ABSTRACT
A rule skeptic says that our thought is the thought it is only if it has a specific meaning. But “It is hot” has that meaning only if it is used standardly—in accord with a standard semantic rule. The rule skeptic generalizes this kind of worry. For any possible thought, there are both standard and nonstandard rules for interpreting it. People tend to ignore nonstandard ones, since they do not take a person's words “at face value.” Rule skeptics contend that never know that words are not as easily in-terpretable by a nonstandard semantic rule as by a standard one. Obviously, this rule skeptical claim sounds implausible. Rule skeptics deny that can know that people are using words in one, rather than another, way. How do people know that they are following the right semantic rule when they think “vase”—the rule that makes word mean vase.
