Paul Boghossian at the Normativity Workshop

Paul gave a paper entitled 'Rules and Norms'. He began by reminding us of how central rule-following is to our understanding of what it is to be in the business of rational belief. He then went on to detail some differences between what he called rules in the guise of imperatival contents ('If C, do A') and normative propositions such as those that grant permission to do something on occasion of some state of affairs obtaining. He argued we have no clear understanding of which of these logical forms governs the rule-following constitutive of rational belief.

But whatever we decide about that, we accept that rule-following involves essentially the following four factors:

1) (Acceptance) If S is following rule R, then S has somehow accepted R.
2) (Correctness) If S is following rule R by doing A, then S's acceptance of R determines whether S's doing A is correct relative to his acceptance of R.
3) (Explanation) If S is following rule R by doing A, then, S's acceptance of R explains S's doing A.
4) (Rationalisation) If S is following R by doing A, then, S's acceptance of R rationalises S's doing A.

A popluar and natural way to incorporate these factors into a response to the rule-following sceptic is to take the 'Intention View' - the view that when we accept a rule we form an intention to correctly apply it over a potentially infinite amount of cases and that such acceptance both explains (sets causal conditions for right responses) and rationalises our rule-following behaviour.

Paul raised problems for the Intention View and by extension any view that invokes intentional content in its response to rule-following scepticism. He pointed out that problems remain even if we reject Kripke's 'meaning assumption' (the assumption that the contents of thoughts are understood on account of following rules so that if we respond to the sceptic who doubts our grasp of the meaning of 'plus' in terms of words like 'count', she can just bring into doubt our grasp of such words, and so on to infinity). Rather, the central problem for the Intention View remains even if we allow that there can be meaningful mental content that is not understood in terms of rule-following. That problem is that grasping any rule at the personal level relies on grasping a general conditional content governed by a deductive inference rule such as Modus Ponens. But then, how are we to explain grasp of that rule? Thus an infinite regress is generated in the manner of Lewis Carroll's famous argument in 'What the Tortoise said to Achilles'. Except the regress applies not only to the justification of applying a rule, but to rationalising such application as well: in other words, the regress rears up even in cases of unjustified rule-following, such as where we apply a bad rule.

This regress leaves us with the unpalatable rejection of the idea that accepting a rule consists in an intentional state with a conditional content. Paul argued this in fact was Wittgenstein's view: that if rule-following is to be possible at all then some of it must be blind. This puts in danger our intuitive generalist understanding of Rational Belief as governed by epistemic rules.

Paul finished by arguing that a dispositionalist response will not work here because something cannot rationalise or explain itself, so that a disposition must be explained and rationalised by the following of a rule. This leaves us with the idea that not only must we take mental content to be primitive (as we did when we rejected the meaning assumption), but also 'a general conditional content that acts as a reason to believe something'. Paul confessed, although he didn't say why, to not understanding how there could be such a primitive contentful state.

Objections and questions were many during a very stimulating discussion period, but I shall mention the few that my meagre memory cells can adequately recall.

Several people wondered whether an imperatival account of rules and norms wasn't perhaps still a live option.

In response to the infinite regress Paul generated it was suggested that we take the classic line of response to the Lewis Carroll dilemma: we argue that a subject S is operating in accordance with a rule of inference such as Modus Ponens without explicitly accepting it via propositional understanding. To this Paul resonded that Modus Ponens is a general rule that is defined over infinite applications and so one cannot be in accord with it on account of some kind of particularistic grasp of its application.

It was suggested that perhaps the minimal case of following a rule (which involves for PB the four factors outlined above) was too rich. Perhaps some less thick notion of rule-following might suffice that obviated the appeal to a rule of inference that governs a general conditional content? But, it was responded, it is hard to see how something can be a rule without at least (1) and (2) (see above) being satisfied.

Finally, it was suggested that the infinite regress PB had highlighted was not Wittgenstein's problem. The latter, it was suggested, consists in finding an answer to the question 'How do I know what I mean?' rather than the problem of how a rule like Modus Ponens can be a premise in an explanation of how I understand some further rule.

I for one would like to know more about why it is mysterious that 'a general conditional content that acts as a reason to believe something' could be taken as generated by a primitive cognitive-semantic capacity. Perhaps the difficulty here is in thinking there can be such a primitive mental content without there also being a subject who thinks. If I am to be able to think the content Fa then presumably I can think the inferential relations between Fa and Ga, between say, 'being red' and 'being coloured' - that, after all, is what it is to 'think' (it is essential to the content Fa that it be inferentially related to the content Ga - without such relations, there is no such content). But this is just a case of operating with the logical form of the conditional that a grasp of Modus Ponens presupposes; 'if a is red, then a is coloured.' So if we are going to take mental content as primitive I don't see what is so strange about taking 'a general conditional content that acts as a reason to believe something' as primitive, once we accept that content is always for a thinking subject. This brings us close to something like endorsing a 'transcendental' subject without which rule-following would not be possible.