WITTGENSTEIN ON MEANING AND RULE-FOLLOWING
MATTHEW J. DENSLEYABSTRACT. Wittgenstein's remarks on rule-following constitute an attack on the theory of meaning of the Tractatus, but the significance he places on it shows a salient continuity with his earlier work. Meaning is still seen as central to philosophical theorizing, and Wittgenstein's concern remains to show how this enterprise is misguided. The later Wittgenstein attempts to unearth the intuitions that bring us to offer philosophical theories in the first place. His remarks on rule-following are most informatively regarded as part of a rejection of a very general approach to philosophical theorizing, which I shall call "conceptual realism", which assumes a distinction between language and an independent reality which justifies its use.