Robert Brandom (Philosophy Now)

✍ Scribed by Jeremy Wanderer

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 251
• Series: Philosophy Now
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

"Robert Brandom" is one of the most significant philosophers writing today, yet paradoxically philosophers have found it difficult to get to grips with the details and implications of his work. This book aims to facilitate critical engagement with Brandom's ideas by providing an accessible overview of Brandom's project and the context for an initial assessment. Jeremy Wanderer's examination focuses on Brandom's inferentialist conception of rationality, and the core part of this conception that aims to specify the structure that a set of performances within a social practice must have for the participants to count as sapient beings by virtue of their participation in the practice, and for the performances within the practice to have objective semantic content by virtue of their featuring within the practice. Wanderer's exploration of these two goals forms the structure to the book. It Includes: Part I that provides a structural model of linguistic practice and considers various groups of potential participants in terms of their relationships to this practice; and, Part II that examines the meaning of the performances that are caught up in this gameplaying practice. Brandom's approach to semantics is outlined and the challenge such an approach has in allowing for a representational dimension of language and thought is explored. Wanderer offers readers a valuable framework for understanding the Brandomian system and helps situate Brandom's systematic theorizing within contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. This book will be a sought after aid to reading Brandom for advanced students and philosophers engaging with his challenging body of work.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents ......Page 6
Acknowledgements ......Page 8
Abbreviations ......Page 10
Introduction ......Page 12
Part I: Sapience (Introduction) ......Page 18
Introduction ......Page 22
Social practice ......Page 24
Simple and interpreting practitioners ......Page 28
Linguistic practice ......Page 31
A two-ply account of observation reports ......Page 33
Locke on parrot talk ......Page 36
Brandom on mindedness: some unLockean assumptions ......Page 38
A relational linguistic approach to mindedness ......Page 39
A perspectival, vehicleless approach to mindedness ......Page 40
A rationalist approach to mindedness ......Page 41
An inferentialist approach to mindedness ......Page 42
Summary ......Page 43
Introduction ......Page 45
Motivating the gameplaying model ......Page 46
Reductive explanation ......Page 47
The explanans ......Page 49
The explanandum ......Page 50
Gameplay ......Page 52
Basic moves: commitments ......Page 53
Basic moves: entitlements ......Page 54
Further moves: incompatibility ......Page 56
Further moves: the interpersonal dimension ......Page 57
Commitments and entitlements revisited ......Page 59
The defining move ......Page 62
Is assertion social ......Page 64
Summary ......Page 68
Introduction ......Page 69
Elaboration ......Page 70
Explication ......Page 73
LX vocabulary: retail considerations ......Page 75
"...is committed to..." and "...says ......Page 76
LX vocabulary: wholesale considerations ......Page 78
A layer-cake picture of sapience ......Page 80
Exploiting the LX relation as a philosophical tool ......Page 83
Knowledge ......Page 84
Norms ......Page 86
Summary ......Page 88
Introduction ......Page 89
The conjecture: interpretive equilibrium and the collapse of levels ......Page 90
The challenge: the possibility of conversation ......Page 92
The stronger defence: interpretive equilibrium requires the collapse of levels ......Page 95
The weaker defence: logical structure and the possibility of collapse ......Page 98
From explanation to explication ......Page 100
Summary ......Page 104
Part II: Inferentialism (Introduction) ......Page 106
Introduction ......Page 112
Neo-pragmatic constraints on a semantic theory ......Page 114
Strong inferentialism ......Page 118
Material inferences ......Page 120
Non-inferential circumstances and consequences of application ......Page 122
Three types of material inferences ......Page 123
Auxiliary hypotheses and non-monotonicity ......Page 125
The goodness of material inferences ......Page 126
Neo-pragmatic constraints on a semantic theory revisited ......Page 129
From pragmatics to semantics: the global level ......Page 130
From semantics to pragmatics: the local level ......Page 133
Summary ......Page 135
Introduction ......Page 137
Substitutional commitments and the challenge of subsentential structure ......Page 139
Singular terms and objects; sentences and facts ......Page 143
Anaphoric commitments and the challenge of token repeatability ......Page 147
Anaphoric initiators ......Page 152
Summary ......Page 155
Introduction ......Page 157
Similarity of meaning ......Page 158
Retreat to extension ......Page 159
Content as function ......Page 160
Inegalitarianism ......Page 161
Navigating between perspectives ......Page 162
Two styles of belief ascription ......Page 164
Alternative paths revisited ......Page 169
Perspectives all the way down ......Page 171
Objectivity and autonomy ......Page 174
An objectivist conception of communication ......Page 179
Summary ......Page 183
Introduction ......Page 185
Separating the questions ......Page 187
Explanatory versus expressive deflationism ......Page 189
The interpretive question ......Page 195
The solidity question ......Page 198
Empirical content and rational constraint ......Page 203
The conciliatory response ......Page 205
A bellicose alternative ......Page 208
Summary ......Page 210
Conclusion: Towards a historical conception of rationality ......Page 212
Part I: Sapience (Introduction) ......Page 220
1: Parrots ......Page 221
2: Rational beings ......Page 224
3: Logical beings ......Page 226
4: Us ......Page 230
Part II: Inferentialism (Introduction) ......Page 231
5: Sentential semantics ......Page 232
6: Subsentential semantics ......Page 234
7: Communication ......Page 237
8: ˢLosing the worldˢ ......Page 239
Conclusion: Towards a historical conception of rationality ......Page 240
References ......Page 241
Index ......Page 247