Semantic Knowledge, Semantic Guidance, and Kripke's Wittgenstein

Abstract

Saul Kripke's influential 'sceptical paradox' of semantic rule-following alleges that speakers cannot have any justification for using a word one way rather than another. If it is correct, there can be no such thing as meaning anything by a word. I argue that the paradox fails to undermine meaning. Kripke never adequately motivates its excessively strict standard for the justified use of words. The paradox lacks the resources to show that its standard is truly mandatory or that speakers do not frequently satisfy the well-motivated competitor I offer. So the paradox fails.

The Qua-Problem and Meaning Scepticism

“…Rather, he put forward a "sceptical solution," grounded in the conditions under which speakers can make certain assertions, in an effort to make sense of our talk of meaning, without committing to its existence. Reaction against the sceptical conclusion has been widespread and ongoing, with recent debate focussing on its implications for the normativity of meaning (Green, 2015;Whiting, 2016), and Kripke's own solution has been criticized for implying that sentences cannot have truth-conditions (Boghossian, 1989;Millikan, 1990).…”