ABSTRACT
To drive home the intended exclusion of nonnaturalistic processes, Wittgenstein said that when we follow a rule, ultimately, we act blindly: ‘Ich folge der Regel blind’ (§219). There may indeed be intervening processes of interpretation, e.g. using subsidiary rules to follow the original rule, but in the end we just act. This was the famous conclusion in Investigations §201. Such routinized behavior does not, of course, by itself necessarily amount to correct rule-following. What seems right and what is right are two different things (§258). That aspect of rule-following, the normative aspect, derives from the consensus between different rule-followers. Rule-following is a practice (§202). But as far as routine, individual acts of following are concerned, the ultimate basis of the act is blind habit: this is simply what I do (§217). We can see in this argument how Wittgenstein set aside the categories of the rationalist tradition, and reasserted those of the conservative tradition, and how priority was given to practice over theory.
