Wittgenstein's rule-following argument establishes that meaning is fixed by public practice and training, not by any inner mental act of intending (Philosophical Investigations §§185-242).
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Ludwig Wittgenstein was an Austrian-British philosopher who fundamentally changed how people think about language and meaning in the 20th century. He argued that many philosophical problems arise from misunderstanding how words actually work in everyday life, rather than from deep metaphysical mysteries. His ideas influenced not just philosophy but also mathematics, logic, and even how people approach psychology and artificial intelligence today.
meaning(Possible-worlds semantic theory of meaning)
A rule specifying what an expression would stand for if the world were a certain way, rather than what the expression actually stands for in the current circumstance
§§185-242(as a reference to where in the text this argument is found)
A citation showing specific section numbers in Wittgenstein's book where these ideas appear (the double § symbol means 'sections').