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Summary Malcolm - Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language notes
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- Wittgenstein
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- Oxford University (OX)
Notes on Malcolm's 'Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language'
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Norman Malcolm - Wittgenstein on Language and Rules1.
● Disagreement: does Wittgenstein think (and is it correct) that community agreement is a
necessary condition for rule-following (Malcolm - community view), or is a non-social (i.e.
solitary) regularity sufficient (Baker/Hacker)?
○ this is played out through the question of whether a Robinson Crusoe
could be said to be following rules
2.
● Baker/Hacker: ‘The pivotal point in Wittgenstein’s remarks on following rules is that a
rule is internally related to acts which accord with it. The rule and nothing but the rule
determines what is correct. This idea is incompatible with defining ‘correct’ in terms of what is
normal or standard practice in a community. To take the behaviour of the majority to be the
criterion of correctness in applying rules is to abrogate the internal relation of a rule to acts in
accord with it. // There is no possibility of building consensus in behaviour (or shared
dispositions) into the explanation of what ‘correct’ means except at the price of abandoning the
insight that a rule is internally related to acts in accord with it.’
1. Acts that accord are internally related to the rule in the sense that if you do not do this
then you aren’t following the rule
a. i.e. if you multiply 25 by 25 and don’t get 625 you multiplied incorrectly
- the result is a criterion of correctness
2. BUT not internal relation in the sense that the according acts are somehow contained in
the rule
a. a rule is not an extension - the applications of a rule are not given with
the rule, but have to be produced or constructed
3. ‘The rule and nothing but the rule determines what is correct’
a. but what if people disagree over what is accordance with the rule? We
can only have rules where there is a framework of overwhelming agreement
i. (this seems question begging - there is only the
possibility of agreement/disagreement where there is a community, and Malcolm
hasn’t yet shown that it would be impossible for a RC to follow a rule. In any
case the stated W quote looks consistent with the view that where there is a
community, a communal rule must require agreement - this doesn’t entail that RC
can’t follow a rule)
b. this neglects W’s insight that a rule only determines in a setting of quiet
agreement - without community agreement, a rule is empty, naked, indeterminate
● Wittgenstein replaces the picture of the interpreted rule as determining the series ‘like an
infallible machine through which a conveyor belt runs’ with the picture of a person who has been
given a certain training, and determines (without reflection) that a rule determines this step
○ this step is what others will agree is what the rule demands
○ for Wittgenstein, agreement on rules is necessary for the existence of
language
● Baker/Hacker claim that ‘if the rule is given, then so is its ‘extension’’
, ○ but how can this be, if the rule is not its extension, or does not contain its
extension?
○ also, if this is true, then the phenomenon of near universal agreement in
applying rules is of course unsurprising/seems unimportant, since when the rule is given,
so is its extension
■ but in fact its extension is not given, and this is why we
could disagree - and if we were to, language would break down
● Baker/Hacker claim that without agreement there could be concepts no common
concepts, language but not shared language, rules but no shared rules
○ when W discusses agreement, he seems to be talking about language
simpliciter, not shared language
■ (this is perhaps unclear from the quotes, which seem
consistent with RC following rules - perhaps agreement only necessary for a
shared language)
3.
● Baker/Hacker claim that rules and what accords with them are related internally, not
externally
○ does this mean that to see general agreement as a condition of rule
following would be ‘to insert a community agreement between a rule and what accords
with it’?
■ well, in most cases, even where rules do seem to rely on
general agreement, this is not explicit, sought agreement, but unhesitating
agreement
■ in maths, if we were to disagree irresolvably, we would
have to say that we are not e.g. multiplying
● without consensus, there would be no
concepts, language or rules - whether we call this a presupposition, a
condition or part of the framework of language is irrelevant
■ if this is what externally related means, then this is not
W’s position
● he does hold that rule following would
not work except in a framework of agreement, BUT such ‘canvassing
and testing’ of agreement does not enter into the operation of the
language games
○ (but can community
agreement not be inserted between a rule and what accords with
it in a more subtle and less crude way? shouldn’t Malcolm be
defending this position/arguing that he doesn’t hold it? straw
man issue)
4.
● For Baker/Hacker, ‘the concept of following a rule is here linked with the concept of
regularity, not with the concept of a community of rule-followers’
○ hence there is the possibility of a solitary rule follower
● The solitary rule follower must not be like Defoe’s Crusoe, who was a member of human
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