The unstatability of Kripkian scepticisms  			

	There has recently been a good deal of debate over the semantic and metaphysical implications of the truth or falsity of apparently new forms of scepticism, in particular, of arguments for semantic/referential indeterminacy. But has this debate become untethered from its conceptual moorings? I wish to question whether the foremost of these relative newcomers to ‘the philosophy of language scene’ can rightly be said to have any possible implications whatsoever.
	Now, it has been shown elsewhere  how Saul Kripke’s “Wittgensteinian paradox” -- that “There can be no fact as to what I mean by ‘plus’, or any other word at any time”-- neither is Wittgenstein’s nor, a fortiori, leads us to a scepticism that Wittgenstein in any sense endorsed. It has arguably further been shown how ‘Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s’ scepticism would, if it were able to be presented and comprehended at all, be absolutely unanswerable (his “sceptical solution” - and others purported solutions - notwithstanding). But do we have any substantive reason, beyond the trivial point that the words of the sentences used to set up this scepticism are (at least mostly) words of the English language with which we are familiar, to believe that Kripke’s rule-sceptical arguments are meaningful, that they are in substance comprehensible, presentable, statable? I submit that the views of Kripke’s Wittgenstein actually only appear to be statable (by means of -- apparently -- being stated). More precisely, I shall suggest this by means of arguing it in the case of the extension of Kripke’s arguments to mental content -- “concept-scepticism”. 
	This appears to leave open the possibility that the extension of Kripke’s arguments might indeed be untenable or self-contradictory, but that the arguments themselves still require addressing in the case of linguistic rule-following (as opposed to purely ‘mental’ rule-following). Not, however, having seen the view (that the two cases are essentially different) defended in print, I shall concentrate here on the unstatability of Kripkian concept scepticism; and conclude by suggesting how these considerations may be extended back to Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s linguistic rule-scepticism. 

 	J. Sartorelli has argued, against C.McGinn, that concept-scepticism is both structurally identical to Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s linguistic rule-scepticism (or ‘semantic scepticism’) and defensible:

	“[This is] how we must describe the situation of...the sceptic if the sceptical reasoning is to apply in the case of concepts as it does on the case of meaning. Instead of intending to connect the same meaning as before with a word...the interlocutor  must intend to use, in his present thought, the same concept (correctly, of course) as he used earlier in his earlier thought. It is true that there is no word involved explicitly here. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that there be a target (the earlier application of a concept in thought) which he is intending to be guided by and in terms of which he intends his performance (i.e. his employment of concepts) to be evaluated.”  

The worry which I wish to raise is this: is “the earlier application of a concept in thought” something about which nothing further can be said? In other words, what gives us any confidence that expressions such as “the earlier application of the concept” have any application, that they succeed in denoting anything, outside the context of the purported doubt as to whether or not “the concept” is being applied in the same way now as before? (For such doubts had better not be ‘self-validating’.) If there is no other application, then the sceptical doubt Sartorelli is purporting to raise is being raised purely by fiat -- it does not have any content that we can discuss.

	The import of these claims may appear obscure. Let me clarify by reference to a philosophical debate that I think the reader will recognise as almost identical, structurally -- that over the interpretation and soundness of Davidson’s so-called “Omniscient Interpreter Argument” (or “OIA”). Edward Craig has observed that this argument gets us nowhere, “...unless we know what the beliefs are that the omniscient interpreter ascribes to us. Otherwise all we know, everything being granted and allowed, is that the belief we evince when we assent to the sentence ‘Here is a hand’ is true, whatever it may be.”  In trying to respond to difficulties such as this with Davidson’s argument, Anthony Brueckner has argued that a hierarchy of meta-beliefs could take care of the problem, with the possibility of massive error excluded at each level.  But consider his first move in constructing this hierarchy:

	“[S]cepticism about knowledge of which first-order content is expressed by my sentence ‘I have a hand’ involves the claim that (i) I have a belief about which content is so expressed... . Which second-order belief is required by (i)? Presumably, I believe that my sentence ‘I have a hand’ expresses the content that I have a hand.”  

What makes Brueckner believe here that the italicisation of  ‘I have a hand’ allows it to express a conceptual content? However many times or however strongly a phrase is emphasized (or, for that matter, nested in a hierarchy of beliefs about it), all Craigian sceptical questions are begged if one implies (believes?!) that one can unproblematically express, or even refer to, a particular content, in expressing one’s anti-sceptical arguments. 
	“But doesn’t this admission support scepticism? How can one get away with begging sceptical questions?” On the contrary - the real problem is in allowing that the sceptical questions could even be expressed in the first place, could even be there to be begged or responded to. For in order even to pose his problem, Craig had to presuppose that all his words expressed the contents that he took them to (and the analogue is presumably true of his beliefs). The moral is not that we don’t know, until we have further philosophical justification, what content, for example, “hand” has (some would say: what content hand is); the moral is that we cannot but presuppose that “hand” means what we always take it to mean, and that sceptical arguments to the contrary cannot even be coherently stated. When the latter appear to be undermining our grasp on the concept “hand”, they can only do so if they already covertly presuppose that we grasp that concept (such that we can “target” hands, in seemingly entertaining the thought that we do not grasp the concept). Thus they cannot even get started. For Craig and his reader/critic already have to be correctly conceptualising hands in order for them to be able even to conceive of content-scepticism as to hands; and therefore the only reason that the response to such scepticism fails to answer it is that there is only the appearance of there being any real doubts to answer. 
	Part of what Craig seems to have missed is that the general demand that we should know that we know empirical propositions is hyperbolic, and scepticism here is only the making of such hyperbolic demands. (His demand is as misconceived as Brueckner’s unnecessary and hopeless attempt to satisfy it.) Analogously, I can, quite straightforwardly, refer to my hand in the course of meaningful sentences without knowing or even believing that “This is my hand.” For that is presumptive; one does not know what is part of the very grounds of one’s utterances. 

	To return then to Sartorelli: I am suggesting that Kripkian concept-scepticism cannot be conceived of, or coherently stated. We can see this -- we can see why - in Sartorelli’s closing ‘elucidation’ of the nature of concept-scepticism:

	“The question...is: what is it correct to do now? The answer is: conform to one’s earlier intention...the intention to apply the concept __. The earlier intention provides the target: ...it is employing (in thought, or thinking) the concept __. The requirement is that I conform to this intention, and be guided by this target, and the sceptical question is: how can this earlier intention, in providing a target, have required what I initially considered right to do on this new occasion...”  

We may ask, rhetorically, “Which earlier intention??” It is a rhetorical question, for the Kripkean sceptic evidently has nothing to say to us. Evidently and obviously, the blanks in Sartorelli’s case (the “__”s) cannot be filled in, at least not without overtly imploding the sceptical argument in the admission that we ‘always already’ have to presuppose its emptiness.
	“But isn’t this just the familiar point that semantic and conceptual scepticisms are pragmatically self-refuting, because their conclusions are, if true, unstatable, or unthinkable?” This is not the place to enter into a prolonged discussion of whether arguments leading to conclusions such as “Concepts are inherently unstable” or “Meaning is impossible” are ‘merely’ pragmatically self-refuting, or whether such self-refutation extends to both the statability of the arguments as valid and their conclusions’ truth, etc. . This is not the place; for my point has been not merely that the conclusions of such arguments cannot be stated, but that the premises too, the arguments in toto, cannot be stated. For at every stage such arguments (such premises) presuppose what they deny (this is why the would-be concept-sceptical argument cannot even be read as a reductio ad absurdum: it begins in absurdity). As soon as they are apparently stated they engage the reader in assumptions to the effect that, “When I use this term (e.g. “hand”, “plus”) in formulating the argument, you know what I mean, yes? (Only, not only will it turn out that you don’t, but it is true right now that you don’t)”.  Otherwise, no substantive question could possibly have been thought to have been asked when it was enquired, for example, “How does one know, who is to say, that “hand” means hand?”  
	 In the ‘statement’ of concept-scepticism, nothing has actually been said. Concept-scepticism is not a candidate for truth or for falsity - it cannot even get as far as being false. 

	To conclude, let me sketch how the considerations I have adduced here apply to precisely the scepticism purportedly presented us in the pages of ‘Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language’. When we ask whether by “+” in the past we have meant addition, we have in particular to presuppose that “addition” means ... addition. But this last re-statement is simply a shuffle - it does not explain anything; and so nothing can have been put into doubt when we supposedly doubted that “+” meant addition. In short, we have to presuppose the very thing that we are supposedly putting in question by entertaining Kripke’s paradoxical thought. (And no employment of “quasi-quotation marks”, or of italicisation, or any other device can overcome this difficulty -- these are only tricks used by those who purportedly present Kripkian scepticisms, in order to deflect our attention from their lack of content.)  
	“But doesn’t this show that we can never avoid begging the question against the sceptic, and all the better for scepticism?” I hope to have made plausible that it shows rather that, contrary to appearances, there cannot be any such thing as even entertaining Kripkian scepticisms. For, in whatever way these are purportedly expressed, we have immediately to rely on words which are not put into doubt, including words which are syntactically or analytically identical with the words supposedly doubted. When the so-called ‘object language’ and the ‘metalanguage’ coincide, as they must if what is potentially at issue is a generalized semantic scepticism, then just for that reason there cannot be any destabilisation of one by the other, because there cannot be any genuine separation between them. 
	It is thus a deep mistake to think that Kripkian scepticisms are statable. That this is a hand and that that is an addition sum are, normally, completely unproblematically presumed.