Living with Rules

lt;p>The book stresses that the perspective of rule-following informs the way people understand others, in the manner of a practical attitude. Rules help us characterising a person's life and the things in it that matter importantly to her. Recognising others' imperfections in normative practices substantiates our non-judgmental attitude towards them.

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lt;p>The book proposes to see the talk about rules-following as a way of giving an account of particular people's characters and their lives. This focus on understanding others as variously coping with the claims of particular rules attempts to specify the variety of "attitudes towards a soul" as discussed in the Wittgensteinian tradition. The book derives from the philosophical tradition that considers human beings as rule-following creatures. It suggests that rules followed by other people allow for understanding and sympathising with them. Coping with rules is explored as a complicated lived practice, with respect to: particularised rules holding in relation to a context or to individual people, the variety of our responses to rules we are subject to, or our failure in coping with them.