Propositions and Rules?

Some Wittgensteinian scholars might like to distinguish between propositions and rules - or 'hinges' - but sometimes a statement functions like a propostion, and sometimes like a rule.

It's hard to say this, though because whether or not we are dealing with a proposition or a rule depends on what game we are playing - or, rather, on which part of the 'overall' game we are playing. And the game we're playing determines what we can say and what we can't say ...

When we move from one game to another, we indicate that we have done so by using explicit truth-predicates, which, I think, are always used in a rule-like way. When I say 'My cat is hungry' I mean that my cat is hungry. When I say 'It is true that my cat is hungry' I am telling you how I am going to talk, and inviting you to talk the same way. You might respond by pointing out that this rule won't work for some reason, or you might find you don't know how to play the game I seem to be proposing, but while the first statement can legitimately be described as being about the world (with it's hungry cat), the second cannot.

Thinking that we are talking about the world when we use truth predicates, rather than about how we are going to talk, is one of the most fundamental errors that philosophers have made.