Rule-Following and Finitude

It can seem that the point of the finitude argument put forward by the meaning sceptic in Saul Kripke’s Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language is merely that of undermining a particular approach to meaning, the dispositionalist approach. I argue that Kripke’s remarks about finitude have a more universal purport than has been recognized. They supply the materials for a better understanding of the kind of creatures we are and of the kind of phenomenon meaning is.