Rules and Dispositions in Language Use

Kenneth A. Loparo

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137358608
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Mind & Body in Philosophy

Rules and Dispositions in Language Use explains how correct language use is governed by both rules and general human dispositions. It does so by bringing together themes from Ludwig Wittgenstein and Noam Chomsky, which for many years have been thought to be incompatible.

Part I

Language Use and Rule-Following

1

Kripke’s Wittgenstein

The question whether language use could be completely arbitrary is a rather recent one. It mainly emerged from independent exegetical works by Saul Kripke (1982) and Crispin Wright (1980) on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s views on rule-following. For present purposes, I shall concentrate mainly on Kripke’s work.

Saul Kripke’s Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language is a very influential book. Google Scholar lists more than 2300 citations and many of its central topics are still debated today. The central topic of any philosophical analysis of language use is sometimes called ‘metalinguistic correctness’. Kripke (1982, p. 8) takes metalinguistic correctness to be concerned with the correct usage of linguistic expressions based on what those linguistic expressions mean. In addition, accounting for metalinguistic correctness centrally involves explaining how an indefinite number of new language uses can be based on a finite number of preceding ones. In order to make the notion of metalinguistic correctness clearer, Kripke contrasts it with arithmetic correctness. Computing 125 as the sum of 57 and 68 is correct in the arithmetic sense, because 125 is the sum of 57 and 68. On the other hand, computing 125 as the sum is metalinguistically correct if ‘plus’ in ‘57 plus 68’ picks out the arithmetic function which yields 125 as an answer when it is applied to the numbers expressed by ‘57’ and ‘68’.

One should not be misled by Kripke’s terminology. Metalinguistic correctness merely explains the usage of linguistic expressions in terms of what these expressions mean. And making correct language use the central topic hence suggests that the present discussion is to a large extent about issues surrounding the concept of meaning. Now, when Kripke distinguishes metalinguistic from arithmetic correctness, he also insinuates that the meaning of a linguistic expression alone is not always sufficient to determine correct use. Making arithmetically correct statements, then, might not only turn on what one’s words mean, but also on whether one calculates correctly. Even if the meaning of the words used to talk about arithmetic do determine the correct result or establish which result is correct, that would be something that must be argued for and cannot be presupposed.

There are also other cases in which the meanings of linguistic expressions do not suffice prima facie to determine the correct use of those expressions. Getting the facts right, for example, does often not only depend on meaning, but also on what is the case. And having a good warrant for the claims one makes might not only depend on meaning, but on what counts as a justification. So we should at least distinguish between language use that is correct by virtue of meaning, correct by virtue of the facts and correct by virtue of warrant. Instead of Kripke’s notion of metalinguistic correctness, I shall henceforth speak of language use that can be semantically correct and in addition to that I shall also presuppose that language use can be correct or incorrect in a factual or epistemological sense. A complete account of correct language use distinguishes these three kinds of correctness and provides an explanation of how they are related.

In order to see how Kripke approaches semantic correctness and its relation to factual and epistemological issues, two kinds of question are raised. First, there are metaphysical questions. What constitutes language use? What sort of fact determines what linguistic expressions mean? Second, there are epistemological questions. How can we know that a particular use of a linguistic expression is correct? How can we justify that we do know whether a particular use is correct or not? Any account of the relation of meaning and language use must answer these metaphysical and epistemological questions and an account passes muster only if it provides suitable answers.

In Kripke’s book, the issues surrounding the relation of meaning and use are introduced via sceptical doubts concerning the very possibility that the metaphysical and epistemological questions can be answered. Kripke takes his cues from Ludwig Wittgenstein, yet develops them independently of Wittgenstein’s texts. The result is a serious challenge for any attempt to explain meaningful language use, because the doubts suggest that language use can never be either factually or epistemologically correct. This also questions semantic correctness, for if an expression’s meaning never counts as a fact constituting correct language use or as justifying a particular use as correct, the concept of meaning appears to be a completely arbitrary concept.

The sections below are about sceptical doubts along these semantic, metaphysical and epistemological lines. The question concerning the extent to which Kripke’s Wittgenstein – commonly called ‘Kripkenstein’ – is identical with Wittgenstein will be partially neglected. Another issue that will not be discussed much is whether there can be a completely naturalistic account of correct language use.¹

A point to be noted is that the reading of Kripke’s book proposed below develops the sceptical doubts solely on the basis of issues surrounding linguistic extrapolation: any admissible account of language use should explain how an indefinite number of new language uses can be based on a finite number of preceding ones. That is controversial. Some commentators have claimed that further assumptions are made (or required) to get scepticism off the ground. The reading of Kripke’s book proposed below offers corrosive sceptical doubts without any such further consideration.

1.1 The sceptical scenario

Paradoxical language use?

Kripke writes that the sceptical scenario he describes cannot be understood as presenting either his own or Wittgenstein’s point of view, even though the book is meant to convey an essential point of Wittgenstein’s later work. Rather, it should be seen as ‘Wittgenstein’s argument as it struck Kripke’ (Kripke, 1982, p. 5). The sceptic was henceforth called ‘Kripkenstein’s sceptic’. In order to set up the sceptical scenario, I shall say more about how Kripke understands semantic correctness and address some preliminary issues concerning it. After that, I shall introduce Kripkenstein’s sceptical scenario.

By ‘+’ I refer to addition, a mathematical function. In expressions containing two integers separated by a plus, such as ‘12 + 5’ or ‘57 + 68’, ‘+’ is used to refer to the addition function with two positive integers as arguments. The addition function is easy to compute for small integers and produces one integer for every pair of arguments.

Note that ‘+’ is a linguistic expression and that semantic correctness is concerned with the correct usage of linguistic expressions based on what those linguistic expressions mean. Now, grasping the meaning of ‘+’ involves grasping how ‘+’ is used correctly. Intuitively, this seems also to involve that I grasp how to use ‘+’ in indefinitely many new cases and based on a finite number of preceding occasions of having used ‘+’. This naturally leads to the assumption that by grasping the meaning of ‘+’ I also grasp a rule which determines how I compute indefinitely many additions, the expression of which involve ‘+’.

We should be careful not to jump the gun here. We must insist that ‘indefinitely’ is simply used to express a concession that we do not know how many particular uses of ‘+’ are based on a finite number of preceding uses. For if we do not add this caveat, ‘indefinitely’ may be read as expressing an assumption that there are possibly infinite particular uses of ‘+’ which are based on a finite number of preceding uses. This second reading suggests that we must also ask how something finite can determine something infinite at all. So, if we do not add the caveat, we find ourselves in a quandary.

The two readings of ‘indefinitely’ also lead to two distinct notions of a rule. First, if ‘indefinitely’ simply means that we cannot count the number of cases determined by the rule, the rule can be said to govern the use of ‘+’ but does not determine it rigidly, because there need not be a definite set of correct applications of the rule. Second, if ‘indefinitely’ means something like ‘infinitely’ or ‘possibly infinitely’, the rule governing the use of ‘+’ can still be thought to determine rigidly – there might be a definite set of correct applications of the rule. In the first case, rules merely provide directions and in the second case, they are more like rails.

The first notion of a rule, where we have relaxed determination, is more appealing, because we can easily make sense of the idea that rules have exceptions and that those exceptions do not prove in any way that the rule is defective – rather, the existence of an exception in a particular case may prove that there is a general rule. If public drinking is forbidden in an area unless it is a national holiday, the exception on national holidays proves that public drinking is generally forbidden in that area. It is quite difficult, on the other hand, to find rules for which every exception must be counted as a defect. Such rules can hardly be called rules at all, because they do not allow for exceptions that prove them. The notion of rules as rigidly determining hence confuses the concept of a rule with the concept of a law.

There is also a second aspect to why we should be careful not to understand rules as rigidly determining. Following rules is a conscious activity and the agent can explain why she follows a rule or which rule she follows. It is thus natural to hold that rules are followed intentionally. If rules did, however, rigidly determine a possibly infinite number of particular actions, an agent’s intentions must comprise such possible infinitudes down to every detail. It is hard to show how a finite mind can form intentions comprising all details of possible infinitudes. We should therefore be wary not to read too much into the term ‘indefinitely’, because it may lead us to make claims which require justification and for which justification is not easy to come by.

This makes clearer in which sense we speak of rules in the present context. It is preferable to regard them as providing directions rather than rails. It thus becomes innocuous to claim that any rule requires that my intention to follow it determines what is to count as following that rule for indefinitely many cases in the future, even though there may be exceptions. We can now also formulate a more precise notion of semantic correctness, according to which the correct use of a word depends on there being a rule and a language user, whose intention to follow the rule determines indefinitely many cases of semantically correct language use. In other words, accounting for the relation between meaning and use means, first and foremost, accounting for how semantically correct language use involves extrapolating from a finite number of preceding occasions. The explanandum is therefore called ‘grasping as extrapolating’:

(Grasping as Extrapolating)

Grasping a rule for the usage of a meaningful expression centrally involves extrapolating a possibly indefinite number of new applications based on a finite number of known cases.

Uneasiness about the notion of a rule might lead one to replace ‘rule for the usage of a meaningful expression’ with ‘meaning of an expression’. For unless we find independent reasons that necessitate speaking of rules, the concept of meaning can be used to explain the sort of extrapolations at stake here just as well.

Note also that grasping as extrapolating is not necessarily confined to purely linguistic cases. The application of concepts in general requires extrapolation as well. It makes perfect sense to treat concept application along the lines of semantic correctness. If I possess the concept of a cat, I can apply that concept to indefinitely many cats, but we must hold that the concept does not determine its applications rigidly. After all, the concept of a cat cannot be applied to a black cat in a dark alley at night, because the circumstances make it impossible to apply the concept at all. Exceptions hence play a similar role in concept application as when rules are applied or linguistic expressions are used. This finding can be condensed into the following definition – the primary explanandum of Kripkenstein’s considerations:

(Grasping as Extrapolating)

Grasping a rule, a meaning of a word or a concept centrally involves extrapolating a possibly indefinite number of new applications based on a finite number of known cases.²

With these clarifications in the background, let us move on to the introduction of Kripkenstein’s sceptical scenario. Consider the quaddition function, which works just like the addition function for arguments smaller than 56. But if one of the two arguments is larger than 56, the function always yields ‘5’ as a result. Accordingly, it is conceivable for some curious circumstances that ‘+’ signifies ‘quus’, which denotes the quaddition function.

Now, imagine that I have never computed any addition function with arguments larger than 56, but several with arguments smaller than 56, and that I was always right. Suppose I encounter a situation where I am asked to compute 57 + 68. As I understand addition by ‘+’, I compute 125 as an answer. I probably rely on how I have computed the function for smaller arguments in the past. Let us grant that I perfectly remember how I did it back then – assume extended epistemological powers, as you will. Reminding myself that I have only computed smaller arguments before, I check the answer again and still get 125. Now I am confident and answer ‘125’.

Kripkenstein’s sceptic walks in on me and objects that the correct answer is 5, not 125. Note that he does not question 125 to be the correct answer in the arithmetical sense, he questions correctness in the semantic sense. The reason why I am wrong, he claims, is that I am – due to some adverse circumstance like having a hallucination (and not knowing it) or being under the influence of a malign spirit – mistaken about what I formerly meant by ‘+’. He claims that in the past I referred to the quaddition function by ‘+’, but just now I mistakenly thought that I always meant addition by ‘+’. Given that meaning of ‘+’ I should indeed answer ‘5’ and not ‘125’.

Kripke is aware how crazy the sceptic’s proposal sounds. He does, however, stress that no matter how crazy the proposal sounds, it does not ‘seem to be a priori impossible’ (Kripke, 1982, p. 9). So, if we want to answer the sceptic, Kripke insinuates, we must show that scepticism about meaning actually is a priori impossible.

But there are other strategies to counter the objection. A simpler way of answering the sceptic involves turning the tables and asking the sceptic himself to show why the particular case of language use he doubts to be correct is actually incorrect. After all, he is merely talking about an improbable possibility. Turning tables like that involves rejecting the idea that the mere conceivability of incorrectness is enough to successfully question whether a speaker uses language correctly when it appears to the speaker that he actually does use language correctly. In order to put the strategy into action, one must argue that a speaker is authoritative about what he counts as correct language use, unless some fact obtains that overrides such claims. What sort of fact counts as appropriate remains yet to be determined, but the mere conceivability of incorrectness will not do as a reasonable basis for sceptical doubts. An answer along these lines does still allow the sceptic to raise his objection in other particular cases, because the answer does not rule out the very possibility of scepticism. Despite this drawback, such a simpler answer is easier to come by, for it evades very abstract and complicated reasoning due to having to explain what ‘a priori impossible’ means. It is, at any rate, wrong to think that answering the sceptic necessarily leads to a discussion of a priori possibilities concerning semantic correctness.

No matter what way of answering the sceptic I choose, I need a suitable fact to counter the sceptic’s doubts...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• Part I  Language Use and Rule-Following
• Part II  The Objective Grounds of Language Use
• Part III  Linguistic Powers and Their Proper Study
• Glossary
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index