Reflections on Rule-Following
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Andrej Sascha Peter
Abstract
John McDowell’s reading of what has been called ‘the rule-following paradox’ is ultimately quietist: not all understanding is an interpretation. Sebastian Rödl believes the paradox shares a similar form to Kant’s Third Antinomy. According to Rödl, some explanation of what it means to follow a rule is constitutive of practice. Explanation is constitutive because rule-following is self-conscious. Rödl rejects a quietist reading of Wittgenstein’s investigations in favour of a Hegelian one. In this essay, I shall draw attention to the contradictory character of the Hegelian concept of a self-explanatory idea. However, my intention is not to dismiss that concept. Instead, I am guided by the Hegelian belief that contradiction is constitutive of understanding what it means to be a thinker and an agent.
Abstract
John McDowell’s reading of what has been called ‘the rule-following paradox’ is ultimately quietist: not all understanding is an interpretation. Sebastian Rödl believes the paradox shares a similar form to Kant’s Third Antinomy. According to Rödl, some explanation of what it means to follow a rule is constitutive of practice. Explanation is constitutive because rule-following is self-conscious. Rödl rejects a quietist reading of Wittgenstein’s investigations in favour of a Hegelian one. In this essay, I shall draw attention to the contradictory character of the Hegelian concept of a self-explanatory idea. However, my intention is not to dismiss that concept. Instead, I am guided by the Hegelian belief that contradiction is constitutive of understanding what it means to be a thinker and an agent.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements V
- Table of Contents VII
- List of Abbreviations of Wittgenstein’s Works IX
- Notes on Authors XI
- Introduction: Wittgenstein and Classical German Philosophy – Logic, Language, Life 1
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I Logic
- Differences in Form, Identities in Content – Wittgenstein and Hegel on Two Complementary Aspects of Meaning 13
- What Might Hegel and Wittgenstein Have Seen in Goethe’s Colour Theory? 35
- Shining and Showing 53
- Two Faces of Contradiction 81
- Infinity as the Form of the Finite: Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Remarks, XII and the Notion of the Infinite in the Critique of Pure Reason 101
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II Language
- Talking is Lying: On One Suspicious Metaphor 125
- Rhetoric, Negativity, and Philosophy of Language – Hegel’s Sophists as Early Wittgensteinians 137
- Reflections on Rule-Following 147
- Wittgenstein’s Übersichtliche Darstellung and Hegel’s Speculative Philosophy 167
- Wittgenstein and Schlegel on Forms of Life: Talking To or Past Each Other 183
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III Life
- Hegel, the Pragmatic Turn, and the Later Wittgenstein 201
- Following the Rule Without Interpreting It? – Gadamarian and Kantian Revision of Brandom’s Solution to the Wittgensteinian Problem 213
- Following a Rule Blindly: Hegel and Wittgenstein on the Immediacy of Habit 225
- Wittgenstein and Critical Theory – From ‘Sub Specie Aeterni’ to the ‘Entanglement in Our Rules’ – Wittgenstein, Adorno, Marx 255
- Wittgenstein and Hegel on Art and the Everyday 277
- Subject Index 297
- Person Index 307
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements V
- Table of Contents VII
- List of Abbreviations of Wittgenstein’s Works IX
- Notes on Authors XI
- Introduction: Wittgenstein and Classical German Philosophy – Logic, Language, Life 1
-
I Logic
- Differences in Form, Identities in Content – Wittgenstein and Hegel on Two Complementary Aspects of Meaning 13
- What Might Hegel and Wittgenstein Have Seen in Goethe’s Colour Theory? 35
- Shining and Showing 53
- Two Faces of Contradiction 81
- Infinity as the Form of the Finite: Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Remarks, XII and the Notion of the Infinite in the Critique of Pure Reason 101
-
II Language
- Talking is Lying: On One Suspicious Metaphor 125
- Rhetoric, Negativity, and Philosophy of Language – Hegel’s Sophists as Early Wittgensteinians 137
- Reflections on Rule-Following 147
- Wittgenstein’s Übersichtliche Darstellung and Hegel’s Speculative Philosophy 167
- Wittgenstein and Schlegel on Forms of Life: Talking To or Past Each Other 183
-
III Life
- Hegel, the Pragmatic Turn, and the Later Wittgenstein 201
- Following the Rule Without Interpreting It? – Gadamarian and Kantian Revision of Brandom’s Solution to the Wittgensteinian Problem 213
- Following a Rule Blindly: Hegel and Wittgenstein on the Immediacy of Habit 225
- Wittgenstein and Critical Theory – From ‘Sub Specie Aeterni’ to the ‘Entanglement in Our Rules’ – Wittgenstein, Adorno, Marx 255
- Wittgenstein and Hegel on Art and the Everyday 277
- Subject Index 297
- Person Index 307
