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Brandom on the Normativity of Meaning
Author(s) -
SHAPIRO LIONEL
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
philosophy and phenomenological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.7
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1933-1592
pISSN - 0031-8205
DOI - 10.1111/j.1933-1592.2004.tb00330.x
Subject(s) - epistemology , presupposition , meaning (existential) , objectivity (philosophy) , philosophy , normative , construal level theory , argument (complex analysis) , inference , expression (computer science) , psychology , social psychology , computer science , biochemistry , chemistry , programming language
Brandom's “inferentialism”–his theory that an expression's or state's contentfulness consists in its use or occurrence being governed by inferential norms–proves dubiously compatible with his own deflationary approach to underwriting the objectivity of intentional content (an approach that is one of the theory's essential presuppositions). This is because a deflationist argument, adapted from the case of truth to that of correct inference , undermines the key criterion of adequacy Brandom employs in motivating inferentialism. Once that constraint is abandoned, furthermore, Brandom is left vulnerable to the charge that his inferential norms are unavailable to play the meaning‐constituting role he claims for them. Yet Brandom's account of meaning tacitly intertwines inferentialism with a separate explanatory project, one that in explaining the pragmatic significance of meaning‐attributions does yield a convincing construal of the claim that the concept of meaning is a normative one.