Rule-Following. From Imitation to the Normative Mind ebook

The problem of rule-following has been present in philosophical literature at least since Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. The number of contributions to the topic has been enormous, and their proper analysis would require several thick volumes. In face of this fact, an apologia seems in place: why have I decided to write yet another work on the subject? My defence is twofold. First, I believe that much of the existing literature pertaining to rule-following is centred around the problem of language rules, while other kinds of rule-following are ignored. This is quite understandable given the focus of Wittgenstein’s analysis, as well as the popularity of Kripke’s influential book, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. However, I would suggest that the prevailing reading of Wittgenstein is too limiting: his insights are relevant for all types of rule-following. Second, there exists a cluster of ideas that have originated in various disciplines and which seem surprisingly coherent: Wittgenstein’s analysis of rule-following; the mirror neuron hypothesis in neuroscience; the importance of imitation in recently proposed evolutionary scenarios; the ‘embodied mind’ paradigm as developed by Lakoff and his collaborators; and finally some aspects of Popper’s long-neglected ontology of three worlds. It has been difficult to resist the temptation to describe the relationships between those ideas and it is my hope that the result of this attempt – the theory of rules developed in this book – offers some fresh insights regarding the nature of rule-following.

This book has benefited greatly from discussions with, and comments from, many people. I express my gratitude to Michael Heller and Jerzy Stelmach, who not only created the intellectually stimulating environment that I have the privilege to work in, but also shared their ideas pertaining to the problems I discuss in the study. I thank Robert Audi, Mateusz Hohol and Łukasz Kurek, who read the entire manuscript and provided me with insightful comments. My gratitude also goes to (in alphabetical order) Anna Brożek, Yadin Dudai, Marcin Gorazda, Jaap Hage, Maria Karolczak, Bartłomiej Kucharzyk, Nino Rotolo, Corrado Roversi, Magdalena Senderecka, Aeddan Shaw, Piotr Urbańczyk, Wojciech Załuski, and Radosław Zyzik, who read and commented upon parts of the text or discussed the ideas I deal with in the book. Finally, this book was written within The Limits of Scientific Explanation research project, carried out at the Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Kraków and sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation. I kindly thank both institutions for their support.

As usually, my deepest gratitude goes to Atka, for making my world richer than ever expected, and for showing me that whether you break rules or follow them, it is always better to do it together.

Bartosz Brożek

Kraków, July 2012

[1] It is possible to speak of normativity in many other ways. In particular, the prevalent idiom seems to be that a rule of behaviour is normative if it generates an objective reason for action, where reasons are understood as facts which justify undertaking some action or accepting some belief (cf. J. Hage, Reasoning with Rules. An Essay on Legal Reasoning and Its Underlying Logic, Kluwer Academic Publishers: Dordrecht 1997). Thus, one may say that rules are normative because they have the power of turning some facts into reasons. However, I have decided not to embrace this popular conceptual scheme, as I consider speaking of facts as constituting reasons a contingent feature of some languages (e.g. English), while in other languages (e.g. Polish) this mode of speaking is incorrect. At the same time, I believe that the theory I develop can relatively easily be translated into the idiom that takes ‘reason’ to be the central normative notion.

[2] Plato, Parmenides, Hackett Pub.: London 1996, p. 42.

[3] Cf. I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, transl. by P. Guyer and A.W. Wood, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge 1998.

[4]Ibidem, A713-A714.

[5]Ibidem, A183/B177.

[6]Ibidem, A140/B180.

[7]Ibidem, A105.

[8] For more details see B. Brożek, A. Olszewski, The Mathematics of the Transcendental Ego, “Copernicus Center Reports” 2011, no. 2, pp. 75–124.

[9] I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, op. cit., p.78.

[10] Cf. R. Holton, Principles and Particularisms, “Aristotelian Society Suppl. Volume” 2002, vol. 76, p. 193.

[11] For a detailed analysis of this problem cf. B. Brożek, Rationality and Discourse. Towards a Normative Model of Applying Law, Wolters Kluwer: Warszawa 2007.

[12] See in more detail B. Brożek, Normatywność prawa (The Normativity of Law), Wolters Kluwer: Warszawa 2012, chapter 1.

[13] Cf. ibidem.

[14] Th. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, transl. by Fathers of the English Dominican Province, online edition, http://www.newadvent.org/​summa/​index.html, 2008, 93.5.

[15]Ibidem, 90.1.

[16] M. Montaigne, The Complete Essays, Penguin: London 1991, pp. 653–654.

[17]Ibidem, p. 1216.

[18] Cf. B. Brożek, Normatywność prawa, op. cit., chapter 1.

[19] Cf. J.L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, Pelican Books: New York 1977.