ФИЛОЗОФИЈА/FILOZOFIJA, 12, N. 35, pp. 61-76, December 2013 Comm unity Rules: What Does Kripke’s Sceptical Paradox Imply for Private Language? Julien Kloeg UDC: 165.731.3:800.1 130.2:8]:165.731.3 Abstract Wittgenstein’s private language argument is often taken to imply that an individual could not mast er a language by himself. This conclusion is explicitly drawn in Saul Kripke’s inter pret at ion of Wit t genst ein on the basis of general considerat ions on rule-following. But is an individual really not able to follow rules, as Kripke also contends? In this paper I argue for a novel conception of rule-following that can incorporate the insights of the private language argument without accepting its most counterintuitive implication. Keywords: rule-following, private language argument, meaning, human community, Wit t genst ein, Kripke Introduction Saul Kripke’s Wit t genst ein on Rules and Privat e Language (1982) contributed to a resurgence of interest in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations (1958) and simultaneously opened a new line of investigation in the philosophy of language. The work consists of two parts: a skeptical paradox and a skeptical solution. Both have been influential and have inspired a mixture of praise and criticism from the 1980s onward. Kripke thinks of the paradox as a fundamental problem, which was perhaps the underlying motivation behind Witt genstein’s “analogous” positions in the philosophy of mathematics and the philosophy of mind1 (Kripke 4). Stating this versatile problem with clarity is a challenge in itself, if only because Kripke’s own statement of the problem has given rise to different interpretations. Crucial to Kripke’s account is his skeptical solution of the paradox, which attacks part of the skeptic’s reasoning. In particular, it denies the supposed dependence of 1 Kripke continually refers to passages from Wittgenstein in order to show that the argument is loyal to its source. At the same time, Kripke shies away from the conclusion that his argument is already to be found on the pages of the ‘Investigations’ (Kripke 5). In this paper I am not interested in exegetical matters. 61