My thesis aims to show that Wittgensteins view of rule-following involves a misleading picture of the rule. Since he saw the rule as something fundamentally independent of the rule-follower and something with which the rule-follower must comply, he inevitably became entangled in the paradox of compliance: that is, the idea that there must be something other than the rule-follower for rule-following to exist, even though he knew that there was really nothing there to guide the rule-follower or to measure his action. This paradox, dimly expressed within key Wittgensteinian problems relating to how one is able to follow a rule and whether one can follow a rule privately, eventually gave rise to the question over the social nature of rules. In that debate, Wittgensteins commentators vigorously argued, and continue to argue, whether the concept of rule-following presupposes a community of practitioners or not. I argue that this debate itself is misguided, since both sides in this debate take as their starting point a picture of compliance which sees rule and rule-follower as essentially different. In contrast to a compliant picture, I offer a different picture of the rule, which I will call the pliant picture of the rule. I will show that rule and rule-follower are fundamentally the same, and are related to one another, not socially or grammatically, but genealogically. This relationship of identity is in fact exhibited in the relationship between teacher and pupil, when the pupil becomes what his teacher already is through following his teacher. Although compliance can be said to define this relationship initially, it ends with the pupil learning, or becoming, the rule. To conceive of the rule in this way is to avoid the paradox of compliance; that is, it is to go beyond Wittgensteins picture of a paradox.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:USASK/oai:usask.ca:etd-06192008-235759 |
| Date | 02 July 2008 |
| Creators | Niemi, Mark Harold |
| Contributors | Woodhouse, Howard, Pfeifer, Karl, Hoffman, Sarah, Dwyer, Philip, Dayton, Eric |
| Publisher | University of Saskatchewan |
| Source Sets | University of Saskatchewan Library |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-06192008-235759/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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