1. John McDowell presents a reading of Wittgenstein's remarks on rule-following which sets out to absolve Wittgenstein from the charge that he puts forward what McDowell sees as an untenable view, namely, that when it comes to applying a rule in a new case, what counts as correct is somehow determined by the responses that the members of the relevant speech community are inclined to make. McDowell argues that this conception of what counts as correct in a new case is not only revisionary of our common-sense view that the pattern of application of our concepts is independent of our ratification of it but destroys the very idea that there is any such thing as someone's meaning something by the words he utters. McDowell further points out that the revisionary aspect of what is known as the communitarian interpretation is at odds with Wittgenstein's conception of his philosophical method: that one should not try ‘to advance theses in philosophy’ (PI §128).

I share McDowell's dissatisfaction with the communitarian reading, and I am generally sympathetic with his concern to find a reading of Wittgenstein's remarks which avoids committing him to a communitarian account of what constitutes the correct result of applying a rule in a new case. However, there is a question whether McDowell's reading simply reinstates a form of platonism which Wittgenstein's reflections show to be problematic. McDowell argues that this objection to his reading reflects an implicit commitment to the demand for a constructive account of what meaning and understanding consist in and leads inevitably to the communitarian account he claims is untenable. On his reading, Wittgenstein does not intend to put what he calls our common-sense conception of what it is to grasp a rule in question; rather he reminds us of our common conception in an attempt to overcome problems and paradoxes that arise from a certain mistaken idea of what it is to go by a rule.

The dispute between McDowell and the communitarian has the following form: McDowell asserts that Wittgenstein defends the correctness of our common-sense view and the communitarian claims that he shows it to be untenable and in need of revision.