A rule, properly speaking, isn’t a rule unless it lives in behavior, rule-regulated behavior. Even rule-violating behavior. Linguistically we always operate within a framework of living rules. To talk about rules is to move outside the talked about rules into another framework of living rules. The snake which sheds its skin lives within another. In attempting to grasp rules as rules from without, we are trying to have our cake and eat it. To describe rules is to describe the skeletons of rules. The rule is lived, not described.
— Language, Rules and Behavior
- You can’t be inside the rules and talking about the rules at the same time.
- The last two sentences are exemplified in the What the Tortoise said to Achilles story.
- He is developing a notion of pragmatic metalanguages and trying to understand their relationship to object languages.