Abstract

The paper deals with Ludwig Wittgenstein’s approach to „rule following activities“. Wittgenstein made many profound remarks, especially on the nature of the rules determining our communication in everyday language. Some of these remarks are in the centre of a current philosophical controversy known as rule following considerations. Among many contributors the most important one is probably Saul Kripke. The aim of this paper is to refute Kripke’s interpretation of Wittgenstein’s approach to these activities, which Kripke developes in his book Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. According to Kripke, the central argument of Philosophische Untersuchungen – the private language argument – leads us to so-called sceptical conclusion. From this conclusion it follows that in everyday language there is no clear meaning of the term „following a rule“. The paper is an attempt to reconsider this approach and to demonstrate that this sceptical interpretation of the private language argument is misleading