Horwich’s Criticism against Kripke’s Account of Rule-following

Paul Horwich has criticized Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s (KW) rule-following argument. In this paper, I shall explore one of Horwich’s multiple objections to KW and argue that it is not effective. In section 2 I will discuss KW’s meaning skepticism. Of various candidates that KW explores for the facts that meaning-ascription sentences are meant to correspond, I will explain exclusively dispositional facts. In section 3 Horwich’s explanation of KW’s “rational guidance argument” against dispositionalism about meaning-ascription sentences. This will be followed by a discussion of Horwich’s objection to the argument in section 4. By introducing the idea of “self-correction disposition,” as it will be explained, Horwich tries to save the dispositionalism. In the final section of the paper I shall try to show that Horwich’s appeal to the disposition to self-correct faces the problem of “rational guidance argument” again