Pragmatism and the Normativity of Assertion

Pragmatist views inspired by Peirce characterize the content of claims in terms of their practical consequences. The content of a claim is, on these views, determined by what actions are rationally recommended or supported by that claim. In this paper I examine the defeasibility of these relations of rational support. I will argue that such defeasibility introduces a particularist, occasion-sensitive dimension in pragmatist theories of content. More precisely, my conclusion will be that, in the sort of framework naturally derived from Peirce’s pragmatist maxim, grasping conceptual contents is not merely a question of mastering general rules or principles codifying the practical import of claims, but decisively involves being sensitive to surrounding features of the particular situation at hand. Pragmatist

Special Issue on Robert Brandom, 2015

This essay discusses two edges of the pragmatistic tradition in philosophy in its broad and strict versions. On the one hand the operationalist edge explains that the pragmatic maxim has a particular interpretation of the concept of " practical bearing ". On the other hand the inferentialist edge discloses the importance of our commitments to inferences derived from our inferential practices. Both aspects of pragmatism are explored in key representatives such as the founder Charles Peirce and the contemporary philosopher Robert Brandom. The author proposes a detailed study of the maxim as a strategy to find the right balance between the two aforementioned edges of pragmatism.

Philosophia, 2012

We investigate the relations among Brandom's three dimensions of semantic inferential articulation, namely, incompatibility entailments, committive consequences, and permissive consequences. In his unpublished manuscript "Conceptual Content and Discursive Practice" Brandom argues that (1) incompatibility entailment implies committive consequence, and that (2) committive consequence in turn implies permissive consequence. We criticize this hierarchy both on internal and external grounds. Firstly, we prove that, using Brandom's own definitions, the reverse of (1) also holds, and that the reverse of (2) may hold (but the proof relies on substantive assumptions). This suggests that there are no three different notions of inference emerging from Brandom's definitions, but at most two, and perhaps even just one. Secondly, this result puts into question the connections between the three inferential relations and the familiar notions of deduction and induction.

Inquiry has a central place in Charles Peirce’s pragmaticism, his philosophy in general, and his whole concept of science. For Peirce, philosophy is a special branch of theoretical science, and science in general ¬–its scientificity– is identified in its actions of inquiry, not in its results. Peirce’s whole semeiotic and his concept of sign was developed as a logic of scientific inquiry (independently on what other applications and purposes it may have). Pragmati(ci)sm was defined as a doctrine of this logic/semeiotic – Peirce’s maxim of pragmatism explicates a concept of meaning for ‘intellectual concepts’ that are the kind of signs in terms of which the hypotheses of scientific inquiries are formulated. Sciences that Peirce called theoretical have truth as their ultimate purpose of inquiry, as their ultimate criterion of success. Truth alone is nevertheless not enough, but truths sought should also increase our knowledge. During the course of inquiry, inquirer’s understanding about the phenomenon should grow, resulting eventually in a maximally informative conception, the full meaning of which would be clear. This is the motivation for the pragmatist concept of meaning, to make our ideas clear. In the maxim of pragmatism, the meaning of a conception is quite famously defined in terms of possible future events. From such a definition, it results that the origin of a conception has no relevance to its meaning and gives no guarantee for its applicability. The ‘foundation’ of a conception cannot justify it. In the light of this enlightenment, the full blown pragmatist may neglect the fact that the knowing the origin of the concepts is far from useless. The essential part of Peirce’s logic is the doctrine that we adopt cognitively all our concepts through perception. Without the awareness about the perceptual origin of the defined concept and the derivation of it from this origin, some hidden elements may become unconsciously smuggled in the structure of the concept. Without the proper exposition of the perceptual rootedness of our scientific ideas, they cannot become really clear to us.

Semiotica, 1983

But first, what is its purpose? It is expected to bring to an end those prolonged disputes of philosophers which no observations of facts could settle, and yet in which each side Claims to prove that the other side is in the wrong. Pragmatism maintains that the disputants must be of cross-purposes. They either attach different meanings to words, or eise one side of the other (or both) uses a word without any definite meaning. What is wanted, therefore, is a method for ascertaining the real meaning of any concept, doctrine, proposition, word, or other sign. The object of a sign is one thing; its meaning is another. (5.6, 1905(7); cf. 5.33) This program in regard to the specific meaning of a specific kind of sign is to some extent similar to Kant's program in CPR (1787) with regard to truth, and to Wittgenstein's program in the Tractatus in regard to the meaning of linguistic expressions: to demarcate the explainable from the unexplainable and to give it a philosophical account. There is, however, quite a difference between the ways in which Peirce and Wittgenstein try to achieve their programs. Wittgenstein uses the 'analytical method' in order to eliminate all nonsense from the descriptive language; Peirce uses the 'experimental method', by which all 'successful sciences' have reached a degree of certainty (5.465), in order to develop and clarify further the meanings of all intellectual concepts (cf. 6.490, 6.481, 1908; and Wennerberg 1962: 132). 2 This 'experimental method' used by pragmatism is a double-edged sword, and has therefore two functions: (1) 'in the first place, to give us an expeditious riddance of all ideas essentially unclear', and (2) 'in the second place, ... to lend support, and help to render distinct, ideas essentially clear, but more or less difficult of apprehension; and in particular, it ought to take a satisfactory attitude toward the element of a thirdness'. These two functions are fulfilled by abduction and induction respectively (5.197). (On the notion of 'experimental' in Peirce's use cf. MS 283, 1905: ll;cf. 5.168). Now it may be asked, can this program's aim to eliminate all philosophical (and scientific) disputes be achieved at all? I do not believe that the purpose of this program is to solve or settle all philosophical

he Logical Foresight – Journal for Logic and Science, 2021

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Volume 74, Issue 3, pages 651–676, May 2007, 2007

Pragmatism, 2010

Semantics versus Pragmatics, 2005

Pragmatics and Cognition, 2020

Although most contemporary philosophers of language hold that semantics and pragmatics require separate study, there is surprisingly little agreement on where exactly the line should be drawn between these two areas, and why. In this paper I suggest that this lack of clarity is at least partly caused by a certain historical obfuscation of the roots of the founding three-way distinction between syntax, semantics and pragmatics in Charles Peirce's pragmatist philosophy of language. I then argue for recovering and revisiting these original roots, taking indexicality as a case-study of how certain questions connected with the distinction which are currently considered complex and difficult may be clarified by a 'properly pragmatist pragmatics'. Such a view, I shall argue, upends a certain priority usually accorded to semantics over pragmatics, teaching that we do not work out what terms mean in some abstract overall sense and then work out to what use they are being put; rather, we must understand to what use terms are being put in order to understand what they mean.