This volume draws connections between Wittgenstein's philosophy and the work of Saul Kripke, especially his Naming and Necessity. Saul Kripke is regarded as one of the foremost representatives of contemporary analytic philosophy. His most important contributions include the strict distinction between metaphysical and epistemological questions, the introduction of the notions of contingent a priori truth and necessary a posteriori truth and original accounts of names, descriptions, identity, necessity and realism. The chapters in this book elucidate the relevant connections between Kripke's (...) work and Wittgenstein, specifically concerning the standard meter, contingent apriori and rule-following. The contributions shed light on how Kripke's philosophical outlook was influenced by Wittgenstein, and how mainstream analytic philosophy and Wittgensteinian philosophy can fruitfully engage with one another. Kripke and Wittgenstein will be of interest to philosophers working on Wittgenstein, Kripke, and the history of analytic philosophy. (shrink)

This book offers an original philosophical perspective on exemplarity. Inspired by Wittgenstein’s later work and Derrida’s theory of deconstruction, it argues that examples are not static entities but rather oscillate between singular and universal moments. There is a broad consensus that exemplary cases mediate between singular instances and universal concepts or norms. In the first part of the book, Mácha contends that there is a kind of différance between singular examples and general exemplars or paradigms. Every example is, in part, (...) also an exemplar, and vice versa. Furthermore, he develops a paracomplete approach to the logic of exemplarity, which allows us to say of an exemplar of X neither that it is an X nor that it is not an X. This paradox is structurally isomorphic to Russell’s paradox and can be addressed in similar ways. In the second part of the book, Mácha presents four historical studies that exemplify the ideas developed in the first part. This part begins with Plato’s Forms, understood as standards/paradigms, before considering Kant’s theory of reflective judgment as a general epistemological account of exemplarity. This is then followed by analyses of Hegel’s conceptual moment of particularity and Kuhn’s concept of paradigm. The book concludes by discussing the speculative hypothesis that all our knowledge is based on paradigms, which, following the logic of exemplarity, are neither true nor false. (shrink)

In this discussion I argue that Peter Sullivan is wrong to suggest that Wittgenstein's position in the Philosophical Investigations involves a commitment to transcendental idealism. I show that Sullivan's interpretation involves holding that transcendental idealism was employed by Wittgenstein in the attempt to combat a Platonist mythology. I show, through a detailed appraisal of Wittgenstein's discussion of samples, that Wittgenstein's approach to Platonism does not involve any such employment of transcendental idealism. I conclude that there is no such motivation as (...) Sullivan finds in Wittgenstein for endorsing transcendental idealism, and that we ought not, therefore, ascribe to him such a view. (shrink)

Paragraph 50 of Wittgenstein'sPhilosophical Investigationsfamously says that there is one thing of which one can neither state that it is 1 m long nor that it isn't: the standard metre in Paris. Consensus appears to be that (1) exegetically speaking, Wittgenstein affirms this claim, and (2) systematically, whether or not one agrees with it, the practice of using a material artefact as a measurement standard has important philosophical consequences. In this paper, in contrast, we show that (1') Wittgenstein does not (...) affirm the standard metre claim and (2') historical facts about material length standards do not warrant deeper philosophical conclusions. References to material measurement standards in the literature gravely distort the actual metrological practices of developing and using such standards. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that context sensitivity is crucial for a proper exegesis of Wittgenstein's remark that one can say of the standard metre rod neither that it is one metre long nor that it is not one metre long. I discuss cases in which we can meaningfully assert that the rod in question is one metre long and explain why these cases do not conflict with Wittgenstein's insight. I analyse Pollock's recent defence of Wittgenstein's remark, as well as (...) Kripke's objections to it, and show that, while their commentaries are helpful, blindness to context renders them unsatisfactory. (shrink)

John Cook Wilson (1849–1915) was Wykeham Professor of Logic at New College, Oxford and the founder of ‘Oxford Realism’, a philosophical movement that flourished at Oxford during the first decades of the 20th century. Although trained as a classicist and a mathematician, his most important contribution was to the theory of knowledge, where he argued that knowledge is factive and not definable in terms of belief, and he criticized ‘hybrid’ and ‘externalist’ accounts. He also argued for direct realism in perception, (...) criticizing both empiricism and idealism, and argued for a moderate nominalist view of universals as being in rebus and only ‘apprehended’ by their particulars. His influence helped swaying Oxford away from idealism and, through figures such as H. A. Prichard, Gilbert Ryle, or J. L. Austin, his ideas were also to some extent at the origin of ‘moral intuitionism’ and ‘ordinary language philosophy’ which defined much of Oxford philosophy until the second half of the twentieth-century. Nevertheless, his name and legacy were all but forgotten for generations after World War II. Still, his views on knowledge are with us today, being in part at work in the writings of philosophers as diverse as John McDowell, Charles Travis, and Timothy Williamson. (shrink)

This paper examines causal theories of reference with respect to how plausible an account they give of non-physical natural kind terms such as ‘gene’ as well as of the truth of the associated theoretical claims. I first show that reference fixism for ‘gene’ fails. By this, I mean the claim that the reference of ‘gene’ was stable over longer historical periods, for example, since the classical period of transmission genetics. Second, I show that the theory of partial reference does not (...) do justice to some widely held realist intuitions about classical genetics. This result is at loggerheads with the explicit goals usually associated with partial theories of reference, which is to defend a realist semantics for scientific terms. Thirdly, I show that, contrary to received wisdom and perhaps contrary to physics and chemistry, neither reference fixism nor partial reference are necessary in order to hold on to scientific realism about biology. I pinpoint the reasons for this in the nature of biological kinds, which do not even remotely resemble natural kinds (i.e., Lockean real essences) as traditionally conceived. (shrink)

Saul Kripke (1972) argued for the existence of a priori propositions that are contingently true. Kripke uses the example of a case presented by Wittgenstein (1953) about the Standard Meter of Paris. The Standard Meter is an object to determine the standard lenght, in the measure system, of a one meter unit. Wittgenstein argued that we can’t affirm that the Standard Meter has one meter, since it is the standard for measure and works as a rule in the language. Therefore, (...) the phrase “the standard meter has one meter” doesn’t have a truth-value. On the other hand, Kripke argued that that phrase expresses a true proposition and can be known a priori by whom stipulated that this object will be the standard for measure. I will argue in favor a kripkean position, analyzing the dispute and thereafter answering possible objections from proponents of the wittgensteinian position. (shrink)