This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Bernasconi-Kohn, L. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

How Not to Think about Rules and Rule Following

A Response to Stueber

Pembroke College, Cambridge, United Kingdom

This article offers a critique of Karsten Stueber’s account of rule following as presented in his article "How to Think about Rules and Rule Following." The task Stueber sets himself is of defending the idea that human practices are bound and guided by rules (both causally and normatively) while avoiding the discredited "cognitive model of rule following." This article argues that Stueber’s proposal is unconvincing because it falls foul of the very problems it sets out to avoid. Stueber’s defense of rules as normative guides is shown to be either circular or burdened with an infinite regress, while his account of rules as causal determinants of our actions is shown to lapse back into the "cognitive model" that he explicitly rejects.

Key Words: rules • rule following • norms • causes • social science

Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Vol. 36, No. 1, 86-94 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/0048393105284228


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?