International Phenomenological Society

Wilson on Kripke's Wittgenstein

Author(s): Michael Kremer
Source: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 60, No. 3 (May, 2000), pp. 571-584
Published by: International Phenomenological Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2653815
Accessed: 24/02/2010 19:45

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ips.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

International Phenomenological Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.

http://www.jstor.org
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
Vol. LX, No. 3, May 2000

Wilson on Kripke's Wittgenstein

MICHAELKREMER
University of Notre Dame

George Wilson has recently defended Kripke's well-known interpretationof Wittgen-

stein against the criticisms of John McDowell. Wilson claims that these criticisms rest on
misunderstandingsof Kripke and that, when correctly understood, Kripke's interpreta-
tion stands up to them well. In particular,Wilson defends Kripke's Wittgenstein against
the charge of "non-factualism"about meaning. However, Wilson has not appreciated
the full significance of McDowell's criticism. I use a brief exploration of Kripke's
analogy between Wittgenstein and Hume to put this significance in sharp relief. It
emerges that McDowell's response to Kripke's Wittgenstein account of meaning is in
importantrespects analogous to Kant's response to Hume's account of causality, par-
ticularly Kant's complaint that Hume reduced the objective necessity of the causal
nexus to a merely subjective necessity. In the same way Kripke's Wittgenstein reduces
the objective normative force of meanings to a "quasi-subjective,"community-relative
status.

In "SemanticRealism and Kripke's Wittgenstein,"'George Wilson defends

Kripke'S2well- known interpretationof Wittgenstein3against criticisms by
(among others) John McDowell.4 Wilson claims that these criticisms rest on
misunderstandingsof Kripke's book and that, when correctly understood,
Kripke's interpretationstands up to them well. In particular,Wilson argues
that Kripke's Wittgenstein's "skepticalsolution'"5to the problemof meaning
(and more generally rule-following) is "not committed to non-factualism"
about meaning (and rule-following). (W, 99) I will argue that Wilson does
not appreciatethe full significance of McDowell's criticism. I will use a brief
exploration of an aspect of Kripke's interpretationwhich has come in for

Philosophy and PhenomtenologicalResearch 83 (1998), 99-122. Henceforth W.

Saul Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language: An Elementary Exposition
(Cambridge:HarvardUniversity Press, 1982). HenceforthK.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, G. E. M. Anscombe, trans. (New
York: MacMillan PublishingCo., 1968). HenceforthPI.
John McDowell, "Wittgenstein on Following a Rule," Synthese 58 (1984), 325-63;
henceforth Ml; and "Meaningand Intentionalityin Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy," in
French, Uehling and Wettstein,eds., The WittgensteinLegacy, Midwest Studies in Philos-
ophy, XVII (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992); henceforthM2.
Kripke uses the less common spellings septicic" skepticall" and so on. I will only use
such spellings in directly quoting extended passages from Kripke.

WILSON ON KRIPKE'SWITIGENSTEIN 571

little explicit discussion-his analogy between Wittgenstein and Hume-to
put this significance in sharprelief.

I
Kripke portrays Wittgenstein, on the model of Hume,6 as developing a
"skepticalargument"for a "skepticalparadox"aboutmeaningand rule-follow-
ing, to which a "skeptical solution" is to be supplied. As I understandthis
structure,a "skepticalargument"begins with a certainphilosophical view of
a phenomenon(meaning, causality, etc.) and argues to a "paradox"in which
it seems (contraryto common-sense) that the said phenomenon cannot (be
known to) exist. Faced with such a paradox, there are three alternatives:
embrace the skeptical paradox, adopt a "straight solution," or adopt a
"skepticalsolution." Kripkedistinguishes straightand skeptical solutions as
follows: "Call a proposed solution to a sceptical philosophical problem a
straight solution if it shows that on closer examinationthe scepticism proves
to be unwarranted;an elusive or complex argument proves the thesis the
sceptic doubted. ... A sceptical solution of a sceptical philosophicalproblem
begins on the contraryby conceding that the sceptic's negative assertionsare
unanswerable. Nevertheless our ordinary practice or belief is justified
because-contrary appearances notwithstanding-it need not require the
justification the sceptic has shown to be untenable." (K, 66) It should be
clear, however, that a skeptical solution will not embrace all the skeptic's
negative claims, since it will not embrace the conclusion that our ordinary
practice or belief is unjustified. But a skeptical solution is nonetheless
supposedto embraceand accept the skepticalargumentthat leads to the skep-
tical paradox-only at the last moment this is turned into a modus tollens
argument against the philosophical conception of the phenomenon, with
which the skeptic began, and another conception is put in its place. So in
grasping the import of a skeptical solution, it is important to recognize
exactly how far the proponentof the solution has to go along with the skep-
tical argument. If we say (as Kripke sometimes does) that the skeptical
solution accepts the skeptical paradox but tries to disarm it, we have to be
clear that the skeptical solution does not really embracethe full paradox;the
skeptic's conclusions go beyond what the solution accepts to a further
conclusion which the solution rejects. It is this feature of Kripke's setup
which Wilson exploits to try to answerMcDowell's criticisms.
The skeptical argumentthat Kripkedevelops begins with a conception of
the meaningfulness of language, which Wilson dubs "classical realism" or
"CR." CR holds that a sentence has meaning in virtue of representing a
"possible fact," thatthis possible fact serves as the "standardof truth"for the

6 An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding(Indianapolis:Hackett Pub. Co., 1977);

henceforth H.

572 MICHAELKREMER
sentence, and that it is established as this "standardof truth"by the prior
intentions of speakers. (W, 106) The argument aims to show that, given
(CR), we reach the paradoxicalresult that "No one ever means anything by
any term" which Wilson dubs the "radicalskeptical conclusion" or "RSC".
(W, 108) The "skeptical solution," Wilson emphasizes, draws back from
accepting this skeptical conclusion. The skeptical solution accepts the "basic
skeptical conclusion" (BSC) that "There are no facts about S that fix any
standardof correctnessfor S's use of 'T"' (W, 107), but avoids RSC by deny-
ing CR.
Now so far, there is little to disagree with in Wilson's exposition. But
where things become less clear is with Wilson's contentionthat by accepting
BSC but avoiding RSC, the skeptical solution also avoids non-factualism
about meaning (NF: "Thereare no facts about a speaker in virtue of which
ascriptions of meaning ... are correct,"W, 114). McDowell takes it that the
skeptical solution, in acceptingBSC, embracesa non-factualismabout mean-
ing which is out of line with several key passages in PJ.7Wilson appearsto
agree that non-factualism is not Wittgenstein's conclusion, but denies that
Kripke's interpretation wrongly attributes such a view to Wittgenstein.
Wilson thus ties NF to RSC, the skeptical conclusion which, according to
Kripke,Wittgensteinstops short of embracing.
In support of this reading of Kripke, Wilson argues that it is only CR
which would move one from BSC to NF. (W, 114, 116) According to
Wilson, an ascription of non-factualism to Kripke's Wittgenstein is "all
awry." (W, 119) He cites an extended discussion in the course of which
Kripkesays:
We do not wishto doubtor denythatwhenpeoplespeakof themselvesandothersas meaning
somethingby theirwords,as followingrules,they do so with perfectright.We do not even
wish to denythe proprietyof an ordinaryuse of the phrase'thefactthatJonesmeantaddition
by such-and-sucha symbol',andindeedsuchexpressionsdo haveperfectlyordinaryuses.We
merelywish to deny the existenceof the 'superlativefact' that philosophersmisleadingly
attachto suchordinaryformsof words,notthepropriety of theformsof wordsthemselves.(K,
69)

Here, as Wilson sees it, Kripke's Wittgenstein carefully distinguishes BSC

from NF, accepting the first while rejecting the second. Passages in which
Kripke seems to ascribe NF to Wittgenstein can be understood as strictly
speaking ascribing only BSC; Kripke's occasional "expositionally unfortu-
nate" way of putting the point is traceable to his own attraction to CR,
which togetherwith BSC does entail NF.8

Notably the full text of ?201 (which Kripkequotes in part as stating the "skeptical para-
dox") and ? 195.
See W, 117, fn. 15. It should be noted that there are several points at which Kripkeseems
to attributeNF to Wittgensteinaside from the passage (K, 70) which Wilson discusses, for
example at K, 77 ("Recall Wittgenstein's sceptical conclusion: no facts, no truth-condi-

WILSON ON KRIPKE'SWITIGENSTEIN 573

 Wilson is right to point out that in some sense Kripke's Wittgenstein
admits a "fact of the matter"as to what we mean by our words, what norms
we are bound by in using words with those meanings, and so on. When
McDowell claims that Kripke's "apparatus of 'skeptical paradox' and
'skeptical solution' is not a good fit for Wittgenstein's texts" (M2, 43) he is
doubting whether the sense in which Kripke's Wittgenstein can admit that
meaning-attributions"state facts" is the sense in which Wittgenstein would
admit this. In what follows I want to explore a way of coming to see
McDowell's point, throughpursuingKripke's analogy between Wittgenstein
and Hume, on which the "skepticalapparatus"is built.

II
McDowell opens his paper "Wittgenstein on Following a Rule" with a
fundamental complaint against readings of Wittgenstein like Kripke's.
McDowell says that on such readings, "the most strikingcasualty is a famil-
iar intuitive notion of objectivity."9 I find it illuminating to read this
complaint of McDowell's in the light of Kant's remark about Hume's
"skeptical solution" to his "skeptical doubts" about causality: "the very
concept of a cause so manifestly contains the concept of a necessity of
connection with an effect and of the strict universality of the rule, that the
concept would be altogetherlost if we attemptedto derive it, as Hume has
done, from a repeated association of that which happens with that which
precedes, and from a custom of connectingrepresentations,a custom originat-
ing in this repeatedassociation,and constitutingthereforea merely subjective

tions, correspond to statements such as 'Jones means addition by "+"."'), 97 ("For

Wittgenstein, an explanation of this kind ignores his treatmentof the sceptical paradox
and its solution. There is no objective fact ... that explains our agreement in particular
cases."), and especially the summary of the argument at 108 ("The paradox can be
resolved only by a skepticall solution of these doubts'. This means that we must give up
the attemptto find any fact about me in virtue of which I mean 'plus' ratherthan 'quus',
and must then go on in a certain way."). Wilson will have to interpret some of these
passages (most plausibly, 77) as referring to a "skeptical conclusion" which is not
embraced by the "skeptical solution," while interpretingothers (97, 108) as involving an
"expositionally unfortunate"confusion between Kripke's Wittgenstein's views and views
which Kripke sees as logical consequences of them. The overall plausibility of these
maneuversis somewhat doubtfulin my view.
Ml, 325. McDowell actually opens by discussing Crispin Wright's Wittgensteinon the
Foundations of Mathematics (London: Duckworth, 1980). However, it is clear that
McDowell thinks of Wright's and Kripke's readings of Wittgenstein as very much of a
piece, in spite of significant differences between them. In this paper I will treat
McDowell's opening remarksabout Wright as also directed at Kripke.
Robert Brandom develops a similar criticism of views like that of Kripke's Wittgen-
stein, which he calls "communalassessment regularitytheories of norms implicit in prac-
tice," in Making it Explicit (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), 37-42. The
question of the objectivity of linguistic norms is a centralproblem of Brandom'sbook.

574 MICHAELKREMER
necessity."'0 Kant saw Hume as allowing for the factual status of causal
connections only by reducingthese connections to "subjective"facts; his aim
in answeringHume was to show that the necessity involved in causality was
not merely "subjective"but "objective."McDowell sees Kripke's Wittgen-
stein, modeled after Hume, as admitting to the factual status of meanings
only by reducing facts about meanings to a kind of "quasi-subjective"status
as well; his aim is to argue that Wittgenstein does not endorse this view of
the factual status of meaning-ascriptions."1
In orderto make this point clear,
it will be helpful to open up Kripke's analogy between Wittgenstein and
Hume.
Kripkebegins by comparingthe "skepticalparadoxes"developed by Hume
and Wittgenstein:"Bothdevelop a sceptical paradox,based on questioning a
certain nexus from past to future.Wittgenstein questions the nexus between
past 'intention' or 'meanings' and presentpractice... Hume questions ... the
causal nexus whereby a past event necessitates a future one..." (K, 62) It is
importantto recognize that both nexuses here involve an element of neces-
sity, although the necessity involved in the causal nexus is metaphysical,
whereas that involved in the meaning nexus is normative, the binding force

() Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, N. K. Smith, trans., (New York: St. Martin's
Press, 1929), B5; henceforth CPR. Compare also Kant, Prolegoimena to Any Future
Metaphysics, P. Carus and J. W. Ellington, trans. (Indianapolis:Hackett Pub. Co., 1977),
3: "...he [Hume] inferred that reason ... mistook a subjective necessity (custom) for an
objective necessity arising from insight."
The objectivity which McDowell sees Kripke and Wright's readings of Wittgenstein as
putting "at risk" is initially characterizedas "the idea of things being thus and so any-
way" (Ml, 325), that is, the objectivity not of meaning but of the world. But this loss of
objectivity of the world about which we speak is a consequence of the loss of objectivity
of the meanings of the words with which we speak about it. McDowell argues that the
"idea of things being thus and so anyway ... requiresthe conception of how things could
be correctly said to be anyway" which amounts to "the notion of how the pattern of
application that we grasp, when we come to understandthe concept in question, extends,
independently of the actual outcome of any investigation, to the relevant case." (Ml,
325) Similarly, in Mind and World (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996)
McDowell claims that "When the autonomy of meaning is renounced ... that puts in
question a seemingly commonsense conception of the objectivity of the world..." again
arguing that if meaning is reduced to "acceptancesand rejections of bits of behaviour by
the community... then how things are-how things can be said to be with a correctness
that must partlyconsist in being faithful to the meanings one would exploit if one said that
they are thus and so-cannot be independentof the community's ratifying the judgment
that things are thus and so." (93) It is this loss of objectivity of the world which McDowell
sees as the "intolerable"ultimate consequence of Kripke's Wittgenstein's position; but
this loss of objectivity reflects a loss of objectivity of meaning. Wilson, in arguing that
Kripke's Wittgensteinis not committedto "non-factualism"about meaning is trying to cut
off McDowell's argumentto a more radical loss of objectivity at its first step. Accord-
ingly in this paper I will focus on the objectivity of meaning, and meaning-attributions,
leaving aside the question of the cogency of McDowell's argument that loss of this
objectivity entails loss of an objective world.

WILSON ON KRIPKE'SW-TrGENSTEIN 575

of obligation ratherthan naturallaw-what Wittgensteincalls "the hardness
of the logical must."(PI, ?437)
Kripkethen gives
the rough outlines of Hume's skeptical solution: Not an a priori argument,but custom, is the
source of our inductive inferences. If A and B are two types of events which we have seen
constantly conjoined, then we are conditioned ... to expect an event of type B on being
presented with one of type A. To say of a particularevent a that it caused anotherevent b is to
place these two events under two types, A and B, which we expect to be constantly conjoined
in the future as they were in the past. The idea of a necessary connection comes from the
'feeling of customarytransition'between our ideas of these event types." (K, 67)

Kripkehighlights one "consequenceof Hume's skepticalsolution:"it leads to

the rejection of the intuitive idea that causal relations hold between events
independentlyof what happenswith otherevents; given the skeptical solution
"When the events a and b are considered by themselves alone, no causal
notions are applicable." This principle of the "impossibility of private
causation" figures as a corollary of the skeptical solution which is itself
supportedby the skepticalargument.(K, 67-68)
Kripke's suggestion is
that Wittgenstein's argument against private language has a structure similar to Hume's
argumentagainst private causation. Wittgenstein also states a sceptical paradox ... accepts his
own sceptical argument and offers a 'sceptical solution'... [which] involves a skeptical
interpretationof what is involved in ... ordinary assertions ... The impossibility of private
language emerges as a corollary... the skeptical solution does not allow us to speak of a single
individual, consideredby himself and in isolation, as ever meaning anything.(K, 68-69)

III
For Kripke, "the philosophical merits of the Humean solution are not our
present concern"since "ourpurpose is to use the analogy with the Humean
solution to illuminate Wittgenstein's solution to his own problem." (K, 67)
But for our purposes, a consideration of one form of criticism of Hume's
solution-Kant's criticism-is very much to the point, if it will illuminate
McDowell's complaint against Kripke's Wittgenstein. Kant saw Hume as
reducing the necessity of the causal connection to a "subjective"status. The
ground of this complaintrests in Hume's treatmentof the "idea of necessary
connexion" as arising from the impression "which we feel in the mind" of a
"customarytransitionfrom one object to its usual attendant."(H, 50) This is
as much as to say that in calling a causal connection "necessary"I am simply
reportinga fact aboutmyself-that I have experiencedobjects of these kinds
together sufficiently often to induce in me a habit of expecting the second on
experiencing the first. Moreover, this fact about myself is dependent on the
history of my personal experience and so parochial to me. If I judge that
events of type A cause events of type B, and you judge instead that events of

576 MICHAEL
KREMER
type A cause events of type C, there is nothing in Hume's account to explain
why one of us should count as right and the other wrong. In fact our judg-
ments do not even conflict for Hume; in a sense the word "cause"for Hume
is indexical, and my judgments about cause have as little chance to conflict
with yours as would assertions we both make using the word "I", or tensed
assertions made by me at different times. It may be arguedthat the situation
is even worse for Hume: since I cannot share your impression of customary
transition,I cannot even shareyour idea of necessary connection;your asser-
tion that A causes C ratherthan B threatensto become incomprehensibleto
me.12 In any case, there seems to be no way in which Hume can account for
any possibility of my correctingmy causal beliefs in the light of your differ-
ing experienceandjudgment.
Hume's analysis of causation commits him to a subjectivism similar to
that which Hobbes expressed about evaluative language in writing "these
words of good, evil, and contemptible are ever used with relation to the
person that useth them: there being nothing simply and absolutely so..."13
Subjectivism about causation is a consequence of Hume's account of the
origin of causal beliefs in processes of habituationand association, which
necessarily take place within a single individual,and of the idea of necessary
connection as arising from the impression which these processes engender
within that individual of a "customary transition."Thus while Hume can
admitthatwe have knowledge of cause and effect, this is in the end subjective
knowledge of the past course of our own experience and our resultingpresent
expectations.
Kant, in opposition to Hume, wants to defend the "objective validity" of
our concept of causality (among others). And to this end he employs his
transcendentaldeduction, whose point is to establish not just the origin of
our concept, but by what right we apply it to the objects of our experience.
(CPR, A84/B 116ff) Kant's argumentshares with Hume's skeptical solution
the consequence that there can be no "privatecausality."This is because, for
Kant, to say of an event a that it causes an event b is to place these events
undertypes A and B which are relatedby a general rule. However, Kantdoes
not see this rule as merely expressing a subjective feeling originating from
the parochial ordering of my experience. Kant rejects Hume's picture of
experience as consisting of initially unrelated,atomic data. The events which
we experience are experienced as causally related to one another;it is only

12 This may be to paint too bleak a picture. Perhaps Hume could respond to the present
objection through appeal to the workings of the sentiment of sympathy. My purpose in
raising this worry here is largely to highlight an analogous worry in McDowell's
complaint against Kripke's Wittgenstein.
13 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, in Great Books of the Western World, vol. 23 (Chicago:
Encyclopedia Britannica,Inc., 1952), 61 (henceforthL). We will returnto Hobbes' view
below in connection with Kripke's communitybased "skepticalsolution."

WILSON ON KRIPKE'SWITTGENSTEIN 577

given this that they can be experienced as related to one another in one
consciousness. If we were to be given a sequence of event-experienceswhich
did not alreadyhave a causal interconnectednessbuilt into them, there would
be no reason to view these as making up the stream of experience of one
subject, ratherthanmany. (CPR, A189/B232ff)
As Kripkemight say, the philosophicalmerits of this Kantianresponse to
Hume are not our present concern. (Nor, fortunately, are the interpretive
merits of my reading of Kant!) Our purpose is to use the analogy with the
Kantian argument to illuminate McDowell's complaint against Kripke's
Wittgenstein. Kripke himself at times treats Wittgenstein's argument as
having an "obvious Kantian flavor" (K, 62); but in so doing he assimilates
Kant and Hume too closely, in one breath ascribing to Wittgenstein a
"deductionakin to Kant's,"in the next a "sceptical solution." (K, 100-101)
Kripkeloses sight of the difference between the sense of the question "How
are causal judgments possible?" as posed by Hume and Kant-the former
seeking for the subjective origin of our idea of causality, the latter for the
objective source of our right to apply it to objects-and so he loses sight of
an analogousissue concerningour concept of meaning.
According to Kripke, Wittgenstein's skeptical solution to his paradox
about meaning turns on a rejection of truth-conditionalaccounts of meaning
in favor of an account of meaning in terms of justification-conditions. (K,
71ff) Wittgenstein's contention that "the meaning of a word is its use in the
language"(PI, ?43), applied to the meaning of meaning-attributions,leads us
to examine "underwhat circumstancesattributionsof meaning are made and
what role these attributionsplay in our lives." (K, 86) We consider first "one
person ... in isolation" and find that "all we can say... is that our ordinary
practice licenses him to apply the rule in the way it strikes him." (K, 87-88)
This however, neglects the dimension of objectivity of meaning which our
ordinarypracticeinvolves. In fact, the conclusion we have to draw is that "if
one person is considered in isolation, the notion of a rule as guiding the
person who adoptsit can have no substantivecontent."(K, 89)
To give this notion some content, we need to "widen our gaze ... and
allow ourselves to consider him as interactingwith a wider community."(K,
89) When we do so, we can "discernrough assertabilityconditions"for mean-
ing-attributions,and give an account of their "role and utility in our lives."
(K, 90, 92) An individual is provisionally entitled to attributea meaning to
her words on the basis of her feeling that she "knows how to go on." But
other individuals will or will not make such meaning-attributionsto her, on
the basis of a comparisonof her uses of the word with their own inclinations.
(K, 90-91) This practicedependsfor its usefulness on the bruteempiricalfact
that the membersof a communityagree for the most partin their inclinations
to "go on." Given such agreement,practices of meaning-attributioncan play
a very useful role in facilitating social interactionsin the community;absent

578 MICHAELKREMER
such an agreement, these practices will lose their point. (K, 91-92) If an
individual is sufficiently out of step with communitypractices, then she will
not be accepted by the communityas a rule-follower,or as meaning anything
by her words; she "simplycannotparticipatein the life of the communityand
in communication."(K, 92)

IV
This account of Wittgenstein's views on meaning and rule-following
manages to secure a degree of objectivity in that judgments about meaning
are not left entirelyup to individuallanguage-usersin the mannerof Humpty-
Dumpty. This is because any individual's claim to mean something by their
words is subject to acceptanceor rejectionby the community on the basis of
the external check that their usage line up with generally accepted usage.
Nonetheless this account of meaning-attributionsremains in a broad sense
subjectivist; and this is the point of McDowell's criticism. Hume's account
of causality reduced the seeming necessary connection between cause and
effect to a subjective feeling of customary transition on the part of the
individual. This led, as we saw, to problems of relativism and perhaps even
incommensurability-causal judgments that diverge from my own are either
incomprehensibleto me or, if I can comprehendthem, do not really conflict
with mine; in either case there can be no question of correcting my causal
judgments in the light of others'. Kant, in trying to secure the right to an
objective concept of necessity, was seeking a view which would explain the
intersubjective validity of causal judgments; this requires both that others'
causal judgmentscan be comprehensibleto me, and that, when ourjudgments
diverge, one of us can be right and the otherwrong.
Now Kripke's Wittgenstein's account of meaning does not reduce the
necessity, or binding force, of the meaning nexus to the individuallanguage-
user's feeling that this is the "way to go on." So this account is not purely
subjectivist. However-as is often remarked-this account merely transfers
the difficulties of subjectivism from the level of the individual to that of the
community.The "skepticalsolution"reducesthe normativenecessity or bind-
ing force of the meaning nexus to the collective inclinations of the commu-
nity; at the level of the community,as McDowell (following Wright) puts it,
we lose the "ratification-independence"of our meaning-attributions.(Ml,
325-26) In consequence, the skeptical solution opens the gates to radical
incommensurability and relativism at the intercommunity level. Kripke
himself suggests that, faced with a form of life other than our own, Wittgen-
stein should say that "we could describe such behavior extensionally and
behavioristically, but we would be unable to find it intelligible how the
creature finds it naturalto behave in this way." (K, 98, fn. 78) But even if
such incommensurabilitywere avoidable, there would remain the threat of
relativism-faced with a community whose meaning-attributionsdiverge

WILSON ON KRIPKE'SWfiTGENSTEIN 579

systematically from our own, there would be no room for a judgment that we
were right and they were wrong. Thus there would be no room for the possi-
bility of our coming to correct our linguistic practices in the light of such a
confrontation.In this sense, when Kripkewrites that for Wittgenstein "there
is no objective fact ... that explains our agreement in particularcases" (K,
97, my emphasis) he is stating a conclusion which is attributedcorrectly
both to his "skepticalparadox"and to his "skepticalsolution."
It may be helpful to compare Kripke's Wittgenstein's attemptto secure a
kind of objectivity for meaning-attributionsto Hobbes' account of evaluative
language, mentioned briefly above. Hobbes says that "good" and "evil" are
"used with relation to the person that useth them." He goes on to explain,
however, why this is so: "therebeing nothing simply and absolutely so; nor
any common rule of good and evil to be taken from the natureof the objects
themselves; but from the person of the man, where there is no Common-
wealth; or, in a Commonwealth,from the person thatrepresentethit; or from
an arbitratoror judge, whom men disagreeing shall by consent set up and
make his sentence the rule thereof." (L, 61) In a Commonwealth in which
individuals have submitted their wills to that of the sovereign, there is an
objective sense of "good"and "evil,"since all have unitedtheir wills into one
throughauthorizingthe sovereign to act andjudge on their behalf. The objec-
tivity of these evaluative terms extends only to the boundaries of the
Commonwealth, however; if the sovereigns of different Commonwealths
establish divergent norms of good and evil, there is no saying that one of
them is right and the other wrong. In consequence Commonwealthsstand to
one anotherin that state of war from which their institutionwas to free their
citizens; and they have absolute liberty in their dealings with one another.(L,
114) At the level of the Commonwealthit remainstruethat the words "good"
and "evil" are said with relation to those who use them; while Hobbes has
secured within each Commonwealth a kind of objective use of evaluative
language, this is a "quasi-subjective" use when considered at the inter-
community level. The same can be said about the objectivity secured by
Kripke's Wittgensteinfor attributionsof meaning.
As I read McDowell, then, his complaint against Kripke's interpretation
of Wittgenstein echoes Kant's critique of Hume's skeptical solution.
McDowell does not explicitly mention Kant in developing his critique, but
the connection is broughtout in his argumentthat Wittgenstein allows us to
arrive at a "radically different conception of what it is to belong to a
linguistic community,"accordingto which "sharedmembershipin a linguis-
tic community ... equips us to make our minds available to one another,by
confrontingone anotherwith a different exteriorfrom that which we present
to outsiders." (Ml, 350) This conception entitles us to say that "shared
command of a language equips us to know one another's meaning without
needing to arrive at that knowledge by interpretation,because it equips us to

580 KREMER
MICHAEL
hear someone else's meaning in his words." (Ml, 350-51) According to this
conception, "a linguistic communityis ... bound together, not by a match in
mere externals(facts accessible to just anyone), but by a capacity for a meet-
ing of minds." (Ml, 351) In a footnote, McDowell adds: "If I am right to
suppose that any merely aggregative conception of a linguistic community
falsifies Wittgenstein, then it seems that the parallel that Kripke draws with
Hume's discussion of causation. ... is misconceived. Wittgenstein's picture
of language contains no conception of the individual such as would corre-
spond to the individual cause-effect pair, related only by contiguity and
succession, in Hume's picture of causation." (Ml, 362, fn. 45) Here
McDowell's readingof Wittgensteinechoes Kant's argumentthat there is no
such thing as the experience of an isolated cause-effect pair. Just as for Kant,
for my experience to constitutethe experience of one subject, it must already
be knit together by cause-effect relations involving general laws, so for
McDowell's Wittgenstein,for our activities to constitutethe language-use of
one community, they must already be knit together by norms with general
binding force, which make it possible for us to understandone another.

V
I have arguedthat McDowell's criticism of Kripke's readingof Wittgenstein
parallels Kant's reaction to Hume's account of causality. I will close by
briefly addressing three issues. First: is McDowell right to see Kripke's
Wittgenstein as giving up the objectivity of meaning? Second: is McDowell
right to see this as a philosophically objectionable aspect of the skeptical
solution? And third:does this constitute a fair criticism of Kripke's interpre-
tation of Wittgenstein (however things may stand with the philosophical
position that Kripkeattributesto Wittgenstein)?
Wilson points out that, for Kripke, Wittgenstein does not deny "the
proprietyof an ordinaryuse of the phrase 'the fact that Jones meant addition
by such-and-such a symbol'." (K, 69) He suggests that this admission on
Kripke's part is good groundsfor not attributingnon-factualismto Kripke's
Wittgenstein.He writes that while "Kripke'sWittgensteinholds that ascrip-
tions of meaning... do not have classical realist truth-conditions ... it is
doubtful that it follows from this, at least for Kripke's Wittgenstein, that
meaning ascriptionsare not properlythoughtof as, in some sense, describing
facts about language-users..." (W, 114) He thinks it is only the perspective
of the classical realist which would lead to this conclusion. If he can keep
firmly in view his rejection of (CR), Wilson thinks, "using the resources of
the 'skeptical solution', Kripke's Wittgenstein will want to offer his own
account of what uses of languagecan count as fact-describing.And, I can not
see that anything in the 'skeptical solution' forecloses that option for him."
(W, 114) However, it does matter what kind of account of fact-stating
language, and especially of the meaning of the word "fact"is available from

WILSON ON KRIPKE'SWFiTGENSTEIN 581

within the skeptical solution, if it is to avoid the quasi-subjectivismdescribed
above.
Wilson seems alive to this point at the end of his essay, when he states as
a "secondlesson" of his paperthat"theremay be a differentform of 'semantic
realism' ... that may turn out to be available to a proponentof the skeptical
solution." (W, 122) This form of semantic realism will hold that "meaning
ascriptions, when true, are true in virtue of facts about the speaker,"without
basing this on classical realism. However, it will not base this on "a
deflationaryor minimalist account of truthor facts or both" either. (W, 121)
Wilson does not explain why he adds this condition to his description of
''semantic realism" but presumably his thought is that a minimalist or
deflationaryaccount of facts or truthwill be partand parcel of an anti-realist
view of meaning. While this is itself debatable,'4what is clear, is that the
skeptical solution in combination with a minimalist or deflationaryview of
either truthor facts leads at best to a quasi-subjectiveview of meaning-attri-
butions-for if to call something "true"or a "fact" is to do nothing more
than assert it, and if the assertabilityconditions for meaning-attributionsare
those given by the skeptical solution, then there will indeed be no sense in
which given two differentcommunities,endorsingtwo differentsets of norms
of meaning, one of them can be said to be right and the otherwrong. Hence if
the proponentof the skeptical solution is to aspire to semantic realism, they
need some accountof facts and truthotherthana deflationaryone.
But here it is surely worth remarkingthat Kripke's Wittgenstein avoids
denying "perfectlyordinaryuses" of fact-talkappliedto meaning-attributions
by adopting a deflationaryinterpretationof "fact"and "true."According to
Kripke, "Wittgenstein's way with such objections [that we call meaning-
attributions "true" or "facts"] is short. Like many others, Wittgenstein
accepts the 'redundancy'theory of truth..." (K, 86) Consequently it is not
Kripke's Wittgensteinwho presents us with the novel possibility of a differ-
ent form of semantic realism. Kripke's Wittgenstein is precisely the anti-
realist that McDowell claims him to be, on Wilson's own account of what
semantic realism requires.Now Wilson might reply that Kripke's "skeptical
solution"can be detachedfromthe "redundancy" theoryof truthand graftedon
to some as yet unheard of account of "true"and "fact" which is neither
deflationarynor yet a version of classical realism. But this is nothing more
than a bare possibility without the provision of the details of such an
account.And what is needed to answerMcDowell's chargeof non-factualism,

14 triesto constructa theorywhichcombinesa strongnotion

InMakingit Explicit,Brandom
of objectivitywitha deflationary
accountof truthandfacts.He does this by abandoning
the "community assessment" approach to linguistic norms of Kripke's Wittgenstein in
favor of what he calls a "social-perspectival"approachbased on an "I-thou"ratherthan
a "I-we" form of sociality. I will not attempt here to evaluate the success of this
ambitiousproject.

582 MICHAELKREMER
or better quasi-subjectivism,is an account of "true"and "fact"which can be
combined with the skeptical solution without generatingeither relativism or
radicalincommensurability.
Some may object at this point that although I (with McDowell) am right
to see "quasi-subjectivism" as a consequenceof Kripke'sWittgenstein'sview,
there is nothing wrong with this consequence. After all, it might be urged,
don't we all know by now that individualswith radicallydifferentconceptual
schemes live in incommensurableworlds, that there is no way for them to
understandor judge one another?It would obviously be the work of another
paper to discuss this issue; but I will recordmy disagreementhere with such
a view. Followed out consistently it leads to such absurdconclusions as that
we can never have any reason to alter our conceptual scheme or the rules of
our language;that faced with a group whose form of life differs from ours in
importantrespects we cannotunderstandthem or learnfrom them in any way;
and that we can never criticize the practices of a group whose form of life
differs from ours.'5
Finally then, having granted that Kripke's Wittgenstein is open to the
charge of falling into quasi-subjectivism, and that this is perhaps a philo-
sophically objectionableposition, what can we conclude about the interpre-
tive issue-is Kripke's Wittgenstein "a good fit for Wittgenstein's texts?"
My conclusion here will be somewhat disappointing.I don't at present see a
convincing way to prove that Wittgensteincan't be read as a Humeanquasi-
subjectivist about meaning. Texts such as those McDowell cites (PI ?? 138-
39, 151, 195, 198, 201-2, 208-10 etc.) do supporta reading of Wittgenstein
as holding to an objective view of meaning. But Wittgenstein's words are
malleable enough to supportinterpretinghim as holding a quasi-subjectivist
view as well. So in the end I claim only to have made clear a difference
between Kripke'sand McDowell's Wittgensteinswhich Wilson overlookedor

15 A somewhat different objector might ask whether McDowell's own discussion of mean-
ing as secured throughsharedtraditionsand customs embodied in the language of a living
community does not lead to a kind of relativistic quasi-subjectivism as unacceptable as
Kripke's. McDowell would I think diagnose this objection as resting on an unquestioned
assumption that the only objectivity that we can recognize in the post-medieval world is
the kind of objectivity secured by naturalscience; on this view unless we can reduce the
phenomenon of meaning to terms that can be accommodated in natural science
(paradigmaticallyphysics) then objective meanings will have to be conceived as involv-
ing "spooky" supernaturalnorms. This presupposition McDowell tries to show to be
unnecessary through his Aristotelian conception of "second nature,"according to which
a capacity to recognize objective meanings and values can be acquired through a
process of Bildung, of initiationinto a set of practices, customs and traditions,including a
shared language. According to McDowell this conception allows us to embrace a
"naturalizedplatonism"in which meanings and norms are recognized as objective with-
out "spookiness." It is of course beyond the scope of this paper to assess this
"therapeutic"response, which McDowell develops at length in Mind and World,as well
as "Two Sorts of Naturalism"in Virtuesand Reasons: Philippa Foot and Moral Theory,
R. Hursthouse,G. Lawrence and W. Quinn, eds. (Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1995).

WILSON ON KRIPKE'SWI7TFGENSTEIN 583

at least underplayed.If I admit to a preferencefor McDowell's reading,I can
base this only on a (here unargued) preference for an objective view of
meaning, combined with interpretivecharity.

584 MICHAELKREMER