Rules, Games and Experiences: Wittgenstein’s Discussion of Rule-Following in the Light of His Development

Abstract

When wittgenstein rejected phenomenological languages in 1929, he first could not accommodate rules (especially rules of language) in his new outlook. he had believed (he confessed) that a rule could be gathered from one single experience of using it correctly. this phenomenological conception is what he later criticized in denying that rule-following is a matter of having certain experiences. but a rule as a physicalistic entity (e.g., as a symbolic formula) cannot explain rule-following, either. it has to lay a role in some language-game, wittgenstein eventually argued. thus language-games are conceptually primary with respect to their rules.