Within Reason
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Within Reason Patrice Philie 1 Received: 29 August 2019 / Accepted: 7 October 2020/ # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Recently, thinkers not known for their relativist or sceptical tendencies have raised serious doubts about the objectivity of rule-following judgements. While they may not have given up on the objectivity of rule-following, they find themselves unable to account for it and see no definite prospect of a plausible solution. According to them, the most natural model of rule-following – called the ‘modus ponens model’ – is not capable of accounting for our rule-following practice because it is, they claim, undermined by two structural flaws: namely, the circularity objection and the regress objection. In this paper, I argue that a correct account can be found in the later Wittgenstein’s views regarding rulefollowing. I will show that once a clear understanding pertaining to bedrock and the ground of our rule-following practice in Wittgenstein is reached, we possess the elements to re-establish the objectivity of rule-following and in the process save the modus ponens model. Keywords Rule-following . Reasons . Justification . Objectivity . Crispin Wright .
Intentional view . Quietism . Wittgenstein
1 Introduction The question that will be addressed here is the following: is our rule-following practice grounded? That is, when a rule is applied in a particular circumstance, is there something in virtue of which it is correct to follow the rule in this way? The objectivity of our rule-following judgements hangs in the balance: if
* Patrice Philie [email protected]
1
Department of Philosophy, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada
Philosophia
there is something that justifies following the rule, then our practice is grounded. The challenge here is to identify that “something” – what Crispin Wright calls a “requirement constitutor”.1 There is a certain urgency to this question. Recently, thinkers not known for their relativist or sceptical tendencies have raised serious doubts about the objectivity of rule-following judgements – for instance, the aforementioned Wright and Paul Boghossian.2 To be more precise, while they may not have given up on the objectivity of rule-following, they find themselves unable to account for it and see no definite prospect of a plausible solution. The rulefollowing template suggested by Wright and Boghossian – which I will refer to as, following Wright, the “modus ponens model of rule-following”3 – is not capable of accounting for our rule-following practice because it is, they claim, undermined by two structural flaws: namely, the circularity objection and the regress objection (both of which will be discussed in this paper). In other words, the model appears to be inadequate to establish the objectivity of rulefollowing: it fails to provide a requirement constitutor due to the issues of circularity and regress. The urgency stems from the fact that it constitutes the most intuitive, natural, and plausible model on the market. In this paper, I argue
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