Details

Subject(s)

• Language and languages—Philosophy [Browse]

Series

• Oxford Academic [More in this series]
• Oxford scholarship online

Summary note

This book offers a new "bipartite" reading of Wittgenstein's treatment of rule-following and the foundations of semantics in his seminal Philosophical Investigations. On this reading, Wittgenstein's remarks are split between two logically distinct projects marked by different guiding questions, presuppositions, and methodologies. The attribution of this thoroughgoing bipartite structure resolves a number of internal tensions in the text, and reveals Wittgenstein's controversial remarks on human agreement to exhibit a surprising attentiveness to, and plausible treatment of, a blurring of the semantics/metasemantics distinction arising in Wittgenstein's treatment of foundational semantic questions. The book then turns to an extended engagement with Kripkensteinean meaning skepticism. While on the reading offered Wittgenstein never countenanced meaning skepticism, his work in the foundations of semantics gives us the resources to develop an unusual naive reply to the skeptic not yet explored in literature. It is argued that the Wittgensteinean reply is simple, effective, generalizable, and theoretically "light-weight," so that a theorist of almost any stripe could in principle take it up.

Notes

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references (pages 303-308) and index.

Contents

Contents: Preface - Abbreviations - 1. Introduction - Part I.The Bipartite Reading and the Role of Agreement - 2. The Justificatory Question (§185) - 3. The Justificatory Investigation (X-§201) - 4. The Grammatical Investigation (§§199-242) - 5. Agreement (§§240-242) - 6. The Twofold Investigation: Philosophical Methodology and the Tractatus - Part II.Wittgenstein and Meaning Skepticism - 7. Wittgenstein and Kripke - 8. Kripkensteinean Skepticism through a Wittgensteinean Lens - 9. Dispositions: An Exegetical Aside - 10. Notions of Uniformity: A "Wittgensteinean" Solution and Its Precursors - 11. Relativism: Communities, Languages, and Forms of Life - 12. Kripke v. Wittgenstein: Some Final Remarks - Bibliography - Index

ISBN

• 0-19-761000-5
• 0-19-761001-3
• 0-19-760999-6

Statement on responsible collection description

Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage. Read more...