A Pragmatic Genealogy of Rule-Following

How do creatures like us intentionally track certain properties when we use words to predicate them, yet have no means of defining those terms? This is the rule-following problem posed by Wittgenstein and Kripke. The answer defended is that we do so as a byproduct of practices that are well-documented as common across our species: sensitization, joint action, and teaching and learning. We can be sensitized to instances of a property or class, as even a simple animal can be sensitized under conditioning. Being committed to acting jointly with one another, we can become aware of such a class as an abstract entity. And being creatures who teach and learn from one another, within and across generations, we can recognize that if we diverge in assignments to a class, predications of a property, then at least one of us is not operating properly.