The Logic and Metaphysics Workshop will meet on December 8th from 2:00-4:00 in-person at the Graduate Center (Room 8203) for a talk by Claudine Verheggen (York University, Toronto).

Title: Wittgenstein’s Response to Kripke’s Wittgenstein

Abstract: In response to the skeptical problem he found in the writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Saul Kripke argued that the only possible rejoinder was a skeptical solution. He did not consider what I take to be Wittgenstein’s way out, which is to dissolve the problem, showing that the skeptic’s conception of what it is for words to have meaning is misguided and therefore the skeptical problem unmotivated. Both skeptical solution and dissolution are committed to semantic nonreductionism. But I do not think that both are committed to semantic quietism. I argue that, whereas the skeptical solution can only lead to quietism, as it concedes that the foundational challenge the skeptic has raised cannot be met and thus only descriptive remarks about meaning are forthcoming, the dissolution of the skeptical problem opens up an alternative way of thinking about meaning, a way which generates its own problem, the resolution of which may result in constructive, albeit still non-reductionist, remarks about meaning.