Chomsky v. Kripke, Round two: Methodological collecttivism and explanatory adequacy

Given a situation in which someone appears to be (acts as if) he or she is following a set of rules, what is the explanatory fact of the matter? For Kripke, addressing this question in WITTGENSTEIN ON RULES AND PRIVATE LANGUAGE (WRPL), the answer is to be found in the collective fact of the agreements in judgment characteristic of given communities. For Chomsky, responding to Kripke in Knowledge of Language (KL), the answer is to be found in the individual fact of those "states of the mind/brain that enter into behavior" (KL 3). Like Chomsky, I do not think we can come up with a satisfying explanation of behavior without referring to states about (internal to) individuals. But I also accept the notion, implicit in Kripke's argument, that observable modes of behavior serve a function that is both exemplary and normative. In order to explain how normative modes of behavior can be assimilated and reproduced by individuals, I offer an account of the observation and internalization of exemplary performances.