Russell’s Causal Theory of Meaning, Rule-Following, the Calculus Conception, and the Invention of the Genetic Method

Abstract

The major goal of this chapter is to explain the nature of Wittgenstein’s genetic method, and how and why it was created around 1930–1 in the context of rule-following worries. This will also show how the calculus conception is invented. All these significant moves can only be understood with the background of the causal theory of meaning.¹ Russell published his theory in The Analysis of Mind (AM) in 1921, two years earlier than another then-famous book on the subject: Ogden and Richards’ The Meaning of Meaning (MoM).² I briefly present both in what follows and then explain the nature of Wittgenstein’s struggle with them and how it led him to the calculus conception and to the genetic method. I finish the chapter with a note on Wittgenstein’s first project with Waismann.