Two Avatars of the Tortoise: Rule-following and the Novelty Objection to Intellectualism

This paper investigates parallels between the Wittgensteinian rule-following problem and the “novelty objection” to intellectualist views of knowledge-how. I focus on two points of symmetry: a common puzzle about how standing knowledge relates to successful action in a potential infinity of novel cases; and a parallel regress affecting that connection. I consider competing ways of understanding these parallels, indicating how they connect with wider philosophical and exegetical commitments, and I defend an interpretation that in fact favours intellectualism.