means to understand and correctly follow a rule is resolved by mastering a technique (practice) and participating in a custom (community). Obeying a rule then is not found in interpretation but in our acting in context with the skills and customs of our community; rule following is a practice. Wittgenstein states that the assertability-criteria of meaning must be found in its application and that we must practice a rule in order to be skilled in the customs of our community because community determines the context or “form of life” by which the rule should be expressed. Remark 241 states that “what is true or false is what human beings say; and it is in their language that human beings agree. his is agreement not in opinions, but rather in form of life”. This does not meant that human beings do not get together and decide that 2+2=4. What makes it the case that 2+2=5 can’t just be is a matter of human beings agreeing that there has to be a standard to make these things correct: the form of life. Wittgenstein does not directly state what form of life is, but it is implied, in the few places he mentions it that our connections and similarities with other people allow us to gain similar deductions. Wittgenstein comes to the conclusion of assertability-conditions/criteria, by arguing the point that the meaning of a rule cannot be know privately or reside in the private mental content of the individual because we have no standard of criteria by which to judge the interpretations of our internal content; this is known as the Private Language Argument.
Remark 243: The Private Language Argument
It seems from this Remark that there can be a private language in the sense that people have sensations that are unique to them and not understood by others but this later proved to not be the case. It is interpreted by Baker and Hacker to be a comment that speaks to the Cartesian inner/outer dualism debate:
“It is concerned with establishing the non-primacy of the mental, the inner, the subjective. In this enterprise Wittgenstein is stalking a much larger quarry than a potential counter example to one of his own theses, namely the conceptions of the mental underlying the mainstream of European philosophy since Descartes” (Baker and Hacker, p. 23).
What has already been established in the Remarks thus far is that there cannot be a private language because there is no criteria for judgement on a private thought because it is unaccessible to public understanding. This is why, argues Wittgenstein, meaning can only be found in public use where the standard for a rule or meaning of word can be agreed upon and understood in the form of life. As Wittgenstein has already argued, there cannot be a private language because it would follow from this that there could also be many different interpretations, one for each person’s private thoughts; we must be able to decipher whether or not someone understands the meaning of a word, rule, through public application. In the example of the explorer who tries to decipher the meaning of the language which is foreign to him, Wittgenstein states that in order to decipher the commands of language that are being obeyed in that country, he must observe how the community of people are interacting, for “shared human behavior is the system of reference by means of which we interpret an unknown language” (Remark 206).
Baker and Hackers Argument Against Kripke’s Interpretation of the Paradox
Baker and Hacker state that epistemological skepticism is the root of Kripke’s reading of Wittgenstein’s paradox; this skepticism states that “applying a word in accord with what one means by it leads to the conclusion that there can be no meaning at all, and language is impossible” (Baker & Hacker, p. 3-4). According to Kripke, Wittgenstein agues that there is no “fact-in-the-world that constitutes meaning something by one’s words” and thus we rely on the assertability-conditions of meaning; we apply meaning to a word granted that our community is doing the same (Baker and Hacker, p. 4). Kripke reads Wittgenstein to say that there is no reason to deny that my current application of ‘W’ accords with what I previously meant by ‘W’ and that this requires that the community must also prevent the thinker from thinking that following a rule and thinking one is following a rule is the same thing (Baker and Hacker, p. 4).
Baker and Hacker argue that Wittgenstein never admits skepticism, and in fact had Kripke addressed the remainder of Remark 201, he would have realized that there was no paradox and thus no need for a skeptical solution; “Wittgenstein has already presented the problem of multiple interactions in Remark 198 and without any reference to a paradox. Even more importantly, Wittgenstein immediately offers a solution: to follow a rule is not to interpret a rule formulation or instruction, it is to master a technique or custom. The same solution is also offered in Remark 201” (Kusch, p. 246).
If we return to Remark 198, we find textual evidence that supports Wittgenstein’s argument that meaning is not found via interpretation: “every interpretation hangs in the air together with what it interprets, and cannot give it any support. Interpretations by themselves do not determine meaning. In the later part of Remark 201, Wittgenstein suggests that the solution to the paradox of what it means to understand and correctly follow a rule is resolved by mastering a technique (practice) and participating in a custom (community). Obeying a rule is found in our acting in context with the skills and customs of our community and practicing the rule in this context. Textual evidence of this is also found in Remark 198 which states that “ I have further indicated that a person goes by a signpost only in so far as there is an established usage, a custom”.
Kripke’s skeptical reading of Wittgenstein argues that the paradox presented in Remark 201 cannot be reconciled but if we read Wittgenstein the way Baker and Hacker do, we find textual evidence to show that the solution to the paradox is indeed presented and thus Kripke is wrong to argue against a paradox that isn’t there. Textual evidence does show that Wittgenstein argues that the meaning of a word is not found in an internal mental understanding and that the meaning of a word is found in its application in a community, thus providing an solution to the paradox he presents in Remark 201. As Wittgenstein sated in a few paragraphs before he identifies the paradox, “to understand a sentence means to understand a language. To understand a language means to have mastered a technique” (Remark 199).