How To Read Wittgenstein

by Ray Monk

The American philosopher, Saul Kripke, regards the section 243–315, not as the Private Language Argument itself, but as an elaboration of it. The argument itself, Kripke thinks, is contained in paragraph 202: ‘And hence also ‘obeying a rule’ is a practice. And to think one is obeying a rule is not to obey a rule. Hence it is not possible to obey a rule ‘privately’: otherwise thinking one was obeying a rule would be the same thing as obeying it.’ What is appealing about this paragraph, not only to Kripke but to many other philosophers as well, is that it is, at least, identifiable as an argument, whereas most of the section that is more conventionally regarded as the ‘Private Language Argument’ does not seem to centre on an argument at all; rather, it seems to be a mixed bag of bald assertions, metaphors, wry jokes and exercises of the imagination.