Seen as socially transmitted and customary normative injunctions or immanently normative dispositions, rules are prescriptive and are un-derstood by analogy with the obedience of an order (Wittgenstein 1953
§§ 202, 228, 230) in spite of the distinction between right and wrong rule, and since rules are differently applied, one may distinguish be-tween abnormal and normal rules (e.g. the student rule of natural num-bers written as integers 1, 0, 3, 2, 5, 4 (Wittgenstein 1953 § 143; see also 141, 142)). Following logical consistency, this abnormal rule is also based on a shared form of life. Otherwise it would not be a rule.
Thus, neither does the abnormality of rules forcibly entail the refusal of any rule, nor is an abnormal ambiguous rule a senseless (private) rule.
For example, albeit in the context of the nineteenth century, Nora’s rule to leave her marriage can be seen as an abnormal rule. This rule is not forcibly senseless. The fact that in the nineteenth century political leg-islation could hardly include a woman abandoning her husband did not refute that human history was full of similar decisions, and there was still a shared moral agreement on human liberty and equality (Locke 1679 [1960]; Kant 1787 [1968]).
Furthermore, in spite of the different meaning of criteria in Witt-genstein’s philosophy (Albritton1959; Canfield 1974; Cavell 1979, 1990), one may not dismiss the fact that before A Doll’s House was written by Ibsen in 1879, political philosophy had already stressed the universal value of human dignity (Kant 1787 [1968]) and the univer-sality of human rights (Locke 1679 [1960]). So, in spite of explicit dis-criminatory statements, for example against women (e.g. Kant’s (1784 [1968]) judgment on the avoidance of liberty by the ‘fair sex’), its start-ing principles (or criteria) were, and are not, compatible with human discrimination (e.g. gender or discrimination). For that reason, although current political society was still not ordered under there being equal political rights for every human being, it does not mean that there is not a shared moral understanding of the refusal of women’s treatment as foolish children. The abnormal rule did not lack a criterion, i.e. a reason or explanation for its use.
However, the political (and ethical) value of the rule ‘leave the cage of dolls’ depends on different criteria. For instance, under the crite-rion ‘the right or the good woman is a woman who sacrifices herself for her husband’, ‘leave the cage of dolls’ can be seen as an unprincipled, irresponsible, egoistic and immoral rule. Conversely, under the criterion
‘the right or the good woman is a free and autonomous woman’, ‘leave the cage of dolls’ can be seen as a fair rule. Similarly, the rule ‘remain
Rules and personal changing 95 in the cage of dolls’ can be seen under ‘the right or the good woman is a free and autonomous woman’ as an unprincipled, irresponsible, egoistic and immoral rule and a moral one under the criterion ‘the right or the good woman is a woman who sacrifices herself for her husband’. For that reason, besides constituting what Cavell names the argument of the ordinary (Cavell 1979, 1990; see Mulhall 1994, 2007), Nora’s repudia-tion and acceptance of criteria always entails the choice of rules. Choice of rules shows that they are not forcibly a priori limiting the personal free quest for a personal voice. Consequently, rules do not limit person-al liberty nor can personperson-al change following criteria be understandable or exteriorizable beyond concrete, even if abnormal, (moral) rules.
Moreover, since ‘The more abnormal the case, the more doubtful it becomes what we are to say’ (Wittgenstein 1952 § 142), and even Nora’s decision has almost become uncontroversial – at least in certain places in the world – one may not neglect the ‘amount’ of doubt and misunderstanding surrounding someone who, in the nineteenth cen-tury, decided ‘to leave the cage of dolls’ and to live according to the Kantian principle (or criteria) of an equal and free human being (Kant 1785/6 [1968]). Nonetheless, and in spite of the social frame of rules, the ‘amount’ of doubt and misunderstanding does not dismiss personal responsibility. Applying rules is in Wittgenstein’s philosophy an intrin-sically personal act – ‘Don’t always think that you read off what you say from the facts; that you portray these in words according to rules. For even so you would have to apply the rule in the particular case without guidance’ (Wittgenstein 1953 § 292).
Applying a rule without guidance can entail applying an abnormal rule under a criterion. For example, the rule ‘leave the cage of dolls’
could be understood as an abnormal rule under a moral criterion for women i.e. ‘the right or the good woman is a free and autonomous woman’. Therefore, from our perspective, there is no conflict between politically depressed and deprived persons lacking any political rule, and cruel and despotic persons following unfair political rules. Howev-er, there is the conflict between two rules (e.g. the rule of fairness and the rule of inequality), which one may say from Wittgenstein’s point of view is the conflict between a normal and abnormal rule.
It is true that Wittgenstein asserts that ‘Not only rules, but also ex-amples are needed for establishing a practice. Our rules leave loop-holes
open, and the practice has to speak for itself.’ (Wittgenstein 1969 §139).
For example, when children are learning a practice, since they do not know the names yet, teachers ought to make use of examples (Wittgen-stein 1953 §§135, 208, 210). But the fact that the learner can dispense with explicit references to rules does not mean that practices are anarchic or anomic (Wittgenstein 1969 §139) nor that rules (and criteria) are al-ways explicitly formulated (Canfield 1974).
In sum, since rules are not prior to their application, the process of the inner changing is encompassed by the establishment of a rule under a criterion (e.g. women ought to leave their marriages when their husbands do not treat them as ends in themselves (Kant 1785/6 [1968]).
Accordingly, we cannot change without explicit or implicit (Wittgen-stein 1969 §95) rules framed by criteria, i.e. any personal change results from the public co-evaluation under a guiding rule.
Conclusions
Even if we acknowledge the contribution of Cavell’s exegesis of Witt-genstein to expose the existential issues underlying WittWitt-genstein’s phi-losophy, we stress the social and public frame of any search for personal changing. Inspired by Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language, we argued that any personal changing requires the mediation of political rules, fol-lowing criteria, even though these rules are in the end abnormal rules.
We also argued that although criteria do certify the public content of those rules, criteria and rules are not immediately followed by individ-uals. Customs are embedded in societies’ rules and institutions are sys-tems of rules (Rawls 1971).
From these premises we concluded that individual changing results from a guiding public rule even if it is an abnormal public rule. We can-not change without explicit or implicit (Wittgenstein 1969 § 95) rules.
Future research could explain the changing of political rules under the Wittgensteinian concept of ‘seeing-as’. Future research could also reassess the understanding of a personal judgment without rules under Kant’s (1790 [1968]) theory of taste judgment. Explicitly articulated by
Rules and personal changing 97 Cavell (1990), the Kantian approach to rules and judgments can also offer sound arguments to the endless claim for justice.
Finally, future research could also clarify the political consequenc-es of erasing the tragic dimension of politics and further the already ex-isting reflection on the relationship between the philosophical thought of Wittgenstein and Nietzsche (e.g. Bowls 2003; Cavell 1990; Williams 1993). Instead of a political consensus on rules and criteria, the tragic dimension of our political existence warns us about the unavoidable gap between an ideal fair society and the current political injustices (Cavell 1967, 1997) and our political responsibility to demand a decent and fair human society.
References
Addis, Mark (1999). Wittgenstein: Making Sense of Other Minds.
Burlington: Ashgate.
Albritton, Rogers (1959). ‘On Wittgenstein’s Use of the Term “Criteri-on”’. Journal of Philosophy 56 (22): 845–857.
Baker, Gordon, & Peter Hacker (1985). Wittgenstein. Rules, Grammar and Necessity. In An Analytical Commentary on Philosophical In-vestigations, vol. 2: Oxford: Blackwell.
Barret, Cyril (1991). Wittgenstein on Ethics and Religious Belief.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Bernstein, Charles (1981). ‘Reading Cavell Reading Wittgenstein’.
Boundary 2, 9(2): 295–306.
Bloor, David (1997). Wittgenstein, Rules and Institutions. London and New York: Routledge.
Bowls, M. J. (2003). ‘The Practice of Meaning in Nietzsche and Witt-genstein’. The Journal of Nietzsche Studies 26: 12–24.
Brown, Harold (1988). Rationality. New York: Routledge.
Budd, Malcolm (1984). ‘Wittgenstein on Meaning, Interpretation and Rules’. Synthese 58: 303–323.
Canfield, John (1974). ‘Criteria and Rules of Language’. The Philo-sophical Review 83(1): 70–87.
Canfield, John (ed.) (1986). The Philosophy of Wittgenstein, Volume 9:
The Private Language Argument. New York: Garland.
Cavell, Stanley (1969). Must We Mean What We Say? Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press.
Cavell, Stanley (1979). The Claim of Reason. Oxford: Oxford Univer-sity Press.
Cavell, Stanley (1990). Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome: The Constitution of Emersonian Perfectionism. Chicago: The Universi-ty of Chicago Press.
Cometti, Jean Pierre (1996). Philosopher avec Wittgenstein. Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France.
Conant, James (2000). ‘Elucidation and Nonsense in Frege and Ear-ly Wittgenstein’, in Alice Crary and Rupert Read (eds.), The New Wittgenstein. London: Routledge: 174–217
Conant, James (2005). ‘Stanley Cavell’s Wittgenstein’. Harvard Review of Philosophy 13(1): 51–65.
Cook, John (1988). ‘Wittgenstein and Religious Belief’. Philosophy 63 (246): 427–452.
Cook, John (1965). ‘Wittgenstein on Privacy’. The Philosophical Re-view 84(3): 281–314.
Diamond, Cora (2005). ‘Wittgenstein on Religious Belief: The Gulfs Between Us’, in Dewi Philips and Mario Van der Ruhr (eds.), Reli-gion and Wittgenstein’s Legacy. Burlington: Ashgate: 99–137.
Eldridge, Richard (2003). ‘Wittgenstein and the Conversation of Justice’, in Cressida Heyes (ed.), The Grammar Politics: Wittgenstein and Political Philosophy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press: 117–128.
Engel, Morris (1970). ‘Wittgenstein and Kant’. Philosophy and Phe-nomenological Research 30 (4): 483–513.
Fleming, Richard, & Michael Payne (eds.) (1989). The Senses of Stan-ley Cavell. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press.
Fogelin, Robert (1976). Wittgenstein. London: Routledge.
Garver, Newton (1990). ‘Form of Life in Wittgenstein’s Later Work’.
Dialectica 44: 175–201.
Glock, Hans-Johann. 1997. Kant and Wittgenstein: Philosophy, neces-sity and representation. International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 5(2): 285–305.
Rules and personal changing 99 Hacker, Peter (1986). Insight and Illusion: Themes in the Philosophy of
Wittgenstein. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
____ (1990). Wittgenstein: Meaning and Mind, Volume 3 of an Ana-lytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Haller, Rudolf (1988). Questions on Wittgenstein. London: Routledge.
Hammer, Espen (2002). Stanley Cavell: Skepticism, Subjectivity, and the Ordinary. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Holt, Robin (1997). Wittgenstein, Politics and Human Rights. London:
Routledge.
Hunter, John (1968). ‘Forms of Life in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical In-vestigations’. American Philosophical Quarterly 5: 233–243.
____ (1977). ‘Wittgenstein on inner processes and outward criteria’.
Canadian Journal of Philosophy 7: 805–817.
Ibsen, Henrik (1879 [1981]). A Doll’s House. in Four Major Plays.
Trans. James McFarlane and Jens Arup. Oxford: Oxford Univer-sity Press.
Johannessen, Renate (1988). ‘Rule following and tacit knowledge’. AI
& Society 2(4): 287–302.
Kant, Immanuel (1784 [1968]). ‘Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?’, in Immanuel Kant Werksausgabe, edited by Wil-helm Weischedel, Band IX: 61–91. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
____ (1785/6 [1968]). ‘Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten’, in Im-manuel Kant Werksausgabe, edited by Wilhelm Weischedel, Band IV: 11–102. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
____ (1787 [1968]). ‘Kritik der Reinen Vernunft’, in Immanuel Kant Werksausgabe, edited by Wilhelm Weischedel, Band III–IV: Frank-furt am Main: Suhrkamp.
____ (1790 [1968]). ‘Kritik der Urteilskraf’, in Immanuel Kant Werk-sausgabe, edited by Wilhelm Weischedel, Band X: Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Kenny, Anthony (1984). The Legacy of Wittgenstein. Oxford: Blackwell.
Kripke, Saul (1982). Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. Ox-ford: Blackwell.
Langås, Unni (2005). ‘What Did Nora Do? Thinking Gender with a Doll’s House’. Ibsen Studies 5(2): 148–171.
Locke, John (1679 [1960]). ‘Two Treatises of Government’, in Cam-bridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, edited by Peter Laslett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Malcolm, Norman (1977). Thought and Knowledge. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
____ (1989). ‘Wittgenstein on language and rules’. Philosophy 64:
5–28.
Malcolm, Norman, & Peter Winch (1993). Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View? edited with a response by Peter Winch. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press.
McDowell, John (1984). ‘Wittgenstein on Following a Rule’. Synthese 58 (1984): 325–63.
McGinn, Marie (1999). ‘Between Metaphysics and Nonsense: Eluci-dation in Wittgensten’s Tractactus’. The Philosophical Quarterly 49: 491–513.
____ (2004). ‘The everyday alternative to scepticism: Cavell and Witt-genstein on other minds’, in Denis McManus(ed.) WittWitt-genstein and Scepticism, London: Routledge: 240–258.
Moore, Gareth (2005). ‘Wittgenstein’s English Parson: Some Reflec-tions on the Reception of Wittgenstein in the Philosophy of Reli-gion’, Dewi Z. Phillips and Mario Von der Ruhr (eds.), Religion and Wittgenstein’s Legacy. Burlington: Ashgate: 209–228.
Moore, A.W., & Peter Sullivan (2003). ‘Ineffability and Nonsense’. Ar-istotelian Society Supplementary Volume 77 (1): 169–193.
Mosser, Kurt (2008). ‘Kant and Wittgenstein: Common Sense, Therapy, and the Critical Philosophy’. Philosophia 31(1): 1–20.
Mulhall, Stephen (1994). Stanley Cavell: Philosophy’s Recounting on the Ordinary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mulhall, Stephen (2007). Wittgenstein’s Private Language: Gram-mar, Nonsense, and Imagination in Philosophical Investigations,
§§ 243–315. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Nielsen, Kai (2001). ‘Wittgenstein and Wittgensteinians on Religion’
in Robert L. Arrington and Mark Addis (eds.), Wittgenstein and Philosophy of Religion. London: Routledge: 137–166.
Nielsen, Kai (2008). The Evolution of the Private Language Argument.
Burlington: Ashgate.
Rules and personal changing 101 Phillips, Dewi, & Peter Winch (eds) (1989). Wittgenstein: Attention to
Particulars. Houndmills: Macmillan.
Phillips, Dewi (1993). Wittgenstein and Religion. New York: St. Mar-tin’s Press.
Pitkin, Hanna (1972). Wittgenstein and Justice: On the Significance of Ludwig Wittgenstein for Social and Political Thought. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Rawls, John (1971). A Theory of Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Taylor, Charles (1992). ‘To Follow a Rule’, in Mette Hjort (ed.), Rules and Conventions: Literature, Philosophy, Social Theory. Balti-more: John Hopkins University: 167–185.
Temelini, Michael (2015). Wittgenstein and Politics. Toronto: Univer-sity of Toronto.
Templeton, Joan (1989). ‘The Doll House Backlash: Criticism, Femi-nism, and Ibsen’. PMLA 104 (1): 28–40.
____ (1997). Ibsen’s Women. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tully, James (2003). ‘Wittgenstein and Political Philosophy: Under-standing Practices of Critical Reflection’ in Cressida Heyes (ed.), The Grammar Politics: Wittgenstein and Political Philosophy.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press: 17- 42.
Tymoczko, Thomas (1984). ‘Gödel, Wittgenstein and the Nature of Mathematical Knowledge’. Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association (2): Symposia and Invited Papers: 449–468.
Wellman, Carl (1962). ‘Wittgenstein’s conception of a criterion’. Philo-sophical Review 71: 433: 447.
Williams, Bernard (1993). ‘Nietzsche’s Minimalist Moral Psychology’.
European Journal of Philosophy 1(1): 4–14.
Winch, Peter (1987). Trying to Make Sense. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1953). Philosophical Investigations. 2nd Edition.
Translated by E. M. Anscombe. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers.
____ (1965). ‘Wittgenstein Lecture on Ethics’. Philosophical Review 74: 311–339.
____ (1966). Lecture and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology, and Religion, edited by Cyril Barrett. Berkeley: University of Califor-nia Press.
____ (1969). On Certainty. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe and G.H.
von Wright. Oxford: Blackwell.
____ (1980). Culture and Value, edited by. G. H. Von Wright and H. Nyman, translated by Peter Winch. Oxford: Blackwell.
Wolgast, Eike (1964). ‘Wittgenstein and criteria’. Inquiry 7: 348: 366.
Yuehua, Guo (2009). ‘Gender Struggle over Ideological Power in Ib-sen’s A Doll’s House’. Canadian Social Science 5 (1): 79–87.
The Ethico-Political Dimension of Foucault’s Thought
Marta Faustino