7 Varieties of Philosophical Skepticism - Kripke & Wittgenstein on Meaning

In this seventh lecture, James Conant discusses Kripke's work on Wittgenstein ("Kripkenstein") in regards to meaning skepticism, the rule-following paradox of meaning in the philosophy of language, which comes out of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations.

In this series of lectures on varieties of philosophical skepticism, James Conant distinguishes between two forms of philosophical skepticism: Cartesian skepticism and Kantian skepticism. He discusses their general structure and shows how they're related. This sheds light on issues in various different areas, including within the philosophy of perception, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language. Some of the philosophers discussed throughout this course include Wittgenstein, Sellars, Hilary Putnam, Kripke, C.I. Lewis, John McDowell, and Stanley Cavell.

This series of lectures was given in 2005 at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Bergen, Norway. Note, the audio has been slightly edited and improved.

"But how can a rule show me what I have to do at this point? Whatever I do is, on some interpretation, in accord with the rule...Any interpretation still hangs in the air along with what it interprets, and cannot give it any support. Interpretations by themselves do not determine meaning." Wittgenstein

"This was our paradox: no course of action could be determined by a rule, because any course of action can be made out to accord with the rule". Wittgenstein

00:00 Introduction
09:59 The Problem

#Philosophy #Epistemology #Wittgenstein

[philp]

These have been so much fun! Thank you! (Also, I was on Bob Brandom’s website earlier today and noticed that a bunch of links he has on there are now-dead links to videos on your old channel. If you ever reupload Between Saying and Doing or any of the others, he might appreciate the heads up, as he seemed to appreciate their being available.)

[MG-ldbr]

He mentions that next week they will talk about Cavell’s critique of Kripke... any idea if that recording exists somewhere?