Real Rules

Crispin Wright has for many years expressed frustration at Wittgenstein’s ‘quietism’ —his refusal to offer substantive answers to the metaphysical and epistemological problems that are raised, Wright alleges, by Wittgenstein’s own reflections on rules. In a recent paper Wright suggests this quietism can be explained by Wittgenstein’s rejection of a picture that seems to indicate Platonism and communitarianism as the only available solutions to these ostensible metaphysical and epistemological problems. I agree with Wright that Wittgenstein would reject the initial assumptions that pit the realist against the communitarian, but I tell my own story on behalf of Wittgenstein about what is wrong with the altogether misconceived picture that generates the dilemma.