%0 Journal Article
%T The Rule-Following Paradox and the Impossibility of Private Rule-Following
%A Jody Azzouni
%J The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication
%D 2010
%I New Prairie Press
%R 10.4148/biyclc.v5i0.278
%X Kripke¡¯s version of Wittgenstein¡¯s rule-following paradox has been influential. My concern is with how it¡ªand Wittgenstein¡¯s views more generally¡ªhave been perceived as undercutting the individualistic picture of mathematical practice: the view that individuals¡ªRobinson Crusoes¡ªcan, entirely independently of a community, engage in cogent mathematics, and indeed (more generally) have ¡°private languages.¡± What has been denied is that phrases like ¡°correctly counting¡± can be applied to such individuals because these normative notions (so the Wittgensteinian analysis is taken to show) can only be applied cogently in a context involving community standards. I attempt to show that this shocking corollary doesn¡¯t follow even if Kripke¡¯s Wittgensteinian objections to dispositional approaches to rule-following are largely right. My reason for claiming this is that there is another (¡°sceptical¡±) solution to the rule-following paradox, one that doesn¡¯t favor community standards over individual ones. Furthermore, it doesn¡¯t replace truth conditions with assertability conditions; and this latter maneuver is essential to Kripke¡¯s sceptical solution favoring the community over the individual.
%U http://dx.doi.org/10.4148/biyclc.v5i0.278