There is more than one sense in which we say someone is following a rule. If I if I ask a child what the rule of counting is more than likely she cannot state a rule but will simply demonstrate how it is done by counting. — Fooloso4

I believe counting is intuitive, so no need for rules. All the basic arithmetical operations can be shown with actual objects like stones or marbles. Once this is intuitively grasped the rest is just naming the numbers. The "rules" are just formulations of what is already easily made obvious. by showing.

I believe counting is intuitive — Janus

Hmm. Might be better to say it is a ritual. Touch one shape, say "one", touch the next, say "two"...

We watch a child do this, and then count the cats, and the chairs, and the fingers, and as Hume pointed out no finite list of such examples logically implies that the child will get it right next time. So when do we say that the kid knows how to count?

Some laugh at the primitives who go "one, two, three, many..." but we do the same when contemplating grains of sand on a beach.

Thinking of counting as "intuitive" underplays the need to teach kids how to count. It's an initiation into a language game.

It's an initiation into a language game. — Banno

An initiation which would be impossible if the child did not intuitively get the logic of it. Once understood the logic can be extended indefinitely, and excluding brain damage, should not ever be lost.

Yeah, I think the account in the Meno is wrong. As was Chomsky. But this is not the place for that discussion.

What I was after was showing how Kripkenstein relates to Hume's skepticism towards induction.

I'm not invoking anamnesis. I also believe it is an established fact that some animals can do basic counting. I think behaviorist accounts neglect half the picture.

Can you explain how you see Kripke's "skeptical challenge" relating to Hume's skepticism regarding induction? I have always understood the latter to be merely pointing out that induction is not deduction, that causation is not logically necessary.

How do you tell that a child has followed the rule of addition? By looking at a finite set of examples. But, as for all induction, no finite set of observations can imply a universal principle.

How do you tell that a child has followed the rule of addition? By looking at a finite set of examples. But, as for all induction, no finite set of observations can imply a universal principle. — Banno

As I said I don't think about it in terms of following rules, so your question is not relevant.

In any case even if it were a matter of following rules my knowing that the child has followed a set of rules is not the same as the child following a set of rules. I don't have to know something, or even be able to know something, in order that it be the case.

I see no reason to think that once a child understands the logic of addition that they would ever lose that understanding, barring, as I said previously, brain damage or senility.

As I said I don't think about it in terms of following rules, so your question is not relevant. — Janus

Except that the topic is following rules.

Ok, leave it.

Except that the topic is following rules. — Banno

I thought the topic was "Kripke's skeptical challenge". If the challenge is based on an inconsistency that shows up when thinking of counting as rule-based, have you considered the possibility that not thinking of it as rule-based, but as intuitive, might dissolve the apparent issue?

:meh:

Kripke presents this as the discovery of a problem; Cavell reads Wittgenstein as stating a truth. There is no fact that ensures the extension of a concept into the future or a new context. Unless it is a game or math, we do not “follow a rule” to reach a certain effect or conclusion. I got into this here

There is no fact that ensures the extension of a concept into the future or a new context. — Antony Nickles

True, but the skeptical argument goes beyond that. When you communicated in the past, you weren't following any particular rule. Meaning does not arise from community rule following.

When you communicated in the past, you weren't following any particular rule. Meaning does not arise from community rule following. — frank

And I can agree with that too. I’m not denying the skeptic’s argument.

And I can agree with that too. I’m not denying the skeptic’s argument. — Antony Nickles

:up:

I was digging through some old articles and I happened upon a paper, "Kripke and Wittgenstein: Intention without Paradox," by Paul Moser and Kevin Flannery. In the first half of the paper they give some simple explanations of why Kripke is wrong, but in the second half they actually marshal evidence from Wittgenstein's own works to show that Kripke misunderstands Wittgenstein when it comes to intention.

Admittedly, we have met the sceptical challenge by relying on an as yet undiscussed notion of intention. It should be recalled, however, that Kripke himself introduced this notion as being relevant to the sceptical problem, thereby suggesting that the notion is at least intelligible. Intention, indeed, makes all the difference. For assuming that an intention to use the standard interpretation of addition is present in S's mental history, we can readily admit that no object in the world, no picture in the mind's eye, no formula of any sort determines by itself how S goes on to employ the rules of addition. And we can do this without entertaining any sceptical doubts about his ability to add. Thus, should the sceptic challenge that '(x)', for instance, might mean '(x<h)', S can readily reply, 'But that's not how I intended it'.

This, however is not how Kripke conceives of intention. As a matter of fact, he excludes from the scope of his paradox the things to which Wittgenstein applies the paradox of §201 and he includes the things Wittgenstein would exclude... — Paul Moser and Kevin Flannery, Kripke and Wittgenstein: Intention without Paradox

The upshot is that Wittgenstein's understanding of intention "does not fall within the scope of the sceptical paradox."

Edit: Added link

Kripke is wrong... — Leontiskos

About what? Everything?

About the coherence of his position, about the claim that there is no fact about S that constitutes S's meaning plus rather than quus, and about the claim that the challenge represents a new form of scepticism.

Oh, OK. The article is paywalled on the links I found, so I guess we will have to take your word for it. Nice crevice.

Yep, the generally agreed view is that the problem Kripke posits is not found in Wittgenstein, that Kripke should not be seen as engaged in exegesis.

The article is paywalled on the links I found, so I guess we will have to take your word for it. — Banno

Yes, I checked as well. I tried to quote more but the OCR is flawed.

Yep, the generally agreed view is that the problem Kripke posits is not found in Wittgenstein, that Kripke should not be seen as engaged in exegesis. — Banno

But it would be interesting if Wittgenstein had already provided an answer to the challenge that Kripke derived from his work. Granted, I don't know the chronology of when each wrote what.

---



This is somewhat interesting but I don't think Kripke is himself engaged in a Hume thing.

Thus, should the sceptic challenge that '(x)', for instance, might mean '(x<h)', S can readily reply, 'But that's not how I intended it'. — Paul Moser and Kevin Flannery, Kripke and Wittgenstein: Intention without Paradox

The issue is that S has a private language problem. Did the authors discuss that?

Its interesting there's this impression that Kripke has misunderstood Wittgenstein or not even attempted to but I find Kripke's interpretation more or less aligns with what Wittgenstein seems to say throughout the book imo. Maybe I am misinterpreting it towards my philosophical inclinations though (but I don't actually believe that).

I just saw a hawk fly up and land. A crow began sounding an alarm. I've been seeing that since childhood. It's meaningful to me, not because anyone involved is consciously following rules, but because it's following a well worn pattern, and I have an innate need to make sense of events.

Could it be that this is the same thing that's happening with language use? Events transpire, people make noises, and I need to make sense of it. So you don't have to know what rule you were following when you spoke. There doesn't have to have been any rule at all. Your speech took place, and now we both receive it and go to work fitting it in with the rest of what we know. And then this becomes cyclical, so there's an expectation that when you speak, someone will try to make sense of it.

It's like a whirlpool.

Some:

A natural reply to the sceptic's challenge is that S intended to use 'plus' in accordance with certain laws not satisfied by the quus function, i.e., the recursion equations for '+': (x) (x + 0 = x) and (x) ( y) (x + y' = (x + y)'), where the apostrophe indicates successor. This intention of S's, we might propose, constitutes the fact that S meant plus, and not quus, for only addition conforms to these laws. But Kripke opposes this kind of reply on the ground that 'the other signs used in these laws (the universal quantifiers, the equality sign) have been applied in only a finite number of instances, and they can be given non-standard interpretations that will fit non-standard interpretations of "+" ' (p. 17).

Kripke's objection, however, misses its target. For while it is true that S might have given '(x)' or '=' a non-standard interpretation, it is also true that S might give these signs a standard interpretation. Suppose then that S understands the universal quantifier in accordance with the standard interpretation, while intending to use 'plus' in accordance with the above recursion equations. In this case Kripke's objection will not apply. [...]

But, of course, we cannot therefore infer that S can answer the sceptic's challenge to the sceptic's satisfaction. For clearly S's having a certain intention that constitutes his meaning plus does not entail S's being able to establish beyond any doubt that he has (or had) such an intention. [...] Of course, the sceptic might object to S's reliance on non-demonstrative evidence or on memory beliefs in particular. But this kind of objection will give rise to a sterile form of scepticism, as one of the ground rules for any useful exchange between the sceptic and the non-sceptic is that justifying empirical evidence need not be demonstrative evidence. Insisting on such evidence, if only for the sake of argument, S might challenge the sceptic by asking what he means, or intends, by 'quus'. Further, the present sort of objection certainly will not provide us with a new form of philosophical scepticism; at most it will provide a traditional kind of epistemological scepticism to which recent philosophical literature provides some plausible replies. — Paul Moser and Kevin Flannery, Kripke and Wittgenstein: Intention without Paradox, pp. 311-12

I still think gave the most apt reply.

...not because anyone involved is consciously following rules, but because it's following a well worn pattern, — frank

Hmm. What is a pattern, if not some sort of rule-following? OR perhaps, there are two ways of showing that you understand a pattern - by setting it out explicitly in words, and by continuing it.

So here's the problem. Consider "101010..."

Someone says "you are writing a one followed by a zero, and you intend us to understand this as continuing in perpetuity"

Someone else says "The complete pattern is "101010010101", a symmetrical placement of one's and zero's".

A third person says "The series continues as "101010202020303030..." and so on, up to "...909090" and then finishes".

Our evidence, "101010...", is compatible with all of these, and much more besides.

It's not the absence of rules that is puzzling, it's their abundance.

Yes, explicit rules are in a way post hoc.

Of course, the sceptic might object to S's reliance on non-demonstrative evidence or on memory beliefs in particular. But this kind of objection will give rise to a sterile form of scepticism, as one of the ground rules for any useful exchange between the sceptic and the non-sceptic is that justifying empirical evidence need not be demonstrative evidence. Insisting on such evidence, if only for the sake of argument, S might challenge the sceptic by asking what he means, or intends, by 'quus'. Further, the present sort of objection certainly will not provide us with a new form of philosophical scepticism; at most it will provide a traditional kind of epistemological scepticism to which recent philosophical literature provides some plausible replies. — Paul Moser and Kevin Flannery, Kripke and Wittgenstein: Intention without Paradox, pp. 311-12

It's not clear from this passage that the authors have ever heard of the private language argument.

Hmm. What is a pattern, if not some sort of rule-following? OR perhaps, there are two ways of showing that you understand a pattern - by setting it out explicitly in words, and by continuing it.

So here's the problem. Consider "101010..."

Someone says "you are writing a one followed by a zero, and you intend us to understand this as continuing in perpetuity"

Someone else says "The complete pattern is "101010010101", a symmetrical placement of one's and zero's".

A third person says "The series continues as "101010202020303030..." and so on, up to "...909090" and then finishes".

Our evidence, "101010...", is compatible with all of these, and much more besides.

It's not the absence of rules that is puzzling, it's their abundance. — Banno

Right. Kripke isn't saying there's no such thing as rules.

Yes, explicit rules are in a way post hoc. — Banno

I guess the question is whether rule following is something we sort of stamp onto certain kinds of events?

...rule following is something we sort of stamp onto certain kinds of events? — frank

Well, something along those lines happens when we say that little Jenny can count.

Well, something along those lines happens when we say that little Jenny can count. — Banno

:up:

Then I ask you for a fact about your previous behavior that shows that the rule you were following was addition rather than quaddition. — frank

Then I ask you to prove tI've been doing quaddition, not addition.

I ask you to add 68+57.

You confidently say "125."

The skeptic asks, "How did you get that answer?" — frank

Draw 57 tally marks. Ask the skeptic how many there are. If the answer is "57", draw 68 more. Have the skeptic count them all. That should be a good enough answer for him.