O que é seguir uma regra? Reflexões filosóficas sobre normatividade

Abstract

This thesis approach the question contained in its title, taking as starting point the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein and other authors related to him. In the first chapter, different aspects of Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy are evaluated. In the second chapter, it is argued that rules should be understood as reasons and that only beings endowed with some form of knowledge and capable of intentional behavior can follow them. Without appealing to the capacity to adopt sapient normative positions, it is not possible to make the fundamental distinction between following and merely conforming to a rule. Chapters III and IV deal directly with problems canonically formulated in Saul Kripke's Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. The communitarian conception defended by this author is criticized, mainly through considerations on the distinction between public and private. It follows from this that belonging to a community is not a necessary condition to be a rule-follower. As a more appropriate solution to Kripke's skeptic challenge, the characterization of rule-following as a specific ability to see aspects of action itself is pointed out. This capacity is constitutive of symbolic language and, therefore, logically prior to it, so that to follow a rule it is not necessary to master a language, understood in the strict sense. Finally, in the light of these reflections, metaphilosophical arguments discussed in the first chapter are taken up and expanded in order to substantiate the rejection of the quietist conception espoused by Wittgenstein.