Dispositions and Rule-following

In this chapter I present my own dispositional reading of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. I will argue that Wittgenstein’s alleged dispositionalism can be found by looking at his positive account of Rule-following, provided that both Kripke’s interpretation and the assumptions shared by the critics who engaged with Kripke’s work are rejected: 1. Contrary to Kripke’s dispositionalism, Wittgenstein’s dispositionalism is not a kind of direct response to the sceptical challenge, that is, it does not provide dispositional facts as candidates for the role of grounding fact, mainly because no such fact is needed in order to justify the linguistic practice; 2. Contrary to Kripke’s perspective, Wittgenstein talks about some general facts of nature, but these facts do not play a foundational role; 3. Dispositions play a different role than the one demanded by the kripkean sceptic: they do not determine meaning, that is, they do not guarantee constitutive normativity, and they do not metaphysically ground the practice.