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Blind Rule-Following 1. Introduction It is a great pleasure to be able to contribute to this Festschrift in honor of Crispin Wright, with whom I have enjoyed countless stimulating conversations about a host of fundamental philosophical issues over the past twenty years. It is especially appropriate that my contribution to this Festschrift concern the topic of rule-following for this topic has been central to both of our preoccupations and has dominated our discussions. As anyone with the slightest familiarity with this subject will know, Wright has written several important and illuminating papers on the phenomenon of rule-following, papers that draw their inspiration from Wittgenstein’s seminal discussion of that notion. In those papers, Wright lays out an original view both about what the rule-following problem is, or should be taken to be, and about its correct resolution. In both respects, his view differs from that of Saul Kripke’s influential account.1 Kripke’s well-known view is that there is an enormous skeptical problem seeing how rule-following is so much as possible.2 Wright maintains that this problem is misguided, that Kripke’s skeptical challenge can receive a relatively straightforward solution. According to Wright, we can follow rules by forming intentions to uphold certain patterns in our thought or behavior and by acting on those intentions. Call this the Intention View of rule-following. The real problem posed by Wittgenstein’s discussion, Wright continues, is not to explain the very possibility of rule-following but, rather, to explain how we can have the sort of privileged access to the contents of our intentions—and of our intentional states more generally—that we normally credit ourselves with. I shall argue for three claims. First, Wright is correct to think that it is possible to respond to the specific challenge that Kripke poses with the Intention View. For (p.28) reasons that will emerge, this is not quite as straightforward as Wright seems to suppose, but it is ultimately defensible. Second, there is little doubt that Wright’s problem about self-knowledge of intentional states is a real problem, although I believe that his own proposed solution to that problem is unlikely to succeed. Finally, though, I shall argue that while the Intention View may constitute an adequate response to the specific considerations adduced by Kripke, it cannot in the end be regarded a correct account of rulefollowing. In its most fundamental incarnation, I shall argue, rule-following cannot consist in some intentional fact. In and of itself this result might be considered significant but not necessarily dispiriting. Matters begin to look significantly worse, however, when we combine this result with the powerful arguments to be found, in Kripke and elsewhere, that threaten to show that rule-following cannot consist in some nonintentional fact either. And the full depth of our problem emerges when we realize that skepticism about following a rule is not ultimately a coherent option. If all of this is right, then we face what might be called, following Kant, an antinomy of pure reason: we both must—and cannot—make sense of someone’s following a rule. That is what I propose to argue for in this essay.2. What is a Rule? What is Rule-Following? We should begin with a very basic question: What are we talking about when we talk about someone following a rule? I don’t mean: What is the right theory of rule-following? I mean to be asking in an intuitive and pre-theoretic manner: what phenomenon is at issue? It is surprising how often writers will launch into a discussion of this topic without pausing long enough to give it an intuitive characterization, especially since the answer turns out to be anything but obvious. The question—What is it to follow a rule?—naturally breaks up into two. What is a rule? And what is to follow one? The first question is surprisingly tricky, though limitations of space prevent me from discussing it in the requisite detail.3 Clearly, when we talk about people following rules we mean that they are somehow or other observing (or attempting to observe) certain general principles or standards. But there are at least two importantly different ways of conceiving such principles. On the one hand, we can think of rules as “directions” or “instructions”—i.e. contents that are expressed by imperatives of the form: If C, do A! On this conception, which appears to be Kripke’s, rules are contents that prescribe certain patterns of behavior under certain conditions. This is certainly a very common way of understanding the notion of a rule. (p.29) However, not everything that we call a rule in ordinary language, or in the course of philosophical theorizing, conforms to this characterization. For example, we talk about the “rules of chess.” One of these rules is: (Castle) If the configuration is C, you may castle. This is not an imperative but, rather, what I would call a normative proposition. It is a norm of permission. It cannot be expressed by the imperative If configuration is C, castle! because that would suggest that whenever the configuration is C, you must castle, whereas the rule for castling merely permits castling and does not require it. Indeed, I would argue, but won’t do so here, that there is no good way to express a norm of permission in imperatival terms.4 So we have a distinction between an imperatival content and a normative proposition and we need to decide whether, when we talk about following rules, we are talking about following the one sort of content or the other. For a variety of reasons, I am inclined to think that the more fundamental notion is that of a normative proposition and not that of a prescription or direction. But I won’t argue for it here.5 For the purposes of the present essay, I will take a rule to be either a general normative proposition or a general imperatival content. Let me turn instead to asking about the more pressing question: What is it to follow a rule? In answering this question, we should distinguish between a personal-level notion of rule-following and a subpersonal notion. We should not assume, at the outset, that our talk of a person’s following a rule comes to exactly the same thing as our talk of, say, his brain’s following a rule, or of his calculator’s computing a function. I propose to start with attempting to understand the personal-level notion, returning to the subpersonal notion later. My view will be that there is a core concept that is common to both notions, but that the personal-level notion is richer in a particular respect that I shall describe below. Once we have a handle on the personal-level notion it will be easy to indicate the weakening that gets us the subpersonal notion. Apropos of the personal-level notion, we certainly know this much: to say that S is following rule R is not the same as saying that S’s behavior conforms to R. Conforming to R is neither necessary nor sufficient for following it. It is not necessary because S may be following R even while he fails to conform to it. This can happen in one of two ways. Say that R is the instruction ‘If C, do A!’ S may fail to recognize that he is in circumstance C, and so fail to do A; yet it may still be true that S is following R. Or, he may correctly recognize that he is in C, but, as a result of a performance error, fail to do A, even though he tries. (p.30) Conformity to R is not sufficient for S’s following R because, for any behavior that S displays, there will be a rule—indeed, infinitely many rules—to which his behavior will conform. Yet it would be absurd to say that S is following all the rules to which his behavior conforms. There is another possible gloss on our notion that we need to warn against. There is a persistent tendency in the literature to suggest that the claim that S is following rule R means something roughly like: R may correctly be used to evaluate S’s behavior. I am not confident that this construal can be pinned on Wright; but it is suggested by the remarks with which he tends to introduce the topic of rule-following, for example: The principal philosophical issues to do with rule-following impinge on every normatively constrained area of human thought and activity: on every institution where there is right and wrong opinion, correct and incorrect practice.6 Whether or not this can be attributed to Wright, it is worthwhile seeing what is wrong with it. Intuitively, and without the help of controversial assumptions, it looks as though there are many thoughts that S can have, and many activities that he can engage in, that are subject to assessment in terms of rule R even if there is no intuitive sense in which they involve S’s following rule R. Consider Nora playing roulette. She has a “hunch” that the next number will be ‘36’ and she goes with it: she bets all her money on it. We need not suppose that, in going with her hunch, she was following any rule—perhaps this was just a one-time event. Still, it looks as though we can normatively criticize her belief as irrational since it was based on no good evidence. Or consider Peter who has just tossed the UNICEF envelope in the trash without opening it. Once more, we need not suppose that Peter has a standing policy of tossing out charity envelopes without opening them and considering their merits. However, even if no rule was involved it can still be true that Peter’s behavior was subject to normative assessment, that there are norms covering his behavior. In both of these cases, then, a norm or rule applies to some thought or behavior even though there is no intuitive sense in which the agent in question was attempting to observe that norm or rule. Of course, some philosophers—like Kripke’s Wittgenstein—think that wherever there is intentional content there must be rule-following, since meaning itself is a matter of following rules. But that is not a suitably pre-theoretic fact about rule-following; and what we are after at the moment is just some intuitive characterization of the phenomenon. We will come back to the question whether meaning is a matter of following rules. When we say that S is following a rule R in doing A, we mean neither that S conforms to R nor simply that R may be used to assess S’s behavior, ruling it correct if he conforms and incorrect if he doesn’t. What, then, do we mean? (p.31) Let us take a clear case of personal-level rule-following. Suppose I receive an email and that I answer it immediately. When would we say that this behavior was a case of following the: (Email Rule) Answer any email that calls for an answer immediately upon receipt! as opposed to just being something that I did that happened to be in conformity with that rule? I think it is clear that it would be correct to say that I was following the Email Rule in replying to the email, rather than just coincidentally conforming to it, when it is somehow or other because of the Email Rule that I reply immediately. Equally clearly, the because here is not any old causal relation: if a malicious scientist (or an enterprising colleague) had programmed my brain to answer any email upon receipt (in some zombielike way) because he accepted the rule that I should answer any email upon receipt, that would not count as my following the Email Rule. (It might count as my brain following the rule.) Rather, for me to be following the rule, the ‘because’ must be that of rational action explanation: I follow the Email Rule when that rule serves as my reason for replying immediately, when that rule rationalizes my behavior. I want to suggest, then, that the minimal content of saying that person S follows rule R in doing A is that R serves as S’s reason for doing A. Now, R is just a content of some sort, either an imperative or a normative proposition, as previously discussed. How is it possible for a content to serve as S’s reason for doing something? Obviously, by being accepted or internalized by him. I shall typically refer to this as S’s acceptance or internalization of the rule, though, clearly, it will be very important to understand this as neutrally as possible for now.7 However exactly it is understood, what is important is that, in any given case of rule-following, we have something with the following structure: a state that can play the role of rule-acceptance; and some non-deviant casual chain leading from that state to a piece of behavior that would allow us to say that the accepted rule explains and (in the personal-level case) rationalizes the behavior in question. Occasionally, I will also describe the matter in terms of the language of commitment: In rule-following, I will say, there is, on the one hand, a commitment, on the part of the thinker, to uphold a certain pattern in his thought or behavior; and, on the other, some behavior that expresses that commitment, that is explained and rationalized by it. I will leave it to the reader to discern whether I have construed these notions in a way that is illicit or question begging. For the moment, let me just note that this characterization coincides well with the way Kripke seems to be thinking about the phenomenon of rule-following. As he says apropos of following the rule for addition: (p.32) I learned—and internalized instructions for—a rule, which determines how addition is to be continued…This set of directions, I may suppose, I explicitly gave myself at some earlier time…It is this set of directions…that justifies and determines my present response.8 I think it was a mistake on Kripke’s part to use the word “justify” in this passage, rather than the word “rationalize.” In talking about rule-following, it is important to bear in mind that we might be following bad rules. The problem of rule-following arises no less for Modus Ponens than it does for Affirming the Consequent or Gambler’s Fallacy. If I am following Gamblers’ Fallacy, my betting big on black after a long string of reds at the roulette wheel wouldn’t be justified; but it would be rationalized by the rule that I am following. Given that I am committed to the fallacious rule, it makes sense that I would bet big on black at that point. We may summarize our characterization of personal-level rule-following by the following four theses: (Acceptance) If S is following rule R (‘If C, do A’), then S has somehow accepted R. (Correctness) If S is following rule R, then S acts correctly relative to his acceptance if it is the case that C and he does A. (Explanation) If S is following rule R by doing A, then S’s acceptance of R explains S’s doing A. (Rationalization) If S is following rule R by doing A, then S’s acceptance of R rationalizes S’s doing A. With this characterization of the personal-level notion in place, it is possible, I think, to see the subpersonal notion of following a rule as involving the first three elements but not the fourth. If I say of a calculator that it is adding, then I am saying that its ‘internalization’ of the rule for addition (via programming) explains why it gives the answers that it gives. But I am obviously not saying that the addition rule rationalizes the calculator’s answers. The calculator doesn’t act for reasons, much less general ones.9 3. Acceptance, Intention, and Wright’s Problem With these important preliminaries behind us, let us turn to asking why there is supposed to be a problem about following a rule. What, in particular, does Kripke find so mystifying about it? Kripke’s problem is focused on the personal-level notion and on the Acceptance condition for it. He is struck by two facts. First, by the fact that most of the rules we follow are rules with infinitary contents; and, second, by the fact that our rules are supposed to rationalize (he says “justify”) the behavior that constitutes following them. (p.33) And he is mystified by how it might be possible for finite minds like ours to instantiate the sort of state that would have both features. What could rule acceptance be such that it could have both of these requisite features? Kripke illustrates his problem by considering the case of the symbol ‘+’. In using this symbol, he supposes, I may be taken to be following the rule for addition. In what does this fact consist? There look to be two serious candidates: either in some fact about my dispositions to use the symbol, or in some sort of intentional fact about me. Kripke finds both candidates wanting. Now, Wright agrees with Kripke’s rejection of dispositionalism. He maintains, however, that the intentional suggestion emerges unscathed from Kripke’s skeptical considerations. As he puts it: so far from finding any mystery in the matter, we habitually assign just these characteristics [the characteristics constitutive of the acceptance of a rule] to the ordinary notion of intention… intentions may be general, and so may possess, in the intuitively relevant sense, potentially infinite content.10 This is the position that I earlier called the Intention View.11 The Intention View, of course, is just a special version of a more general class of views according to which rule acceptance consists in some intentional state or other, even if it is not identified specifically with an intention. Call this more general view the Intentional View of rule acceptance. Although I will follow Wright in focusing on the Intention View, most everything I say will apply to the less committal Intentional View. Wright considers the Intention View to be a perfectly adequate response to Kripke’s question, as far as it goes. He believes the real difficulty lies not in explaining how it is possible for there to be such infinitary commitments, but rather in explaining how it is possible for a subject to have the sort of authoritative self-knowledge about them that we seem to have. For Wright takes it to be characteristic of the intuitive notion of intention, that it is a state of mind, alongside mood, thought, desire, sensation, etc., for which, in at least a very large class of cases, subjects have special authority and whose epistemology is first/third person asymmetric.12 And he takes the difficult question to be how states with such epistemologies are possible. (p.34) I think there is no doubt about two points. First, that there are many instances of rule-following that are well captured by the Intention View, the email example outlined above being one of them. One adopts the email rule by forming a general intention to answer any email upon receipt and by having this intention subsequently inform and control one’s behavior. The second point on which we can all agree is that Wright’s worry is a genuine one, in as much as it is very difficult to explain how we are able to have authoritative first-personal knowledge of our intentional states. There are at least two problems here (externalist conceptions of content would add a third). First, intentional states typically lack an individuative phenomenology. How, then, are we able to introspect them so reliably? And why are they first-person/third-person asymmetric? Second, intentional attributions often behave as though what is getting attributed is a capacity or a disposition to do something, and not some state of mind which could be wholly present to the subject’s consciousness at a given moment in time.13 Thus, we allow that Doron can authoritatively avow at time t that he wants to play chess, even if he did not explicitly think at t of all the rules that chess consists in. But this avowal will be defeated if Doron’s subsequent performance falls short of the standard implicit in the attribution—if for example, he goes on to show that he doesn’t understand the rules of chess. How can we reconcile these two facets of the attribution of an intentional state? By way of solving these problems, Wright experiments with treating avowals as fact-constituting rather than fact-detecting judgments. Given the difficulty of accounting for these judgments in classically Cartesian terms, this is clearly a line of research that is worth pursuing. But it is hard to see how to pull it off: it’s hard to see how it could in general be true that facts about mental content are constituted by our judgments, since, it would appear that, by the terms of the theory itself, facts about the contents of the putatively fact-constituting judgments would have to be constituted independently of such judgments.14 Still, I agree with Wright that this consideration doesn’t decisively refute such views and that there are many interesting questions about them that remain to be investigated.