Later Wittgenstein Abide By The Rules And The Significance

This paper mainly deals with rule-following, rule and meaning in the later Wittgenstein. We start with Kripke’s Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, and point out his contribution and shortage for us to understand Wittgenstein through his interpretation. Kripke suggests that normative meaning makes rule-following possible. However, we will discuss the relation between rule and meaning in the perspective that rules in language-game make the uses of words, namely meaning possible. Next, we talk about two different opinions, following a rule is a practice, and rules are the basis of language-game. We point out that it is the key to different interpretations concerned with rule-following being a practice or as the basis of language-game. As to "rules as the basis of language-game," there is a debate on whether it contains the transcendentalist thought in the later Wittgenstein, which is clearly opposed to Kant’s transcendental idealism. Hack and A. W. Moore claim that there is no transcendentalism in Wittgenstein’s later work. A. W. Moore further asserts that the later Wittgenstein’s view of meaning and his later work are incoherent. We principally follow Bernard Williams, trying to argue that there may be an element of transcendentalism in later Wittgenstein. Rule and meaning are connected by transcendentalism, through which rule and meaning are coherent in the later Wittgenstein. The transcendentalism approach is different from Kripke’s in its argument from normative meaning to rule-following.