Rule-Following and Objective Spirit

DOI: 10.1111/phin.12339 Philosophical Investigations :  2022 ISSN 0190-0536 Rule-Following and Objective Spirit Thomas J. Spiegel, Department of Philosophy, University of Potsdam Abstract This paper deals with Wittgenstein’s rule-following paradox, focussing on the infinite rule-regress as featured in Kripke’s Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. I argue that one of the most salient and popular proposed solutions (championed by John McDowell), which argues that rule-following is grounded in “custom,” “practice” or “form of life, remains unsatisfactory because part of this proposal is the rejection of further “theory” (commonly attributed to Wittgenstein) which seemingly makes it impossible to substantiate the claim of how customs, practices or forms of life ground rule-following. I argue that this conundrum can be solved by introducing Wilhelm Dilthey’s overlooked notion of objective spirit as the objectivated sediment of historical human communality. This proposal allows us to substantiate Wittgenstein’s hints at the connection between rule-following and customs, practices, and forms of life without introducing “problematic theories.” Combining Wittgenstein’s views with Dilthey’s notion of objective spirit results in a solution that is neither skeptical nor straight, but therapeutic. The infinite regress of rules as it pertains to the rule-following problem is one of the most comprehensively covered, yet enduring topics in 20th century philosophy, now extending into the 21st century. In the shortest of terms, the rule regress consists in the supposed problem that the application of any rule requires the addition of a further rule. Infinite ruleregresses are enabled by the nature of rules, or rather (as shall become clear) a certain interpretation of that nature. Arguably, the most influential rendition of the rule-regress has been provided by Wittgenstein and Saul Kripke’s infamous interpretation of Wittgenstein.1 A number of different solutions have been proposed since Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations were first published. One of the most salient proposed solutions to the rule-following problem is John McDowell’s account. According to McDowell, Wittgenstein’s own solution Open access funding enabled and organized by ProjektDEAL. 1. Kripke (1982). © 2022 The Authors. Philosophical Investigations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. 2 Philosophical Investigations (which he endorses) to the rule-following problem is that the correct application of a rule is ultimately grounded in a “custom,” “practice,” “institutions” or “form of life”.2 Yet, McDowell (like Wittgenstein) does not specify what this could mean, something that might be viewed in line with Wittgenstein’s rejection of explanations in philosophy that McDowell shares. Hence, McDowell’s account has been called “quietist,” although McDowell himself eschews the label.3 This provides a certain unsatisfactory tension: on the one hand, McDowell’s account stays as faithful as possible to Wittgenstein’s own solution. On the other hand, this methodological parsimony results in explanatory poverty: more simply needs to be said about how customs, practices or forms of life ground the fact that rule-following is possible. Or, in Wittgenstein’s own words, how exactly do these ultimately social phenomena ensure that we can follow rules “blindly”,4 that this is where the “spade” turns back?5 In this article, I propose a solution that aims to improve and expand upon McDowell’s parsimonious account without violating the methodological and explanatory constraints set by Wittgenstein. The result ultimately aims at an elaboration of Wittgenstein’s own remarks, given that McDowell’s reading seems largely faithful. This proposal essentially involves the concept of objective spirit as developed by Wilhelm Dilthey.6 More specifically, Dilthey’s conception of objective spirit (objektiver Geist), which he appropriateness from Hegel for his own views, and his idea of elementary understanding (elementares Verstehen) are apt to further make intelligible how a subject-transcendent form of life or collective-habitual ways of acting make it possible to follow a rule without a further interpretation. This solution purports to be a straight solution – a solution that demonstrates how rules can be followed without an infinite regress arising – rather than a mere skeptical solution famously favoured by Kripke.7 The result is a solution that is 2. Wittgenstein (1953: §9: §24). 3. McDowell (2009). 4. Wittgenstein (1953: §219). 5. Wittgenstein (1953: §217). 6. This is salient also because some commentators from a hermeneuticalphenomenological standpoint have conceded, erroneously, that there can only be a skeptical solution (in Kripke’s terms) to the regress. “The Husserlian view I have been sketching thus amounts to what Kripke calls a “sceptical solution” to the rule-following paradox, in that it accepts that there is no straightforward, fully determined fact of the matter about meaning in any single moment of my lived experience, [. . .]. As Kripke notes, instead of refuting the sceptic in the manner of a “straight solution,” a “sceptical solution”—such as that in Hume’s Enquiry—seeks to show how “our ordinary practice or belief is justified be—contrary appearances notwithstanding—it need not require the justification the sceptic has shown to be untenable.” Rump (2020: 88). 7. Kripke (1982). © 2022 The Authors. Philosophical Investigations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Thomas J. Spiegel 3 explanatorily frugal, yet constitutes a satisfactory and straight solution to the rule regress. This paper is about rules only insofar as they engender an infinite regress. The topic of rule-following more generally has been written about from very different angles. It is therefore necessary to stress that this paper focusses mainly on Wittgenstein’s framing of the issue and utilises his scattered hints at a (dis-)solution of the problem in order to expand on those hints. While similar in nature, similar kinds of infinite regresses are not considered for the purpose of this inquiry.8 Even though the rule-following considerations are crucial to the philosophy of the later Wittgenstein,9 I shall gloss over to its systematic relations to, for example, the saying/showing distinction,10 their connection to normativity more generally,11 the private language argument,12 and the idea of rules as rails to infinity.13 I shall furthermore not deal with more specialised questions concerning the (im-)possibility of a so-called “fullblooded” theory of meaning in relation to the rule-following paradox.14 The first section reconstructs the rule-following paradox and related infinite regress of rules in the later Wittgenstein. The second part focusses on McDowell’s elaboration of Wittgenstein’s own hints at a solution; I argue that while McDowell’s account has merits, it ultimately remains unsatisfactory due to unnecessarily strict self-imposed methodological restrictions. Section 3 in turn introduces Dilthey’s notion of an objective spirit and elementary understanding as providing a solution insofar as viewing rule-following grounded in objective spirit does not let the regress arrive in the first place. Section 4 illustrates how this hermeneutic solution differs from the other available options by Kripke, Brandom, Winch, and Ginsborg; rather than being straight or skeptical, it is a therapeutic notion in the spirit of the later Wittgenstein himself. 8. Plato’s Third Man argument, Agrippa’s trilemma, or even Bradley’s regress have arguably garnered much more attention than the rule-regress as it is found in Kant, Carroll, and Wittgenstein. What sets those arguments apart from the rule-regress is, trivially, that their infinite regresses are not enabled in virtue of the application of a rule or concept, and hence will be omitted here. 9. Verheggen (2017) even states that it is the “centerpiece” of his Philosophical Investigations. 10. cf. Wittgenstein (2001: 3.262, 4.1212, 4.122, 4.461). 11. Wittgenstein (1953: §224 & §225). 12. Wittgenstein (1953: §202 & 252). 13. Wittgenstein (1953: §218), Wright (2001). 14. E.g. Maher (2012). © 2022 The Authors. Philosophical Investigations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 4 Philosophical Investigations I. Rule-Following and the Pentalemmatic Rule-Regress The later Wittgenstein wrangles with the phenomenon of rules as such, but especially as they pertain to language, i.e., language as a game15 and language as it pertains to conceptuality.16 Wittgenstein views language as essentially rule-governed. Specifically, word usage is governed by rules. The central issue Wittgenstein uncovers is that if language is essentially governed by rules, correctly applying a rule requires another rule, leading to an infinite regress. While there are some very similar infinite regresses established in the work of other thinkers,17 the following reconstruction will focus on Wittgenstein’s specific brand of the rule-regress, since it has dominated large parts of the literature. The infinite rule-regress is part of the wider rule-following problem. The rule-following problem itself states that there never seems to be a fact of the matter whether one has followed a rule correctly because any (linguistic or mathematical) performance can be brought into accord with that rule. The sections in which Wittgenstein most clearly formulates the problem are as follows: Can’t we imagine a rule determining the application of a rule?18 Can we not now imagine further rules to explain this one?19 Now we get the pupil to continue a series (say +2) beyond 1000 — and he writes 1000, 1004, 1008, 1012. We say to him: "Look what you’ve done!" — He doesn’t understand. [. . .] Or suppose he pointed to the series and said: "But I went on in the same way." [. . .]20 But how can a rule shew me what I have to do at this point? Whatever I do is, on some interpretation, in accord with the rule."— That is not what we ought to say, but rather: 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.21 This was our paradox: no course of action could be determined by a rule, because every course of action can be made out to accord with the rule. The answer was: if everything can be made out to accord with the rule, then it can also be made out to conflict with it. And so there would be neither accord nor conflict here.22 15. Wittgenstein (1953: §68, §80, §81, §125, §133). 16. Wittgenstein (1953: §71, 81, 84). 17. This refers most notably to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1998: B127) and Lewis Carroll’s What the Tortoise said to Achilles (1895). 18. Wittgenstein (1953: §84). 19. Wittgenstein (1953: §86). 20. Wittgenstein (1953: §185). 21. Wittgenstein (1953: §198). 22. Wittgenstein (1953: §201). © 2022 The Authors. Philosophical Investigations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Thomas J. Spiegel 5 In conjunction, these quotes contain the central elements for the infinite regress of rules. As is often the case, Wittgenstein‘s relatively unsystematic remarks regarding rules in general have been interpreted in various ways and with different connections to other thematic clusters in his later work. However, the most (in)famous construal of the rule-regress as a problem has been supplied by Kripke. Regardless of whether it is a faithful interpretation of Wittgenstein, Kripke’s argument offers a substantially useful discussion and reconstruction of the rule-following problem. The focus is on the question: which rule is expressed by a given set of examples? Kripke elaborates that every finite set of examples is in accordance with indefinitely many logically possible rules. So whatever rule a speaker favours as the one explaining a set of examples, there are still indefinitely many other possible rules that are equally compatible with the same set of examples. This rule-following problem entails an infinite regress of rules once we ask for justifications regarding the use of a certain rule. This is often exemplified using Kripke’s famous arithmetic example of the rule of addition and the made-up rule of quaddition, but I prefer an exemplification that is closer to ordinary language. Consider any concept F. The concept F is applied to things in the world by uttering statements like “this is F,” like “this is a stone.” Since concepts can be phrased as rules (according to thinkers like Wittgenstein and Kant), whenever one utters a statement “this is F,” then she follows a rule which specifies which things actually are F, and which are not F. A rule specifies F by specifying under which circumstances it is correct to utter “this is F.” The question is: how exactly does the concept F determine the usage of utterances like “this is F”? One may be inclined to give another rule that specifies how the concept F ought to be used. For example: “only say of a thing x ‘this is a stone’, if x is grey and hard.” But such a rule does not solve the initial problem. It reiterates the problem because GREY and HARD are just two more concepts of which one can ask for a rule that specifies how they ought to be used, enabling an infinite regress. In order to get a better analytical grip on the issue, we can formulate a more general, perspicuous overview of the nature of the rule regress that captures the essence of their different approaches. The rule-regress can be represented through the following pentalemma:23 23. Following L€ owenstein (2017: 335) construction of a general and uniform account of regress problems. While his version is mainly focussed on regresses of doxastic justification, the same pentalemma can be applied mutatis mutandis to the rule-regress, which I have modified accordingly here. © 2022 The Authors. Philosophical Investigations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Philosophical Investigations 6 Phenomenon Ground Recurrence Finity Non-circularity There are rules. Every rule requires some form of interpretation. Every interpretation is itself a rule. No rule is a rule in virtue of an infinite chain of rules. No rule is a rule in virtue of a circle of rules. In the search for a solution or dissolution of the resulting paradox of the infinite regress, the question arises what exactly enables the infinite regress in the first place. It should be fairly obvious that the lemmata Phenomenon, Finity, and Non-Circularity are (at least prima facie) unproblematic. This leaves the lemmata Ground and Recurrence as the ones which seemingly enables the regress. In Section 3 below, the strategy in this paper will be to argue that a proper solution to the rule-regress offers a rephrasing of Recurrence and Ground. Before presenting that strategy, however, the following section develops Wittgenstein’s own attempts at a solution, including McDowell’s elaboration, arguing that it ultimately remains unsatisfactory. II. Wittgenstein’s and McDowell’s Incomplete Solution This section provides an overview of Wittgenstein’s remarks regarding possible solutions which uncovers the fact that, according to Wittgenstein, there must be an understanding of a rule which itself is not an interpretation. This point essentially results in a rephrasing of the lemmata Ground and Reccurence detailed above. In doing so, I follow McDowell’s reading of Wittgenstein’s rule regress insofar as his solution lies with the suggestion that following a rule is ultimately grounded in custom, practice, or form of life. However, unlike McDowell, I contend that just hinting at these ideas cannot result in providing a satisfactory solution or dissolution of the infinite regress even when staying true to Wittgenstein’s rejection of “theories” in philosophy. While the writings of the later Wittgenstein can make it difficult to parse and track his argument, the diagnosis of the central issue leading to the rule regress is most succinctly expressed in the following passages: "But how can a rule shew me what I have to do at this point? Whatever I do is, on some interpretation (Deutung), in accord with the rule."— That is not what we ought to say, but rather: any interpretation (Deutung) still hangs in the air along with what it interprets, and cannot give it any support. Interpretations (Deutungen) by themselves do not determine meaning.24 24. Wittgenstein (1953: §198). © 2022 The Authors. Philosophical Investigations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Thomas J. Spiegel 7 It can be seen that there is a misunderstanding here from the mere fact that in the course of our argument we give one interpretation (Deutung) after another; as if each one contented us at least for a moment, until we thought of yet another standing behind it.25 Wittgenstein states here that the problem is that the rule-regress is enabled by following an interpretation of a rule (in other words: propositionally stating what a rule means) with yet another interpretation of a rule. By “interpretation,” Wittgenstein accordingly means the “substitution of one expression of the rule for another.”26 This is essentially a formulation of the adjusted phrasing of two lemmata introduced in the last section: Ground Recurrence Every rule requires some form of interpretation. Every interpretation is itself a rule. Wittgenstein would have accepted Recurrence, since an interpretation (Deutung) of a rule must be in the form of a rule. It would be difficult to come up with a conceptually articulated interpretation of a rule that does not itself qualify as a rule, such that it might perhaps even qualify as an analytic truth that every interpretation is a rule. Accordingly, Wittgenstein’s solution focusses on Ground and Recurrence. His focus on Ground can be read off such passages as the following: What this shews is that there is a way of grasping (Auffassung) a rule which is not an interpretation [. . .].27 Is something that follows a rule itself a rule? And if not, - what kind of proposition (Satz) am I to call it?28 Hence, the main requirement for stopping the infinite that there be a form of understanding a rule that is not tation (Deutung). If we return to L€ owenstein’s (2017) expressed by Wittgenstein in these remarks results in a lemma Ground: Ground*: regress of rules is itself an interprediction, the idea rephrasing of the Every rule requires some form of understanding. 25. Wittgenstein (1953: §201). 26. Cf. Wittgenstein (1953: §201). The same diagnosis Wittgenstein affords us is already present in nuce in Schleiermacher, who asserts that the rules of interpretation do not carry the “certainty of their application within them” (Schleiermacher 1977: 81). 27. Wittgenstein (1953: §201). 28. Wittgenstein (1967: VI-31). © 2022 The Authors. Philosophical Investigations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Philosophical Investigations 8 While perhaps not entirely necessary, the lemma Recurrence can also be reformulated to suitably reflect the trajectory of Wittgenstein’s hints at a solution: There are ways of understanding a rule which are not interpretations. Recurrence*: Ground* and Recurrence*, respectively, block the rule regress since now not every rule requires another rule for interpretation. Rather, it asserts that there are ways of understanding (or grasping, Auffassen) which are not interpretations. Both Ground* and Recurrence* are intuitively plausible. Yet, the decisive question then becomes what such understanding would look like (in contrast to an interpretation). In exploring that idea, Wittgenstein offers different sets of terminologies in the Philosophical Investigations as well as minor remarks in Culture and Value and Cause and Effect: On the contrary; I have further indicated that a person goes by a signpost only in so far as there exists a regular use of sign-posts, a custom (einen st€andigen Gebrauch, eine Gepflogenheit).29 [. . .] To obey a rule, to make a report, to give an order, to play a game of chess, are customs (uses, institutions) (Gepflogenheiten [Gebr€auche, Institutionen]).30 "How am I able to obey a rule?"—if this is not a question about causes, then it is about the justification for my following the rule in the way I do. If I have exhausted the justifications I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do."31 What has to be accepted, the given, is . . . forms of life32 no reason can be given why you should act (or should have acted) like this, except that by doing so you bring about such and such a situation, which again has to be an aim you accept33 [. . .] it is characteristic of our language that the foundation on which it grows consists in steady ways of living, regular ways of acting34 These quotations – in different contexts – all deal with the same question, i.e., whether the rules governing language games, among them propositional ones, necessitate some further interpretation. Wittgenstein’s point to be extracted from these passages seems to be alluringly simple: there is an “instant” way of grasping and applying a rule that simply 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. Wittgenstein Wittgenstein Wittgenstein Wittgenstein Wittgenstein Wittgenstein (1953: (1953: (1953: (1953: (1980: (1976: §198). §199). §217). part II, p. 226). 16e). 397). © 2022 The Authors. Philosophical Investigations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Thomas J. Spiegel 9 “works” without adducing another rule. This is where one reaches his famous “bedrock” where the “spade is turned.” Less metaphorically, this kind of direct grasping of a rule which does not itself take the form of a rule is characterised in four ways: as a custom,35 a practice,36 an institution,37 and a form of life.38 Furthermore, any such acting through an understanding of a rule is seemingly “blind.”39 Wittgenstein does not say much more on this matter in his later philosophy. And according to McDowell’s reading – which I take to be among those most faithful to Wittgenstein – this is where the story ends: Readers of Wittgenstein often suppose that when he mentions customs, forms of life, and the like, he is making programmatic gestures towards a certain style of positive philosophy [. . .]. But there is no reason to credit Wittgenstein with any sympathy for this style of philosophy. When he says “What has to be accepted, the given, is - so one could say - forms of life” [. . .], his point is not to adumbrate a philosophical response [. . .].40 According to McDowell, there is no more to be said, and no mystery about meaning or rules remains once we get clear on the idea that rulefollowing is grounded in customs.41 And while this general “quietist” idea has been controversially debated, there is in fact some good textual evidence that Wittgenstein eschewed “substantial” explanations of several different philosophical issues. You must bear in mind that the language-game is so to say something unpredictable. I mean: it is not based on grounds. It is not reasonable (or unreasonable). It is there – like our life.42 One can only describe here and say: thus is human life.43 One is inclined to say: this and that event transpired; laugh if you can.44 In these and other passages, Wittgenstein asserts that many such questions or contexts cannot be further explained, there is nothing more to be said but simply to accept that human practice, by and large, works. Even if we assume that McDowell’s interpretation of these and similar remarks is 35. Wittgenstein (1953: §198, §199). 36. Wittgenstein (1953: §54, §197). 37. Wittgenstein (1953, §199). 38. Wittgenstein (1953: §241, part II, p. 226). 39. Wittgenstein (1953: §219). 40. McDowell (1992: 50f.), cf. also McDowell (1984). 41. He has also reiterated this sentiment in McDowell (2009) and McDowell (2015). 42. Wittgenstein (1969: §559). 43. Wittgenstein (1995: 180). Translation mine. „Nur b e s c h r e i b e n kann man hier und sagen: so ist das menschliche Leben.“ 44. Wittgenstein (1995: 181). Translation mine “Man m€ ochte sagen: Dieser und dieser Vorgang hat stattgefunden; lachˈ, wenn Du kannst.” © 2022 The Authors. Philosophical Investigations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 10 Philosophical Investigations faithful, such methodological constraints understandably leave even sympathetic readers befuddled. And of course some Wittgenstein scholars have not followed Wittgenstein’s (or McDowell’s) request to abstain from further attempts to develop his notions of customs, practices, and the idea of a form of life, respectively.45 There is a tension internal to the Wittgensteinian-McDowellian solution. On the one hand, there is reason to take Wittgenstein’s eschewal of “theories” seriously (at least when considering his own solution), and therefore not to engage in further “theory” about customs and practices (as a quietist reading would have it, as it were). On the other hand, it seems clearly not enough to simply state that following a rule is grounded in a custom or form of life. There are legitimate questions to be asked. For example, in what way does a custom, practice, institution, or form of life enable rule-following? Or how can a mere customary determination of the correctness of rules be lined up with thoughts about how the world truly is? An apodictic reference to such social phenomena just seems too thin to be satisfactory. This is a legitimate grievance that any solution to the rule regress has to rule out. The central problem of their proposed solution is that it seems incomplete. What Wittgenstein (and McDowell, channelling Wittgenstein) provide are hints at a solution, but not a complete solution that would be satisfactory. In what follows, I shall try to demonstrate that there is a via media between these two extremes. This middle-way consists in expanding on Wittgenstein’s solution to the regress without offering theories of the problematic kind which Wittgenstein is critical of. I have argued elsewhere46 that this is a live possibility. In other words, there ought to be a way to say more than what Wittgenstein states without saying anything 45. Cf. e.g. Schatzki & Knorr-Cetina (2000) who developed a full-grown “practice theory” on the back of the later Wittgenstein.Some readers of Wittgenstein further offer a very deflationary reading of his idea of custom and practice. For example, Lin (2019: 17) suggests that a custom merely implies that a certain act of rule-following “cannot be performed only once” and that this makes it a practice since practices are “something which cannot happen just once”. While this assertion is not incorrect, it does not seem to be sufficient to get to the heart of how customs, practices, and the idea of a form of life ground rule-following. This is because practices and customs being carried out a number of times is not sufficient for solving the logical problem of how they guarantee a correct application of a rule. The mere frequency of acts that constitute a custom which grounds a rule cannot be the reason why that custom grounds a given rule, for principled reasons. 46. I have argued in Spiegel (2021a) and Spiegel (2021b) that Wittgensteinian quietism is properly understood as the rejection of those theories in philosophy that try to emulate a natural-scientific mode of explanation. Accordingly, Wittgenstein is obviously not against philosophical theories as such. McDowell himself points this out in a later paper, writing that Wittgenstein would obviously not have an issue with philosophical reflections on the proper shape of a political community, McDowell (2009) and McDowell (2015). © 2022 The Authors. Philosophical Investigations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Thomas J. Spiegel 11 methodologically problematic. The rest of this investigation is dedicated to working out what such a solution could look like. III. Objective Spirit as a Hermeneutic Treatment of the Regress This section argues that Dilthey’s concepts of understanding and objective spirit can be utilised in this context to provide such an unproblematic elaboration of Wittgenstein’s hints at a solution to the rule-regress, i.e., it can provide a reason to reject the lemma Ground in the pentalemma. A first starting point lies in noticing that Wittgenstein states in his Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics that we always already understand rules: If you want to understand [verstehen] what it means to “follow a rule,” you have already to be able to follow a rule.47 Wittgenstein here expresses a fundamental idea of the hermeneutic tradition, namely the idea that one is always already engaged in understanding. This point rarely comes up in debates about the rule regress. As an exception, Bowie offers some remarks on how these ideas can be brought together (albeit without explicit reference to the section of RFM just cited): The argument prevents a regress of rules for the application of rules, by grounding rules in pre-theoretically constituted practices that are inherent in our “being in the world.48 If one has not always already understood, how could what one is doing in understanding be grounded by an explanation of understanding?49 Bowie’s general remarks here are helpful in expressing the general direction in which an appropriate answer to the rule regress can be found: what grounds rules has to be a certain form of understanding which is not itself rule-like but wholly different from rules, at least nontheoretical in a certain sense; and this understanding somehow has to do with practices of our “being in the world” (Heidegger). This is certainly an extended reformulation of Wittgenstein’s own admission that rule following cannot be grounded in rules, i.e., a rejection of the aforementioned lemma Ground. Yet, Bowie’s remarks, too, leave us with questions about what these non-theoretical practices are and how they 47. Wittgenstein (1967: V-32). 48. Bowie 2016: 48. 49. Bowie 2016: 49. © 2022 The Authors. Philosophical Investigations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 12 Philosophical Investigations relate to following rules, other than that they are explanatorily prior to rules. In what follows, I shall suggest that Dilthey’s hermeneutical version of objektiver Geist (or “objective spirit”) offers a further elaboration of this idea, which sheds light on Wittgenstein’s sparse hints at a solution and offers a more thorough application that one has always already understood in the context of the rule regress. The general form of a solution to Wittgenstein’s rule-regress remains that there must be something which licenses or mediates the correct usages of a rule directly, without requiring an interpretation. And this criterion can be fulfilled by (some form of) the idea of an elementary understanding and objective spirit. The idea of objective spirit is due to Hegel. In the simplest of terms, objective spirit is the whole of normative mindedness as it is sedimented or expressible in morality, law, Sittlichkeit, sciences, art, religion, philosophy, and generally “mundane aspects of human life.”50 Objective spirit is to be contrasted with subjective spirit, i.e., the whole of phenomena as they pertain to an individual mind.51 Although the idea of an objective spirit may now not be part of the canon of anglophone analytic philosophy, it has had wide influences on different traditions of thought, especially sociology and social philosophy. Dilthey critically engaged with Hegel’s idea of objective spirit throughout his career,52 arguably culminating in his late Aufbau. A full reconstruction of Dilthey’s grappling with the idea of objective spirit would require its own treatment. For the present context, it is sufficient to focus on the crucial properties Dilthey ascribes to objective spirit: On Dilthey’s view, objective spirit is the “medium” of our sociohistorical situation and all our interaction; it is the frame which enables understanding and in which all understanding takes place,53 similar to how water allows fish to breathe and swim. Objective spirit is the objectivated sediment of historical human communality (das Allgemeinmenschliche), i.e., the whole of mental phenomena as they figure in history become objective in practices, meanings, and institutions. Dilthey puts it like this: A basic experience of commonality permeates the whole conception of the world of human spirit.54 50. Makkreel (2021): 28. 51. Objective spirit is also to be contrasted with absolute spirit which, however, is not pertinent to the issue at hand. One of the most crucial differences between Dilthey and Hegel here is perhaps that, on Hegel’s account, religion, philosophy, and art make up absolute spirit, whereas Dilthey includes them in objective spirit. 52. Starting with Dilthey (1990). 53. Makkreel & Rodi (2002: 3). 54. Dilthey (2002: 163). © 2022 The Authors. Philosophical Investigations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Thomas J. Spiegel 13 At every stage, there is an implicit understanding of the world of human spirit, from its general idea to methods of criticism and individual investigations, that is uniform or homogeneous.55 The social institutions that make up objective spirit are socially constituted extensions of our own cognitive practices, which are historically solidified and enduring. As such, objective spirit is always already there: people are “born into” objective spirit which informs every individual mind since its inception.56 In other words, there is no escaping objective spirit, as it accompanies human life from its very beginning. Objective spirit encompasses the manifold forms in which a commonality existing among individuals has objectified itself in the world of the senses,” allowing the past to become “a continuously enduring present for us.57 This kind of objectified commonality has always been historical, that is, the whole of practices which are objectified into objective spirit simultaneously present a way of keeping a history of human conduct present in a certain sense.58 But how does objective spirit relate to both Dilthey’s wider philosophical contentions and the rule-regress at hand? Wilhelm Dilthey has incorporated the idea of objective spirit into his hermeneutic theory of the human mind. Without going into too much detail, his account, as it pertains to the topic at hand, can be summarised as follows. Dilthey’s overarching goal – at least of his unfinished late philosophy – was to provide a theoretical foundation of the human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften). Perhaps the most crucial part of this foundation is his conception of understanding (Verstehen). Appropriating Vico’s verum factum principle and Schleiermacher’s idea that “I understand nothing which I cannot apprehend as necessary and which I cannot construct myself,”59 Dilthey posits that the complement to and object of understanding is life (Leben), or rather, manifestations of life (Lebens€außerungen). Manifestations of life themselves are divided into three categories: propositional items (concepts, judgments, thoughts), actions (Handlungen), and expressions of lived experience (Erlebnisausdruck; i.e., emotions like joy or sadness, but also gestures and art.60 Expressions of life as the object of understanding are, of course, all mental items that can be understood rather than explained. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. Dilthey (2002: 167). Dilthey (2002: 229). Ibid. Ibid. Schleiermacher (1959: 31). Dilthey (1962: 205–207)/Dilthey (2002: 205). © 2022 The Authors. Philosophical Investigations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 14 Philosophical Investigations Dilthey’s concept of understanding is further bifurcated into elementary understanding and higher-level understanding.61 Elementary understanding is a kind of direct, non-inferential, usually unconscious understanding directed upon single instances of manifestations of life. For example, if I see a woman lying by the roadside with a distorted facial expression next to a damaged bicycle, it is elementary understanding that allows me to directly see that the woman is in pain. Accordingly, if someone yells “fetch” and throws me a ball, it is elementary understanding (next to biological reflexes) that is operative in my understanding that I am to fetch the ball instead of, say, deflecting it with the stick in my hand. Higher-level understanding, on the other hand, is an inferential, explicit kind of understanding which is based upon elementary understanding and is directed upon more general, “objective” elements like context, situation, meaning, and reasons. To stick with the same example, it is higher-level understanding that enables me to understand that the woman who is clearly in pain most likely had a car accident and is in need of immediate assistance. Thus, elementary understanding is foundational, and instances of higher-level understanding require instances of elementary understanding, according to Dilthey. Dilthey is aware that his overall account of understanding retains a crucial explanandum couched in the question what makes understanding possible in the first place. This is highly analogous to Wittgenstein’s diagnosis of the rule-regress, albeit in different terms. In other words, what makes it possible that two different people can understand one another? This question is answered by his introduction of objective spirit. He puts it like this: lndividuals do not usually apprehend manifestations of life in isolation, but as filled with a knowledge about commonalities and as encompassing a relation to something inner.62 According to Dilthey, it is objective spirit that enables understanding in the first places, specifically the immediacy of elementary understanding is enabled by having always already partaken in objective spirit. And in turn, elementary understanding enables higher understanding.63 The relation between elementary and higher understanding is such that higher understanding becomes necessary if the contents of elementary 61. Dilthey (1962: 207–213)/Dilthey (2002: 228f.). This description of higher versus elementary understanding is borrowed from Spiegel (2021c). 62. Dilthey (1962: 209)/Dilthey (2002: 209). 63. “Higher understanding is only needed when this self-evident context of commonality breaks down and pits particulars against each other.”, Makkreel & Rodi (2002: 13). © 2022 The Authors. Philosophical Investigations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Thomas J. Spiegel 15 understanding are “called into question,” e.g., if some “ambiguity [. . .] needs to be resolved.”64 How do these aspects of Dilthey’s own view relate to Wittgenstein’s version of the rule regress? To get this into view, we first have to consider structurally analogous aspects of their views, more specifically, how Dilthey’s conception of understanding and Wittgenstein’s treatment of rule following overlap. My suggestion is that Dilthey’s concept of higher understanding accords with an explicit interpretation of a rule in the rule-following problem, and that Dilthey’s elementary understanding accords with the direct understanding that is proposed by McDowell as foundation of following rules. In other words, Dilthey’s points can be taken as a further substantiation of the lemmata Ground* and Recurrence* that were left insufficiently explained on McDowell’s account. With the help of Dilthey’s account of understanding, we can now state that explicit interpretations of rules are a special case of a direct, more fundamental understanding of a rule, i.e., the kind of understanding Dilthey calls “elementary.” The ensuing question, then, is what makes elementary understanding, in turn, work. This is where Dilthey’s conception of objective spirit becomes relevant. The enabling condition for our being able to follow rules at all is the embeddedness in objective spirit. Elementary understanding is in turn grounded in objective spirit as the historically grown whole of objectified modes of manifestations of life, especially social institutions. This is because objective spirit is the frame, context, or medium through which we “communicate with each other, and interact” as it “embodies elementary knowledge as passed down to us by the reality of the past.”65 Objective spirit is that which provides the meanings that are understood in discourse as a supra-personal, historical entity. Due to its being supra-personal, objective spirit underwrites the meanings that can be understood in elementary understanding such that the kind of meaning skepticism alluded to by the rule-following problem does not arise in the first place. The rule-regress only arises if we stay on a relatively surface level of higher understanding which does implicate some form of interpretation of a certain intentional context given in elementary understanding. The rule-regress only arises if one rules out the possibility of elementary understanding in the first place. In other words, this explains why explicit rules have to figure as means of interpretation; they become necessary when elementary understanding is insufficient. In Wittgenstein’s rule-regress, this is represented 64. Makkreel (2021: 28). 65. Makkreel & Rodi (2002: 3). © 2022 The Authors. Philosophical Investigations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 16 Philosophical Investigations by asking for a justification of a certain rule. Yet, the very usage of explicit rules in order to interpret a given hermeneutic context aims at making the use of further rules obsolete: Using an explicit rule to interpret another rule aims at enabling the interlocutors to return to an implicit understanding (in more Wittgensteinian terms) or to elementary understanding (in Dilthey’s terminology). Recalling the pentalemma structure of the regress, Dilthey’s notion of elementary understanding offers a substantiation of how understanding a rule – specified by Ground* and Recurrence* – can work without such understanding taking the form of another interpretation. The Diltheyian “defusing” of the rule-regress grounds rules in a form of immediate noninferential understanding that is itself grounded in objective spirit. The relation between singular thinker and objective spirit is conceived in such a way that objective spirit grounds or “guarantees” understanding. While a full dive into this topic is way beyond the scope of this paper, it is important to note that the concept of objective spirit features, at least implicitly, a conception of sociality broader and richer than the kind of sociality adumbrated in the usual treatments of the rule-regress. The difference can perhaps be elucidated by introducing the more wellknown distinction between holist and individualist conceptions of the social. Different conceptions of objective spirit have been traditionally associated with a holist conception of the social. In the briefest of terms, holism claims that social entities are sui generis, i.e., something over and above conglomerates of individuals, such that social entities are a fundamental part of the “inventory” of the world.66 Holist social entities are supra-individual or supra-personal entities. Ontological individualism, on the other hand, claims that social entities are nothing over and above suitably arranged conglomerates of individuals, such that those social entities can be reduced67 to individuals. It would be inappropriate to ascribe a full-blown commitment to any of these positions to either Wittgenstein or to those who aim to provide a straight or skeptical solution to the regress. However, the framework in which social relations are discussed in their respective solutions tends to lend itself to something like individualism, or something close enough. This is because Kripke, Brandom or Ginsborg (whose accounts are introduced in the following section) mainly consider social relations as individual-to-individual; the frame of what is considered as a social 66. Archer (1995), Elder-Vass (2010), Panzarasa & Jennings (2006). 67. There are forms of individualism according to which social entities supervene on sets of individuals. While I cannot argue for this here, this is not a claim that could be rendered suitably distinct from holism insofar as a holist might subscribe to a global supervenience claim, yet still hold that social entities are ontologically sufficiently distinct, cf. Epstein (2009). © 2022 The Authors. Philosophical Investigations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Thomas J. Spiegel 17 relation is as something between individuals who are in each other’s vicinity or community. In a different context, Stoutland has even provocatively (and ironically) labelled such approaches anti-social. While there are exceptions,68 the paradigmatic cases of social interaction in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy tend to be in such narrower confines of one’s immediate social vicinity, e.g., the famous slab case69 or the “unorthodox” wood sellers.70 The grander point is that these more restricted notions of sociality do not run counter to the idea of an objective spirit, they are simply episodes of social interaction within the whole of objective spirit, the objective spirit being something that only comes into view once we broaden the gaze onto such concrete cases to the wider vicinity. IV. Neither Straight nor Skeptical, but Therapeutic Kripke’s construal, despite its infamy, offers a helpful frame for assessing solutions to the rule-regress as it comes up in Wittgenstein. While Kripke is foremost concerned with the “paradox” of rule-following itself, it can be applied to the implied rule-regress. He differentiates between straight and skeptical solutions. A straight solution to the rule-regress argues that there is a fact of the matter – social or non-social – that determines the meaning of linguistic items such that a rule-regress is prevented. A skeptical solution suggests that the paradox is genuine, i.e., that there is in actuality no deciding whether a certain performance accords with a given rule, but that this need not affect our ordinary practice. While Kripke himself is perhaps the only major proponent of a skeptical solution, there are a number of different accounts that propose a straight solution, three of which will shortly be presented here. Despite being tailored to fit Lewis Carroll’s regress paradox pertaining to rules of inference71, Peter Winch’s straight solution can be applied here as well.72 His straight solution interprets the rule regress as pointing towards the idea that inferring itself is not something that can be stated as a rule, but is rather a kind of doing, i.e., an ability, “it is learning to do something.”73 This solution is straight insofar as a capacity that is 68. Stoutland (1997). Wittgenstein’s notion of sociality in his Culture and Value, Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough, or his Lectures on Aesthetics may sometimes appear to be somewhat ‘wider’. Yet, fully establishing this point would take its own inquiry. 69. Wittgenstein (1953: §6). 70. Wittgenstein (1967: §149). 71. Carroll (1895). 72. Winch (2003). 73. Winch (2003: 57). © 2022 The Authors. Philosophical Investigations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 18 Philosophical Investigations either innate or acquired accounts for whether a given linguistic or conceptual performance is in accordance with a given rule. As part of his so-called normative pragmatics, Robert Brandom has developed a straight solution to the rule-regress that aims to ground meaning (and concept use as such) in doings.74 Invoking Ryle’s wellestablished notion of knowing-how (in contrast to knowing-that), Brandom argues that the rule-regress is stopped once we adduce that apprehension of rules is not grounded in further explicit, propositional rules, but rather in norms implicit in practice.75 He calls this the “pragmatist conception of norms [as] primitive correctnesses.”76 His solution is straight insofar as meaning is determined by norms that implicitly govern practice, as it were. More recently, Hannah Ginsborg has developed an account of primitive normativity as a straight solution to the rule regress. Her solution from primitive normativity posits that there are certain, more fundamental states of consciousness which are fraught with normativity as a sense of appropriateness,77 a “consciousness for appropriateness.”78 Ginsborg’s proposed solution is a straight one insofar as meaning (and concept use) is ultimately grounded in such states of consciousness, as it were. In contrast to such skeptical and straight solutions, the hermeneutic solution purports to be different. The hermeneutic solution is not straight since it does not provide an account of meaning, at least not in the sense that Ginsborg, Brandom or Winch do. Introducing the idea of objective spirit does not amount to an account that would allow us to determine the meaning of a given term, at least not in the same way that, say, allusion to primitive normativity does. Neither is the hermeneutic solution a skeptical solution, since it does not deny that there is meaning in the first place. More specifically, the hermeneutic solution is more of a dissolution of the problem rather than a solution. As such, it can be viewed in line with Wittgenstein’s own metaphilosophical convictions, parts of which famously espouse philosophy as therapy most commonly associated with the following key quotes: 74. Brandom (1994). 75. Brandom (1994: 46, 62). 76. Brandom (1994: 21). 77. “[I]t is plausible that she does so with a sense that this is the appropriate thing to do. She takes it that the green spoon ‘belongs’ in the box containing the previously sorted green things and that the blue spoon does not.”, Ginsborg (2011: 235). 78. Ginsborg (2011: 237). © 2022 The Authors. Philosophical Investigations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Thomas J. Spiegel 19 The real discovery is the one that makes me capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want to. – The one that gives philosophy peace [. . .].79 The philosopher’s treatment of a question is like the treatment of an illness.80 What is your aim in philosophy?—To shew the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.81 The metaphilosophical conviction expressed in quotes like these states that the goal of at least some philosophy is to identify certain faulty (“pathological”) underlying theoretical commitments which entail a given philosophical problem. The therapeutic reading of Wittgenstein has been championed by, for example, Baker and Hacker.82 This kind of philosophical therapy consists in a diagnosis and reconception of the matter in question.83 In the case of the hermeneutic solution, the diagnosis lies in recognising that the setup that leads to regress, i.e., the pentalemma, is faulty. The reconception lies in offering a rephrasing of the two lemmata Ground and Recurrence, both of which include the acknowledgment that grasping a rule does not have to be an interpretation (Deutung) but can also consist in elementary understanding. In this way, the hermeneutic solution does not offer a way out of the regress. It instead contends that the regress does not even arise once we bring elementary understanding and its relation to objective spirit into play. The “paradox” about rules is thus not solved, but dissolved. If we take Wittgenstein’s own metaphilosophical remarks seriously, the hermeneutic solution is more faithful to his own views. While this is not a requirement for an appropriate systematic solution to the regress, it does have the added bonus of being a solution that is closer to the Wittgensteinian spirit. V. Conclusion This paper argued for a hermeneutic solution to the rule regress as it is entailed by Wittgenstein’s rule-following problem. The hermeneutic solution consists in adducing Dilthey’s concepts of objective spirit and elementary understanding not as the bedrock, but as the grand social structure in which rule-following happens in the first place. The hermeneutic solution is neither straight nor skeptical, but therapeutic insofar as 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. Wittgenstein (1953, §133). Wittgenstein (1953: §255). Wittgenstein (1953: §309). Baker and Hacker (1984). Macarthur (2008). © 2022 The Authors. Philosophical Investigations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 20 Philosophical Investigations it offers a reconception of the assumptions – Ground and Recurrence – which enable an infinite regress in the first place, such that the regress does not even arise. The hermeneutic solution walks on a tightrope. On the one hand, it avoids saying too much, i.e., something that would go against Wittgenstein’s own methodological constraints, and that some other accounts are guilty of (Kripke, Ginsborg, Brandom, Winch). On the other hand, it avoids saying not enough, which both Wittgenstein and McDowell’s elaboration of Wittgenstein are guilty off. Simply put, it states that rulefollowing is grounded in objective spirit, i.e., in a relation of a speaker to their socio-historical environment that is more profound and more intimate than the mere social “‘environment” that Wittgenstein himself evokes in his elaborations. While there is some fairly well-established research that links Wittgensteinian philosophy with the idealist, phenomenological, and pragmatist traditions (as well as his relation to other thinkers like Heidegger), there has been surprisingly little work on how Wittgenstein’s thought relates to Post-Hegelian hermeneutics. This paper is an attempt to demonstrate one way in which these two traditions can relate. The intersection presented here lies in the idea that intentionality and concept use as such are ultimately grounded in a fundamental form of understanding which itself is intimately connected to a historical, social, subject-transcendent whole.84 Department of Philosophy University of Potsdam Am neuen Palais 10 14469 Potsdam Germany [email protected] References Archer, M. (1995). Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach. Cambridge: CUP. Baker, G. and P. Hacker (1984). Scepticism, Rules and Language. Oxford: Blackwell. 84. I am grateful to Johannes Haag, Hans-Johann Glock, Richard Raatzsch, Mehdi Ranaee, Luz Christopher Seiberth, Simon Sch€ uz, Gustav Melichar, and Jonathan Reiser for helpful commentary on draft versions of this paper. © 2022 The Authors. Philosophical Investigations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Thomas J. Spiegel 21 Bowie, A. (2016). “Hermeneutics and Modern Philosophy. The Art of Understanding” In K. 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