this I or he or it (the thing) which thinks ... " 411 16 Some Remarks on Kant's Theory of Experie... more this I or he or it (the thing) which thinks ... " 411 16 Some Remarks on Kant's Theory of Experience 437 17 The Role of Imagination in Kant's Theory of Experience 454 Credits 469 Index 473 L "Philosophy and the Scientific In1age of Man," Chapter l4 below, p. 369. 2. This editorial project was supported generously by the Andrew W.
Chapter 2 presents the particular reasons locutions on which the book focuses, and argue that one... more Chapter 2 presents the particular reasons locutions on which the book focuses, and argue that one of them is fundamental. The chapter identifies the logical form of this fundamental reasons locution by introducing the idea that ‘reason’ is a predicate/operator hybrid. It then shows why ‘reason’ as a count noun is not ambiguous in any way (contra Mark Schroeder and John Broome), and offer arguments against Justin Snedegar’s claim that reasons locutions are contrastive and John Skorupski’s claim that reasons locutions have an epistemic parameter and/or a weight parameter.
Chapter 4 shows why QUD Reasons Contextualism is preferable to its competitors. In particular, it... more Chapter 4 shows why QUD Reasons Contextualism is preferable to its competitors. In particular, it considers Stephen Finlay’s conceptual analysis of reasons locutions, an expressivist view of reasons locutions based on the work of Simon Blackburn, Tim Henning’s information contextualism, and Niko Kolodny’s semantic relativism.
In his recent John Locke Lecturespublished as Between Saying and Doing-Brandom extends and refine... more In his recent John Locke Lecturespublished as Between Saying and Doing-Brandom extends and refines his views on the nature of language and philosophy by developing a position that he calls Analytic Pragmatism. Although Brandom's project bears on an extraordinarily rich array of different philosophical issues, we focus here on the contention that certain vocabularies have a privileged status within our linguistic practices, and that when adequately understood, the practices in which these vocabularies figure can help furnish us with an account of semantic intentionality. Brandom's claim is that such vocabularies are privileged because they are a species of what he calls universal LX vocabulary-roughly, vocabulary whose mastery is implicit in any linguistic practice whatsoever. We show that, contrary to Brandom's claim, logical vocabulary per se fails to satisfy the conditions that must be met for something to count as universal LX vocabulary. Further, we show that exactly analogous considerations undermine his claim that modal vocabulary is universal LX. If our arguments are sound, then, contrary to what Brandom maintains, intentionality cannot be explicated as a Bpragmatically mediated semantic phenomenon^, at any rate not of the sort that he proposes.
International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 2003
The recent exchange between Robert Brandom and Jürgen Habermas provides an opportunity to compare... more The recent exchange between Robert Brandom and Jürgen Habermas provides an opportunity to compare and contrast some aspects of their systems. Both present broadly inferential accounts of meaning, according to which the content of an expression is determined by its role in an inferential network. Several problems confront such theories of meaning-one of which threatens the possibility of communication because content is relative to an individual's set of beliefs. Brandom acknowledges this problem and provides a solution to it. The point of this paper is to argue that it arises for Habermas's theory as well. I then present several solutions Habermas could adopt and evaluate their feasibility. The result is that Habermas must alter his theory of communicative action by contextualizing the standards for successful communication.
Although there has been a recent swell of interest in theories of truth that attempt solutions to... more Although there has been a recent swell of interest in theories of truth that attempt solutions to the liar paradox and the other paradoxes affecting our concept of truth, many of these theories have been criticized for generating new paradoxes, called revengeparadoxes. The criticism is that the theories of truth in question are inadequate because they only work for languages lacking in the resources to generate revenge paradoxes. Theorists facing these objections offer a range of replies, and the matter seems now to be at a standoff. I aim, first, to bolster the revenge objections by considering a relation, internalizability, between languages and theories of truth. A theory of truth is internalizable for a language iff there is an extension of that language in which the theory is expressible and for which the theory provides an accurate and complete assignment of semantic values. There are good reasons to think that acceptable theories of truth are internalizable for any language. With this internalizability requirement in hand, I argue that properly formulated revenge objections are decisive and that the replies to them are inadequate. Second, I show that the internalizability requirement can be met by a certain theory of truth. The central claim of this theory is that truth is an inconsistent concept and should be replaced with a pair of consistent concepts that can then be used to provide a semantics for our truth predicates. This theory is compatible with classical logic, does not give rise to revenge paradoxes of any kind, and satisfies the internalizability requirement.
this I or he or it (the thing) which thinks ... " 411 16 Some Remarks on Kant's Theory of Experie... more this I or he or it (the thing) which thinks ... " 411 16 Some Remarks on Kant's Theory of Experience 437 17 The Role of Imagination in Kant's Theory of Experience 454 Credits 469 Index 473 L "Philosophy and the Scientific In1age of Man," Chapter l4 below, p. 369. 2. This editorial project was supported generously by the Andrew W.
q 2013 by Cornell University '(2) is not ascending true' is ascending true. (3) is descending tru... more q 2013 by Cornell University '(2) is not ascending true' is ascending true. (3) is descending true. (2) is ascending true.
ABSTRACT: One common criticism of deflationism is that it does not have the resources to explain ... more ABSTRACT: One common criticism of deflationism is that it does not have the resources to explain defective discourse (e.g., vagueness, referential indeterminacy, confusion, etc.). This problem is especially pressing for someone like Robert Brandom, who not only endorses deflationist accounts of truth, reference, and predication, but also refuses to use representational relations to explain content and propositional attitudes. To address this problem, I suggest that Brandom should explain defective discourse in terms of what it is to treat some portion of discourse as defective. To illustrate this strategy, I present an extension of his theory of content and use it to provide an explanation of confusion. The result is a theory of confusion based on Joseph Camp’s recent treatment. The extension of Brandom’s theory of content involves additions to his account of scorekeeping that allow members of a discursive practice to accept different standards of inferential correctness. 0. INTRODU...
that are central to their respective philosophical projects. Throughout the second half of the tw... more that are central to their respective philosophical projects. Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, Habermas produced a philosophical system with unsurpassed scope. The system extends to virtually every corner of the discipline and into several neighboring fields as well. Likewise, with Making It Explicit, Brandom attempts to reorient the primary areas of philosophy around a distinctive account of linguistic practice; the result is one of the most formidable philosophical works to appear in decades. Philosophers will undoubtedly benefit from attempts to compare and contrast these two sprawling theories well into this century. However, this paper does not purport to attempt such a mapping. It merely provides an entry point for this endeavor by tracing a certain constellation of problems through their respective accounts of meaning and models of communication. Their systems are surprisingly similar; both ultimately depend on accounts of language. Indeed, both philosopher...
Aletheic pluralism is the view that there is more than one truth property, and logical pluralism ... more Aletheic pluralism is the view that there is more than one truth property, and logical pluralism is the view that there is more than one correct logic. Usually the truth properties described by the aletheic pluralist are familiar ones advocated by parties debating the nature of truth (e.g., the correspondence property, the pragmatic property, and coherence property). Likewise, the logics described by the logical pluralist are familiar ones advocated by parties debating the nature of logic (e.g., classical, intuitionistic, and relevant). However, one can be an aletheic pluralist by focusing on properties of truth that result from different approaches to the aletheic paradoxes instead. And one can be a logical pluralist by focusing on logics that result from different approaches to the aletheic paradoxes. Moreover, one could combine these two alternative pluralisms into a single view according to which the logic and the truth property differ depending on the context, but they are coordinated so that in contexts with stronger logics, the truth property is weaker, and in contexts with weaker logics, the truth property is stronger. I first formulate this coordinated pluralism about truth and logic and then evaluate it as a competitor with more traditional approaches to the aletheic paradoxes.
Chapter 3 presents a semantic theory for reasons locutions. The semantic theory pairs a Kaplanian... more Chapter 3 presents a semantic theory for reasons locutions. The semantic theory pairs a Kaplanian semantic framework with Craige Roberts’s question under discussion (QUD) pragmatic theory. The result is QUD Reasons Contextualism, which specifies eight distinct kinds of contexts of utterance for reasons locutions and the truth conditions for each one. The chapter then explains how each of the six reasons distinctions surveyed in Chapter 1 is related to the semantics for reasons locutions. In particular, the chapter shows that the agent neutral/agent relative distinction is a presemantic distinction, the normative/motivating/explanatory, objective/subjective, and permissive/obligatory distinctions are content distinctions, the adaptive/evaluative/practical and internal/external distinctions are domain distinctions, and the contributory/conclusive/sufficient distinction is a nonsemantic distinction. In addition, the chapter presents an extended example and an analogy with love locution...
My objective is to provide a theory of truth that is both independently motivated and compatible ... more My objective is to provide a theory of truth that is both independently motivated and compatible with the requirement that semantic theories for truth should not demand a substantive distinction between the languages in which they are formulated and those to which they apply. I argue that if a semantic theory for truth does not satisfy this requirement, then it is unacceptable. The central claim of the theory I develop is that truth is an inconsistent concept: the rules for the proper use of truth are incompatible in the sense that they dictate that truth both applies and fails to apply to certain sentences (e.g., those that give rise to the liar and related paradoxes). The most significant challenge for a proponent of an inconsistency theory of truth is producing a plausible theory of inconsistent concepts. Accordingly, I first construct a theory of inconsistent concepts, and then I apply it to truth. On the account I provide, inconsistent concepts are confused concepts. A concept ...
Robert Brandom’s Making It Explicit is a very long book by most standards.1 One reason for the le... more Robert Brandom’s Making It Explicit is a very long book by most standards.1 One reason for the length is the complex theory of meaning it contains, but another is Brandom’s stated goal to show that the theory of meaning can account for the unique semantic features of the vocabulary he uses to formulate the theory itself. If a theory of meaning satisfies this goal, then it is, in Brandom’s words, expressively complete. In what follows: (i) I explain his motivation for this objective and his strategy for accomplishing it, and (ii) I argue that his commitment to a broadly Kripkean approach to the semantic paradoxes prevents his theory from achieving it. I conclude by considering his options for resolving this inconsistency.
Editors' Introduction Editorial Notes Part I: Language and Meaning 1. Inference and Meaning 2... more Editors' Introduction Editorial Notes Part I: Language and Meaning 1. Inference and Meaning 2. Some Reflections on Language Games 3. Language as Thought and as Communication 4. Meaning as Functional Classification: A Perspective on the Relation of Syntax to Semantics Part II: Abstract Entities 5. Naming and Saying 6. Grammar and Existence: A Preface to Ontology 7. Abstract Entities Part III: Mind, Language, and the World 8. Being and Being Known 9. The Lever of Archimedes 10. Some Reflections on Thoughts and Things 11. Mental Events Part IV: Science and the Mind 12. Phenomenalism 13. The Identity Approach to the Mind-Body Problem 14. Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man Part V: Kant 15. "This I or He or It (the Thing) Which Thinks" 16. Some Remarks on Kant's Theory of Experience 17. The Role of Imagination in Kant's Theory of Experience Credits Index
this I or he or it (the thing) which thinks ... " 411 16 Some Remarks on Kant's Theory of Experie... more this I or he or it (the thing) which thinks ... " 411 16 Some Remarks on Kant's Theory of Experience 437 17 The Role of Imagination in Kant's Theory of Experience 454 Credits 469 Index 473 L "Philosophy and the Scientific In1age of Man," Chapter l4 below, p. 369. 2. This editorial project was supported generously by the Andrew W.
Chapter 2 presents the particular reasons locutions on which the book focuses, and argue that one... more Chapter 2 presents the particular reasons locutions on which the book focuses, and argue that one of them is fundamental. The chapter identifies the logical form of this fundamental reasons locution by introducing the idea that ‘reason’ is a predicate/operator hybrid. It then shows why ‘reason’ as a count noun is not ambiguous in any way (contra Mark Schroeder and John Broome), and offer arguments against Justin Snedegar’s claim that reasons locutions are contrastive and John Skorupski’s claim that reasons locutions have an epistemic parameter and/or a weight parameter.
Chapter 4 shows why QUD Reasons Contextualism is preferable to its competitors. In particular, it... more Chapter 4 shows why QUD Reasons Contextualism is preferable to its competitors. In particular, it considers Stephen Finlay’s conceptual analysis of reasons locutions, an expressivist view of reasons locutions based on the work of Simon Blackburn, Tim Henning’s information contextualism, and Niko Kolodny’s semantic relativism.
In his recent John Locke Lecturespublished as Between Saying and Doing-Brandom extends and refine... more In his recent John Locke Lecturespublished as Between Saying and Doing-Brandom extends and refines his views on the nature of language and philosophy by developing a position that he calls Analytic Pragmatism. Although Brandom's project bears on an extraordinarily rich array of different philosophical issues, we focus here on the contention that certain vocabularies have a privileged status within our linguistic practices, and that when adequately understood, the practices in which these vocabularies figure can help furnish us with an account of semantic intentionality. Brandom's claim is that such vocabularies are privileged because they are a species of what he calls universal LX vocabulary-roughly, vocabulary whose mastery is implicit in any linguistic practice whatsoever. We show that, contrary to Brandom's claim, logical vocabulary per se fails to satisfy the conditions that must be met for something to count as universal LX vocabulary. Further, we show that exactly analogous considerations undermine his claim that modal vocabulary is universal LX. If our arguments are sound, then, contrary to what Brandom maintains, intentionality cannot be explicated as a Bpragmatically mediated semantic phenomenon^, at any rate not of the sort that he proposes.
International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 2003
The recent exchange between Robert Brandom and Jürgen Habermas provides an opportunity to compare... more The recent exchange between Robert Brandom and Jürgen Habermas provides an opportunity to compare and contrast some aspects of their systems. Both present broadly inferential accounts of meaning, according to which the content of an expression is determined by its role in an inferential network. Several problems confront such theories of meaning-one of which threatens the possibility of communication because content is relative to an individual's set of beliefs. Brandom acknowledges this problem and provides a solution to it. The point of this paper is to argue that it arises for Habermas's theory as well. I then present several solutions Habermas could adopt and evaluate their feasibility. The result is that Habermas must alter his theory of communicative action by contextualizing the standards for successful communication.
Although there has been a recent swell of interest in theories of truth that attempt solutions to... more Although there has been a recent swell of interest in theories of truth that attempt solutions to the liar paradox and the other paradoxes affecting our concept of truth, many of these theories have been criticized for generating new paradoxes, called revengeparadoxes. The criticism is that the theories of truth in question are inadequate because they only work for languages lacking in the resources to generate revenge paradoxes. Theorists facing these objections offer a range of replies, and the matter seems now to be at a standoff. I aim, first, to bolster the revenge objections by considering a relation, internalizability, between languages and theories of truth. A theory of truth is internalizable for a language iff there is an extension of that language in which the theory is expressible and for which the theory provides an accurate and complete assignment of semantic values. There are good reasons to think that acceptable theories of truth are internalizable for any language. With this internalizability requirement in hand, I argue that properly formulated revenge objections are decisive and that the replies to them are inadequate. Second, I show that the internalizability requirement can be met by a certain theory of truth. The central claim of this theory is that truth is an inconsistent concept and should be replaced with a pair of consistent concepts that can then be used to provide a semantics for our truth predicates. This theory is compatible with classical logic, does not give rise to revenge paradoxes of any kind, and satisfies the internalizability requirement.
this I or he or it (the thing) which thinks ... " 411 16 Some Remarks on Kant's Theory of Experie... more this I or he or it (the thing) which thinks ... " 411 16 Some Remarks on Kant's Theory of Experience 437 17 The Role of Imagination in Kant's Theory of Experience 454 Credits 469 Index 473 L "Philosophy and the Scientific In1age of Man," Chapter l4 below, p. 369. 2. This editorial project was supported generously by the Andrew W.
q 2013 by Cornell University '(2) is not ascending true' is ascending true. (3) is descending tru... more q 2013 by Cornell University '(2) is not ascending true' is ascending true. (3) is descending true. (2) is ascending true.
ABSTRACT: One common criticism of deflationism is that it does not have the resources to explain ... more ABSTRACT: One common criticism of deflationism is that it does not have the resources to explain defective discourse (e.g., vagueness, referential indeterminacy, confusion, etc.). This problem is especially pressing for someone like Robert Brandom, who not only endorses deflationist accounts of truth, reference, and predication, but also refuses to use representational relations to explain content and propositional attitudes. To address this problem, I suggest that Brandom should explain defective discourse in terms of what it is to treat some portion of discourse as defective. To illustrate this strategy, I present an extension of his theory of content and use it to provide an explanation of confusion. The result is a theory of confusion based on Joseph Camp’s recent treatment. The extension of Brandom’s theory of content involves additions to his account of scorekeeping that allow members of a discursive practice to accept different standards of inferential correctness. 0. INTRODU...
that are central to their respective philosophical projects. Throughout the second half of the tw... more that are central to their respective philosophical projects. Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, Habermas produced a philosophical system with unsurpassed scope. The system extends to virtually every corner of the discipline and into several neighboring fields as well. Likewise, with Making It Explicit, Brandom attempts to reorient the primary areas of philosophy around a distinctive account of linguistic practice; the result is one of the most formidable philosophical works to appear in decades. Philosophers will undoubtedly benefit from attempts to compare and contrast these two sprawling theories well into this century. However, this paper does not purport to attempt such a mapping. It merely provides an entry point for this endeavor by tracing a certain constellation of problems through their respective accounts of meaning and models of communication. Their systems are surprisingly similar; both ultimately depend on accounts of language. Indeed, both philosopher...
Aletheic pluralism is the view that there is more than one truth property, and logical pluralism ... more Aletheic pluralism is the view that there is more than one truth property, and logical pluralism is the view that there is more than one correct logic. Usually the truth properties described by the aletheic pluralist are familiar ones advocated by parties debating the nature of truth (e.g., the correspondence property, the pragmatic property, and coherence property). Likewise, the logics described by the logical pluralist are familiar ones advocated by parties debating the nature of logic (e.g., classical, intuitionistic, and relevant). However, one can be an aletheic pluralist by focusing on properties of truth that result from different approaches to the aletheic paradoxes instead. And one can be a logical pluralist by focusing on logics that result from different approaches to the aletheic paradoxes. Moreover, one could combine these two alternative pluralisms into a single view according to which the logic and the truth property differ depending on the context, but they are coordinated so that in contexts with stronger logics, the truth property is weaker, and in contexts with weaker logics, the truth property is stronger. I first formulate this coordinated pluralism about truth and logic and then evaluate it as a competitor with more traditional approaches to the aletheic paradoxes.
Chapter 3 presents a semantic theory for reasons locutions. The semantic theory pairs a Kaplanian... more Chapter 3 presents a semantic theory for reasons locutions. The semantic theory pairs a Kaplanian semantic framework with Craige Roberts’s question under discussion (QUD) pragmatic theory. The result is QUD Reasons Contextualism, which specifies eight distinct kinds of contexts of utterance for reasons locutions and the truth conditions for each one. The chapter then explains how each of the six reasons distinctions surveyed in Chapter 1 is related to the semantics for reasons locutions. In particular, the chapter shows that the agent neutral/agent relative distinction is a presemantic distinction, the normative/motivating/explanatory, objective/subjective, and permissive/obligatory distinctions are content distinctions, the adaptive/evaluative/practical and internal/external distinctions are domain distinctions, and the contributory/conclusive/sufficient distinction is a nonsemantic distinction. In addition, the chapter presents an extended example and an analogy with love locution...
My objective is to provide a theory of truth that is both independently motivated and compatible ... more My objective is to provide a theory of truth that is both independently motivated and compatible with the requirement that semantic theories for truth should not demand a substantive distinction between the languages in which they are formulated and those to which they apply. I argue that if a semantic theory for truth does not satisfy this requirement, then it is unacceptable. The central claim of the theory I develop is that truth is an inconsistent concept: the rules for the proper use of truth are incompatible in the sense that they dictate that truth both applies and fails to apply to certain sentences (e.g., those that give rise to the liar and related paradoxes). The most significant challenge for a proponent of an inconsistency theory of truth is producing a plausible theory of inconsistent concepts. Accordingly, I first construct a theory of inconsistent concepts, and then I apply it to truth. On the account I provide, inconsistent concepts are confused concepts. A concept ...
Robert Brandom’s Making It Explicit is a very long book by most standards.1 One reason for the le... more Robert Brandom’s Making It Explicit is a very long book by most standards.1 One reason for the length is the complex theory of meaning it contains, but another is Brandom’s stated goal to show that the theory of meaning can account for the unique semantic features of the vocabulary he uses to formulate the theory itself. If a theory of meaning satisfies this goal, then it is, in Brandom’s words, expressively complete. In what follows: (i) I explain his motivation for this objective and his strategy for accomplishing it, and (ii) I argue that his commitment to a broadly Kripkean approach to the semantic paradoxes prevents his theory from achieving it. I conclude by considering his options for resolving this inconsistency.
Editors' Introduction Editorial Notes Part I: Language and Meaning 1. Inference and Meaning 2... more Editors' Introduction Editorial Notes Part I: Language and Meaning 1. Inference and Meaning 2. Some Reflections on Language Games 3. Language as Thought and as Communication 4. Meaning as Functional Classification: A Perspective on the Relation of Syntax to Semantics Part II: Abstract Entities 5. Naming and Saying 6. Grammar and Existence: A Preface to Ontology 7. Abstract Entities Part III: Mind, Language, and the World 8. Being and Being Known 9. The Lever of Archimedes 10. Some Reflections on Thoughts and Things 11. Mental Events Part IV: Science and the Mind 12. Phenomenalism 13. The Identity Approach to the Mind-Body Problem 14. Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man Part V: Kant 15. "This I or He or It (the Thing) Which Thinks" 16. Some Remarks on Kant's Theory of Experience 17. The Role of Imagination in Kant's Theory of Experience Credits Index
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