DISCUSSION NOTE
Ginsborg’s Reading of Wittgenstein on Rules and Normativity
Gary Ebbs, Indiana University
Abstract
Hannah Ginsborg argues that according to Wittgenstein, a normal
human subject can recognise that a new step is correct without grasping
any rule with which the step accords. I argue, on the contrary, that
according to Wittgenstein, a normal human subject’s understanding of a
series and her capacity to take new steps to be correct continuations of
the series are, as Wittgenstein says of “rule” and “accord” (PI §224),
“related to one another.” Neither is more fundamental than the other.
In her stimulating article “Wittgenstein on Going On,”
1
Hannah Gins-
borg attributes the following theses to Wittgenstein:
T1. A normal human subject can recognise that a new step is correct in
a given context without consciously deriving that new step from a
rule she grasps.
T2. (a) There is a primitive notion of the correct next step in a context that
is conceptually and explanatorily prior to and independent of any
rule with which the step accords. (b) A normal human subject can
recognise that a new step is correct in a given context in this primi-
tive sense without grasping any rule with which the step must be in
accord if it is to be correct.
This discussion paper is a lightly revised version of comments I presented at the 2019
NYU Conference on Modern Philosophy, in response to Hanna Ginsborg’s presentation
there of her paper “Rule-following without Rules: Wittgenstein on Normativity in Social
Practice.” I thank Hanna for pointing out that one of my central textual criticisms needed
clarification, and for suggesting to me that I reformulate and publish my NYU comments
as criticisms of her paper “Wittgenstein on Going On” (Ginsborg 2020).
1. Ginsborg (2020).
© 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
DOI: 10.1111/phin.12334
Philosophical Investigations : 2021
ISSN 0190-0536