Reduction and Elimination in Philosophy and the Sciences

one that could take place, but does not necessarily take
place. Their criticism of the community view alternative
compels them not only to defend solitary rule following
(that allegedly eliminates the role of society in rule
following practice) but also opens the way to the possibility
that no one in the society follows its own rules.
Rule following is essentially a normative practice,
one “which may be collective, but need not be” (1984: 74,
my italics). This means that it is possible that the
normativity of rule following may not prevail, i.e., that not
everyone, indeed, that no one, will actually abide by the
normative rules. Baker and Hacker’s suggestion thus
neglects the descriptive aspect of rule following, making it
an inappropriate candidate for a picture of the role of rules
in language. This creates a tension within their own
position. For on the one hand Baker and Hacker demand
that rule following be a learnable, teachable, correctable
practice, but on the other, it may happen, that it is not
actually learned, taught, corrected or practiced by anyone.
Nothing in their suggestion, I claim, prevents such a
possibility.
Baker and Hacker’s suggestion allows therefore for
a hypothetical situation in which no one in the linguistic
community follows it’s rules. I would like to claim at this
point, that even if we assign to them the weaker position
that some of the people, but not necessarily all or most,
follow the normative rules, my argument against them
remains valid. If indeed Baker and Hacker’s argument
amounts ‘merely’ to allowing the possibility of partial rule
following, the consequence (like those of the stronger
version) is a disregard of the empirical fact of the
percentage of the population that do follow the rules, thus
rendering it irrelevant for the purpose of this discussion.
This consequence, I wish to claim, is intolerable. I agree
with Baker and Hacker that a reduction of rule following to
consensus is wrong in that it cannot account for the
normative aspect of rules, however, their position ignores
the descriptive, empirical, conventional aspect of rules. For
where there are normative rules, actual rule following, the
Two Reductions of ‘rule’ — Dana Riesenfeld
actual way people use their language becomes, in Baker
and Hacker’s picture quite immaterial. They accuse Kripke
for divorcing the rule from its applications, whereas they
are guilty of separating between the normative notion of
how we ought to follow rules from the conventional way in
which we speak in fact. We are in a place where, at least
possibly, perhaps actually, the picture of rules and rule
following presented by Baker and Hacker is at best
contingently related to the way people act linguistically,
speak their language.
3. Conclusion
Both Kripke and Baker and Hacker agree that a full account
of ‘rule’ must accommodate for the rule’s normative
dimension as well as its descriptive, conventional one. In
this paper I have attempted to show that both the reduction
of rules to conventions as well as the reduction of rules to
norms does not succeed in providing the sought-after account
of the concept. In so doing, I hope to have shed light
on two concepts; conceptual reduction and rule.
Literature
Baker, G.P. and Haker, P.M.S. 1984. Skepticism, Rules and Language.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Baker, G.P. and Hacker, P.M.S. 1985. Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar,
and Necessity - Volume 2 of an Analytical Commentary on
the Philosophical Investigations. Oxford, UK and Cambridge,
Mass.: Blackwell.
Kripke, S.A. 1982. Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Wittgenstein, L. 1953. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell.
Wittgenstein, L. 1956. Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics.
Oxford: Blackwell.
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