View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by D-Scholarship@Pitt WITTGENSTEINIAN QUIETISM by David Michael Finkelstein BA, Indiana University, 1995 MA, University of Pittsburgh, 2000 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2006 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by David M. Finkelstein It was defended on November 7, 2005 and approved by David H. Finkelstein, Associate Professor, University of Chicago Department of Philosophy Nicholas Rescher, University Professor, Department of Philosophy Kieran Setiya, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy Dissertation Director: John McDowell, University Professor, Department of Philosophy ii Copyright © by David M. Finkelstein 2006 iii WITTGENSTEINIAN QUIETISM David M. Finkelstein, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2006 One can’t help but be struck by the range of incompatible positions that Wittgenstein’s philosophy, his rule-following considerations in particular, have been taken to support. For instance, according to one very popular interpretation of the rule-following considerations, Wittgenstein proves that claims about the meanings of words aren’t objectively true. On another interpretation, Wittgenstein shows that discourse about meaning, though without foundation, is as capable of robust truth as any. Still others argue that the Wittgenstein of the Investigations was neither a realist nor an antirealist with respect to discourse about meaning. On the contrary, according to proponents of this last interpretation, Wittgenstein rejected as “nonsense” both the questions that the rule-following considerations seem to pose and the answers that realists and antirealists have tried to give to these questions. This third, quietist interpretation of Wittgenstein has received increased critical attention of late. Some commentators have suggested that there is no textual basis for the quietist interpretation of the early Wittgenstein. Less has been written that purports to assess the arguments that quietists have found in Wittgenstein, early or late. In this dissertation, I assess the philosophical credentials of the quietist interpretation of Wittgenstein. In the first part, I argue that the material from Frege that inspired the Tractatus doesn’t support quietism in the way that proponents of the quietist interpretation of Wittgenstein suppose. In the second part, I argue that the rule-following considerations support a position iv that’s closely related to, but in important respects different from the one that the proponents of the quietist interpretation of Wittgenstein endorse. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE.................................................................................................................................VIII 1.0 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................ 1 2.0 FREGE’S CONCEPTION OF LOGIC ................................................................... 19 2.1 QUIETISM WITH RESPECT TO LOGICAL CATEGORIES................... 21 2.1.1 The Concept Horse Problem...................................................................... 21 2.1.2 The Quietist Interpretation of the Concept Horse Problem ................... 36 2.1.3 Conclusions.................................................................................................. 42 2.2 QUIETISM WITH RESPECT TO THE LAWS OF LOGIC ....................... 45 2.2.1 Psychology and Logic ................................................................................. 45 2.2.2 Frege’s Argument ....................................................................................... 50 2.2.3 Conceivability and Sense............................................................................ 55 2.2.4 Conclusion ................................................................................................... 70 3.0 WITTGENSTEIN’S RULE-FOLLOWING CONSIDERATIONS ...................... 72 3.1 ANTIREALIST INTERPRETATIONS OF THE RULE-FOLLOWING CONSIDERATIONS.......................................................................................................... 83 3.1.1 Kripke’s Skeptic.......................................................................................... 84 3.1.2 Baker and Hacker’s Conventionalism ...................................................... 89 3.1.3 Wright’s Euthyphronism ......................................................................... 103 3.2 QUIETIST INTERPRETATIONS OF THE RULE-FOLLOWING CONSIDERATIONS........................................................................................................ 115 3.2.1 Understanding and Interpretation .......................................................... 116 3.2.2 Use .............................................................................................................. 120 3.2.3 Squiggle Theory ........................................................................................ 126 3.2.4 Perspective Independence ........................................................................ 132 vi 3.3 ANTI-FOUNDATIONALISM WITH RESPECT TO THE RULE- FOLLOWING CONSIDERATIONS ............................................................................. 144 3.3.1 Anti-Foundationalism............................................................................... 145 3.3.2 The Contrastive Theory of Meaning....................................................... 157 4.0 CONCLUSION......................................................................................................... 167 APPENDIX................................................................................................................................ 171 BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................................................................................................... 186 vii PREFACE If this dissertation isn’t a travesty, it’s only because I’ve had a great deal of help. I’m grateful to each of the members of my dissertation committee. Nicholas Rescher has commented on multiple drafts of the introduction to this dissertation. Keiran Setiya gave prompt and characteristically penetrating responses to multiple drafts. The extent of my debt to Kieran is only partly evidenced by the many times his comments have forced me to clarify, modify or abandon something I was trying to say. David H. Finkelstein has gone over this dissertation with me with a fine-toothed comb. He encouraged me when something was working and helped me to make changes when something wasn’t. I met David when I was a junior at Indiana University. I scanned the fall course offerings and noticed that I was scheduled to teach an advanced undergraduate course in the philosophy of mind. I found this alarming, both because I was still an undergraduate myself, and because I didn’t know anything about the philosophy of mind. Luckily for the students in that class, and for me (who went on to take the class), the real explanation for the course offering was that the Philosophy Department had just hired an assistant professor from the University of Pittsburgh who, coincidentally, was also named David Finkelstein. (We are not related. Also, his middle name is Howard, and mine is Michael.) I went on to work with David on my undergraduate thesis, and he made me see how the whole thing was a mess. He was equally effective at helping me to build it up from scratch. Since then, he has helped me a great deal viii with this dissertation, in which I actually revisit some of the themes from my senior thesis. More importantly, he was the one who showed me that philosophy ought to be clear. None of what I’ve done since college would have been possible without David. Finally, I am more grateful than I can say to John McDowell. I first became aware of John’s work in college when I was assigned Mind and World. Since then, I’ve worn out multiple copies of that book. When I moved to New York, and was able to keep only a handful of philosophy books, my most recent copy of Mind and World was one of the books that made the cut. It now sits alongside Kant and Wittgenstein in my bookshelf. I take it that this is a good indication of how much John’s philosophy has mattered to me. I came to Pittsburgh in large part because I wanted to work with John. At Pittsburgh, I have taken most of his seminars, served as his teaching assistant, and spent countless hours in his office trying to hash out this project. To whatever extent I manage to get Frege and Wittgenstein right, it’s a credit to John, because Lord knows he had to do more work than it would have been fair to expect to get me up to speed. I’ll always be grateful that I’ve had this opportunity to learn from him. In addition to the members of my committee, I am grateful to my family and friends. Four people, in particular, deserve special mention. My friend Kevin Davey has always had strikingly original things to say whenever I would discuss this material with him. There’s very little of this dissertation that I haven’t discussed with Kevin, and that hasn’t improved as a result of his help. My partner Janice Reyes edited this dissertation, as well as most of my coursework papers. As a result, I have repeatedly been saved from embarrassing typos, and she’s been repeatedly put to sleep. More significantly, she puts up with me when I’m cranky, and comforts ix me when I’m anxious.