Digging Beneath Wittgenstein's Bedrock: An Attempt to Specify What is Shared in a Common Form of Life

In his later work, Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein points out a number of problems with the notion of rule-following, noting specifically the difficulty of identifying how it is we know what to do when we follow a rule. He observes that we have a tendency to locate the directing power of a rule in an interpretation of the rule without noticing that the interpretation is just another rule whose directing power still seems to depend on being further interpreted, ad infinitum. When asked to specify what "a way of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation" is, Wittgenstein's response is unsatisfying, declaring "Once I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned." This paper attempts to dig beneath Wittgenstein's bedrock by specifying what is shared in a common form of life that enables rule-following and communication.