Abstract

In the Philosophical Investigations §242, Wittgenstein asserts paradoxically that objectivity is not lost even though communication requires the interplay of agreement in definitions and agreement in judgments. Although Wittgenstein does not claim that objectivity is only determined by this interplay, the objective status of logic initially appears to have disappeared. Wittgenstein here foresees the criticism launched by Kripke that objectivity has been replaced by inter-subjectivity. However, he retorts that the only aspect of objectivity that has vanished is the illusion of any access to an absolute truth independent of language-use. In a transcendental rotation reminiscent of Kant, Wittgenstein maintains that when the notion of a direct trajectory between human consciousness and truth is relinquished, objectivity of any kind relies on rules that language-use generates in the play of a language-game. Wittgenstein grounds objectivity in judgment, and thereby subjects logic to the possibility of communication.