Rules: Looking in the Right Place

Abstract

I read ′The Philosophy of Wittgenstein′, Rush Rhees′s review of Pitcher′s study of Wittgenstein, soon after it was published, and have read it again many times since then. Phrases and sentences in it have stuck in my mind, and have guided my thought about Wittgenstein′s work. Some of Rhees′s remarks stayed in my mind because I understood them, or thought I did, and found them particularly illuminating; some because I did not understand them, or not at all completely, but had a persistent sense that I should try to. Rhees also drew attention in that review to several passages in Wittgenstein′s writings and to remarks of his in lectures; and his selection of those passages and remarks has always seemed to me one of the best things in the review. I shall look at the first half of the sentence of Rhees′s with which I began this essay. But I want first simply to list some of the things in that review, things which have been in my mind for years and which I am particularly glad to have had put there.

Show how rules of grammar are rules of the lives in which there is language; and show at the same time that rules have not the role of empirical statements. (Rhees, 1970: p. 45)