Primitive Normativity and Skepticism about Rules

Abstract

In his Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Saul Kripke develops a skeptical argument against the possibility of meaning. 1 Suppose that all your previous uses of the word "plus" and of the "1" sign have involved numbers less than 57.You are now asked "what is 68 plus 57?" and you answer "125."But a skeptic proposes the hypothesis that by the word "plus," or the "1" sign, you previously meant not addition, but quaddition, where x quus y is the sum of x and y if x and y are less than 57, and otherwise 5.If you are to use the word "plus" as you used it in the past, the skeptic says, then, on the hypothesis that you meant quaddition, you ought to answer "5."Against your insistence that you know what you meant by "plus," the skeptic challenges you to cite some fact in virtue of which you meant addition.All your previous answers, he points out, were consistent with the hypothesis that you meant quaddition, so how can you justify your claim that you meant addition instead?The upshot of the skeptical