The philosophy of language of Robert Brandom is based on a theoretical structure composed of three main elements: the normative analysis of linguistic practices, the inferential characterization of conceptual contents and the expressive articulation of the relations between the former two. Normative pragmatics aims to explain how linguistic practices are sufficient to confer contentful states in those who engage in them. Inferential semantics provides a theory of such pragmatic significances in terms of the inferential relations that articulate conceptual contents. Rational (...) expressivism is the thesis that concept application is essentially a process of turning something that can only be done into something that can also be said. Such a threefold structure is the core of normative inferentialism. This book is a concise, selfcontained and comprehensive presentation of this philosophical enterprise. It guides the reader through the analysis of Brandom’s imposing theoretical apparatus, the discovery of the roots of his approach in American pragmatism and German idealism, till the exploration of some of its most interesting and recent outcomes in pragmatics and semantics. It is a valuable resource for both those who approach Brandom’s work for the first time and those who are interested in the potential of normative inferentialism. (shrink)

This paper discusses a generalization of logical expressivism. It is shown that, in the wide sense defined here, the expressivist approach is neutral with respect to different theories of inference and offers a natural framework for understanding logical forms and their function. An expressivist strategy for explaining the development of logical forms is then applied to the analysis of Frege’s Begriffsschrift, Gentzen’s sequent calculus and Belnap’s display logic.

In this paper, I argue that the standard interpretation of Russell as a causal eliminativist is partial and misleading. Instead, I defend the thesis that his criticism of causality was actually part of the more ambitious project of transposing the common- sense concept of “cause” in the categories that articulate the representations of modern science. I also show that Russell endorsed such a project all along his philosophical career, despite the numerous changes of mind that characterized the development of this (...) thought. (shrink)

John McDowell articulated a radical criticism of normative inferentialism against Robert Brandom’s expressivist account of conceptual contents. One of his main concerns consists in vindicating a notion of intentionality that could not be reduced to the deontic relations that are established by discursive practitioners. Noticeably, large part of this discussion is focused on empirical knowledge and observational judgments. McDowell argues that there is no role for inference in the application of observational concepts, except the paradoxical one of justifying the content (...) of an observational judgment in terms of itself. This paper examines the semantical consequences of the analysis of the content of empirical judgments in terms of their inferential role. These, it is suggested, are distinct from the epistemological paradoxes that McDowell charges the inferentialist approach with. (shrink)

This paper explores some of the assumptions orienting the debate about logical pluralism. I argue that these assumptions are grounded in the truth-conditional character of the semantic metavocabularies in which the debate is conducted. Then, I suggest an expressivist strategy to reinterpret the pluralist claim that there are different logics and I show how the expressive role of logical vocabularies can be equally well characterized by means of different expressive resources not involving the notion of truth.

The early writings of Wilfrid Sellars are characterized by the analysis of themes and problems from Rudolph Carnap's philosophy of language. In particular, Sellars investigated the notion of "material'' rules of inference and explored the possibility of a "pure'' pragmatics. In these initial researches Sellars laid the foundations for his inferentialist analysis of meaning. A crucial component of such an analysis is the seminal form of rational expressivism that Sellars began to develop at the time. In this paper I address (...) the genesis of this idea and some of the main implications that it has on the characterization of the space of reasons. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question whether or not philosophical discourse can avail the categories of the scientific image. I argue that the clash of the images is bet- ter understood on the semantic rather than the ontologic level and that it results from the challenge to the representational adequacy of the categories tha articulate the conceptual repertoires of the manifest image. A challenge that will be met by a succesful recategoriza- tion of the concept of a person in the scientific (...) image. I suggest some reasons to believe that such a recategoritazion is possible in principle without dismantling the philosophical discourse. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to characterize the semantic notion of trust, as it has been introduced by Robert Brandom. Traditionally, the concept of trust does not play any central role in semantics. This, I suggest, depends on the fact that the very social dimension plays a rather marginal role in the traditional representationalist theory of meaning. In Brandom’s normative inferentialism, instead, trust is essential to the constitution of the discursive communities, whose rules are taken to define contents.

Dynamic approaches to semantics like Discourse Representation Theoryor Jaszczolt’s Default Semantics provide more and more effective tools to represent how speakers handle meanings in linguistic practices. These deeper perspectives may give us a lever to lift some of the philosophical perplexities crowding semantics and to catch a glimpse of what hides beneath them. In this paper, I exploit these approaches with relation to the analysis of belief reports. However, it will emerge that, despite their benefits, the theories that support these (...) representational advances may be themselves question begging from a philosophical point of view. Brandom’s remarks about normative character of intentional content offer an important contribution to bring into focus the right path to drive these representational improvements towards really acceptable answers to philosophical questions about semantics. (shrink)

Recent attempts to define and support realism in semantics seem to acknowledge, as the only defence from skeptical attacks to the notion of meaning, a flat acceptance of the existence of representational relations between language and things in the world. In this paper I reconsider part of the mistrust about the normative character of meaning, in order to show that some of the worries urging the realists to cling on representationalism actually rest on misconceptions. To the contrary, I suggest that (...) normativity is the main strength of a stable realist stance in semantics. Support to this suggestion comes from the reanalysis of some oft-ignored sellarsian themes. (shrink)

Recent attempts to define and support realism in semantics seem to acknowledge, as the only defence from skeptical attacks to the notion of meaning, a flat acceptance of the existence of representational relations between language and things in the world. In this paper I reconsider part of the mistrust about the normative character of meaning, in order to show that some of the worries urging the realists to cling to representationalism actually rest on misconceptions. To the contrary, I suggest that (...) normativity is the main strength of a stable realist stance in semantics. Support to this suggestion comes from the reanalysis of some oft-ignored Sellarsian themes. (shrink)

The notion of conceptual normativity is grounded on the idea that our conceptual contents are established by the norms of the discursive social practices we engage in. This idea involves two major problems. First, where do the norms of discursive practices come from and how can the contents that they establish be objective? Second, what is the role of the vocabulary that we use to express such norms as explicit rules? This article draws the outline of an account that could (...) possibly answer both questions. First, it explores the viability of a naturalism about conceptual normativity. Second, it defines the characters of a rational expressivist analysis of the language of the rules. (shrink)

Dynamic approaches to semantics like Discourse Representation Theory or Jaszczolt's Default Semantics provide more and more effective tools to represent how speakers handle meanings in linguistic practices. These deeper perspectives may give us a lever to lift some of the philosophical perplexities crowding semantics and to catch a glimpse of what hides beneath them. In this paper, I exploit these approaches with relation to the analysis of belief reports. However, it will emerge that, despite their benefits, the theories that support (...) these representational advances may be themselves question begging from a philosophical point of view. Brandom's remarks about normative character of intentional content offer an important contribution to bring into focus the right path to drive these representational improvements towards really acceptable answers to philosophical questions about semantics. (shrink)

This volume is a Festschrift in honour of Enrico Moriconi, to celebrate his 70th birthday and retirement. It consists of twelve original short essays by some of his friends, colleagues and former students, in the areas of general logic, proof theory, history of logic, philosophy of mathematics, epistemology and philosophy of language, mainly focused on some of his favourite research topics.

In his reading of the Phenomenology of Spirit, Robert Brandom offers an interpretation of the Hegel’s notion of Erinnerung as a retrospective rational recollection of the process of determination of conceptual contents. This paper argues that this recollection is essential for the account of representation in Brandom’s normative pragmatics, but it is not obvious how such an operation could be made explicit in his inferential semantics. Finally, some consequences are discussed of this potential problem in the structure of normative inferentialism.

In the fifth of his John Locke Lectures, Robert Brandom takes up the challenge to define a formal semantics for modelling conceptual contents according to his normative analysis of linguistic practices. The project is to exploit the notion of incompatibility in order to directly define a modally robust relation of entailment. Unfortunately, it can be proved that, in the original definition, the modal system represented by Incompatibility Semantics (IS) collapses into propositional calculus. In this paper I show how IS can (...) be technically amended so to overcome this failure: the required modifications are already known and consist in adapting and including the main notions of Kripke's standard framework of possible worlds. I also show that the modifications do not jeopardize Brandom's original project. (shrink)

Non-monotonicity in logic is a symptom that may have many causes. In the formalisation of defeasible reasoning, an epistemic diagnosis has largely prevailed according to which some inferences are non-monotonic because they are provisionally drawn in the absence of relevant or complete information. The Gabbay-Makinson rules for cumulative consequence relations are a paradigmatic example of this epistemic approach. In this paper a different approach to defeasible reasoning is introduced, based on the idea of inferential perspectives. According to this approach, some (...) inferences are non-monotonic because they are drawn as from another reasoner’s perspective. Rules are introduced and discussed for a Perspectival Calculus, which show both similarities and interesting differences with respect to cumulative systems. (shrink)

By comprehensively exploring the theoretical questions raised by professional communication, this book provides an introduction to the philosophy of communication. Key Features: Arranged in three parts encompassing the theory of communication, conflict transformation and the role communication plays within organizations. Examines how agreement is reached through communication, how such agreement is negotiated between different perspectives and how such negotiation produces our organizations. Includes a full range of pedagogical features, including study questions, essay questions. chapter summaries, focus points and suggestions for (...) further reading. Philosophy of Communication is essential reading for all students of the philosophy of communication. (shrink)

One of the most striking clashes between the results of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s reflections on language games and Robert Brandom’s normative analysis of pragmatics concerns the pride of place granted by the latter to assertional practices. While Wittgenstein believes that there is no privileged language game, Brandom maintains that the game of giving and asking for reasons is fundamental for the possibility of any linguistic practice to be properly meaningful. Recently, Rebecca Kukla and Mark Lance proposed to generalize Brandom’s normative pragmatics (...) in order to provide a more fine–grained analysis of the normativity that governs discursive practices. It is a courageous enterprise that challenges the predominance of the cognitive approach in pragmatics by underpinning a different way to understand the notion of meaning. Their proposal, however, requires to take into account many different sorts of speech acts on a par and, by doing so, it is in tension with Brandom’s approach. This paper explores the shape of this tension in order to see whether or not a unitary characterization of rationality can be envisaged in Wittgenstein’s and Brandom’s way of accounting for the ability to deploy conceptual contents in linguistic practices. (shrink)

One of the most striking clashes between the results of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s reflections on language games and Robert Brandom’s normative analysis of pragmatics concerns the pride of place granted by the latter to assertional practices. While Wittgenstein believes that there is no privileged language game, Brandom maintains that the game of giving and asking for reasons is fundamental for the possibility of any linguistic practice to be properly meaningful. Recently, Rebecca Kukla and Mark Lance proposed to generalize Brandom’s normative pragmatics (...) in order to provide a more fine–grained analysis of the normativity that governs discursive practices. It is a courageous enterprise that challenges the predominance of the cognitive approach in pragmatics by underpinning a different way to understand the notion of meaning. Their proposal, however, requires to take into account many different sorts of speech acts on a par and, by doing so, it is in tension with Brandom’s approach. This paper explores the shape of this tension in order to see whether or not a unitary characterization of rationality can be envisaged in Wittgenstein’s and Brandom’s way of accounting for the ability to deploy conceptual contents in linguistic practices. (shrink)

In our paper we aim to update and revise the pragmatist conception of the relationship between science and common sense. First of all, we introduce two technical notions (MI and SI), with which we identify the normative spaces of the manifest and the scientific image, and we highlight the differences between these two notions and their Sellarsian cognates. Secondly, within each normative space we investigate the connections between languages and practices: we ground linguistic contents on the normative relations that are (...) established in the practices of the corresponding normative space. Finally, we rely on Brandom’s meaning-use analysis to provide a representation of the different ways in which MI and SI practices and languages may interact. Our pragmatist proposal is to trace back the ontological conflict that is usually believed to exist between scientific and common sense objects to the differences between scientific and common sense practices. (shrink)

Che cosa vuol dire per le espressioni del nostro linguaggio avere un significato? Secondo un approccio oggi sostanzialmente standard in semantica, avere significato vuol dire prima di tutto avere un contenuto rappresentazionale, cioè poter rappresentare qualcosa. Secondo un inferenzialista come Robert Brandom, invece, le espressioni del nostro linguaggio hanno contenuto perché sono inserite in una rete di relazioni inferenziali, rispetto alla quale possono essere utilizzate per dare e richiedere ragioni. Il libro di Pietro Salis, Pratiche discorsive razionali, presenta e discute (...) alcuni degli aspetti più interessanti dell'inferenzialismo normativo di Brandom. Si tratta della seconda monografia in lingua italiana dedicata alla filosofia del linguaggio brandomiana dopo quella di Giovagnoli (2004). Per trovare elementi di paragone con il lavoro di Salis occorre allora guardare alle pubblicazioni in lingua inglese. Tra queste ci sono le raccolte di saggi curate da Stekeler-Weithofer (2008), Prien e Schweikard (2008), e Weiss e Wanderer (2010). Ma anche le introduzioni monografiche di Wanderer (2008) e Turbanti (2017). La prima di queste introduzioni, in particolare, è quella più simile al libro di Salis, soprattutto dal punto di vista tematico. (shrink)

Review of the book "Robert Brandom's Normative Inferentialism" by Giacomo Turbanti.

In this paper I address issues related to the problem of future contingents and the metaphysical doctrine of fatalism. Two classical responses to the problem of future contingents are the third truth value view and the all-false view. According to the former, future contingents take a third truth value which goes beyond truth and falsity. According to the latter, they are all false. I here illustrate and discuss two ways to respectively argue for those two views. Both ways are similar (...) in spirit and intimately connected with fatalism, in the sense that they engage with the doctrine of fatalism and accept a large part of a standard fatalistic machinery. (shrink)

While growing empirical evidence suggests a continuity between human and non-human psychology, many philosophers still think that only humans can act and form beliefs rationally. In this paper, we challenge this claim. We first clarify the notion of rationality. We then focus on the rationality of beliefs and argue that, in the relevant sense, humans are not the only rational animals. We do so by first distinguishing between unreflective and reflective responsiveness to epistemic reasons in belief formation and revision. We (...) argue that unreflective responsiveness is clearly within the reach of many animals. We then defend that a key demonstration of reflective responsiveness would be the ability to respond to undermining defeaters. We end by presenting some empirical evidence that suggests that some animal species are capable of processing these defeaters, which would entail that even by the strictest standards, humans are not the only rational animals. (shrink)

A lot of attention has recently been devoted to the notion of Trustworthy AI (TAI). However, the very applicability of the notions of trust and trustworthiness to AI systems has been called into question. A purely epistemic account of trust can hardly ground the distinction between trustworthy and merely reliable AI, while it has been argued that insisting on the importance of the trustee’s motivations and goodwill makes the notion of TAI a categorical error. After providing an overview of the (...) debate, we contend that the prevailing views on trust and AI fail to account for the ethically relevant and value-laden aspects of the design and use of AI systems, and we propose an understanding of the notion of TAI that explicitly aims at capturing these aspects. The problems involved in applying trust and trustworthiness to AI systems are overcome by keeping apart trust in AI systems and interpersonal trust. These notions share a conceptual core but should be treated as distinct ones. (shrink)

The future is different from the past. What is past is fixed and set in stone. The future, on the other hand, is open insofar as it holds numerous possibilities. Branching-tree models of time account for this asymmetry by positing an ontological difference between the past and the future. Given a time t, a unique unified past lies behind t, whereas multiple alternative existing futures lie ahead of t. My goal in this paper is to show that there is an (...) incompatibility between the way branching-tree models account for the open future and the possibility of time travel. That is, I argue that once time travel enters the picture, branching time fails to model the openness of the future by means of alternative future branches. I show how this holds independently of whether branching-time models are cashed out in A-theoretic or B-theoretic terms. (shrink)

One important distinction in the debate over the nature of epistemic justification is the one between propositional and doxastic justification. Roughly, while doxastic justification is a property of beliefs, propositional justification is a property of propositions. On a rather common view, which accounts for doxastic justification in terms of propositional justification plus the so-called ‘basing relation’, propositional justification is seen as the prior notion, and doxastic justification is explained in terms of it. According to the opposing view, the direction of (...) explanation needs to be reversed, and doxastic justification should be seen as primary. I distinguish between two notions of priority, and I argue that they give different verdicts with respect to the issue of which notion of justification comes first. The lesson may be taken to be that propositional and doxastic justification are in a relation of intertwinement. (shrink)

This paper introduces a new kind of explanation that we describe as ‘purely theoretical’. We first present an example, E, of what we take to be a case of purely theoretical explanation. We then show that the explanation we have in mind does not fit neatly into any of the existing categories of explanation. We take this to give us prima facie motivation for thinking that purely theoretical explanation is a distinctive kind of explanation. We then argue that it can (...) earn its keep via application to two existing literatures: the literature on how we explain the truth of true negative existential propositions and the literature on how we explain the truth of true propositions about the past. We reply to some possible concerns regarding the introduction of purely theoretical explanations. We conclude that there is nothing obviously wrong with them and explore the ramifications for particular debates in metaphysics. (shrink)

This paper addresses a particular interpretation of quantum mechanics, i.e. superdeterminism. In short, superdeterminism i) takes the world to be fundamentally deterministic, ii) postulates hidden variables, and iii) contra Bell, saves locality at the cost of violating the principle of statistical independence. Superdeterminism currently enjoys little support in the physics and philosophy communities. Many take it to posit the ubiquitous occurrence of hard-to-digest conspiratorial and coincidental events; others object that violating the principle of statistical independence implies the death of the (...) scientific methodology. In this paper, we offer a defense to these and other objections. To counter the conspiracy objection, we draw upon the philosophical literature on time travel, and conclude that the picture of the world offered by the superdeterminist does not need to be particularly surprising or conspiratorial. We then move on to other recent objections, in particular those that focus on the methodology of science and the nature of the physical laws compatible with superdeterminism. A key ingredient of our arguments is that the principle of statistical independence may be violated in theory, but valid for practical purposes. Our overarching goal is to offer a defense of superdeterminism with respect to its main objections, so that it can earn its keep as a legitimate contender among the possible interpretations of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Taking the inspiration from some points made by Scott Sturgeon and Albert Casullo, I articulate a view according to which an important difference between undermining and overriding defeaters is that the former require the subject to engage in some higher-order epistemic thinking, while the latter don’t. With the help of some examples, I argue that underminers push the cognizer to reflect on the way she formed a belief by challenging the epistemic worthiness of either the source of justification or the (...) specific justificatory process. By contrast, overriders needn’t pose any such challenge. I also consider some problems for the proposed view, and I put forward some possible solutions. Finally, I provide some details on how undermining defeat works in different cases. (shrink)

Branching time is a popular theory of time that is intended to account for the openness of the future. Generally, branching-time models the openness of the future by positing a multiplicity of concrete alternative futures mirroring all the possible ways the future could unfold. A distinction is drawn in the literature among branching-time theories: those that make use of moment-based structures and those that employ history-based ones. In this paper, I introduce and discuss a particular kind of openness relative to (...) the possibility that time ends (doomsday). I then show that whereas moment-based branching structures cannot represent this kind of openness, history-based structures can account for it. The conclusion is that history-based structures have an advantage over moment-based ones. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to defend the general tenet that time travelers cannot change the past within B-theoretical models of time, independently of how many temporal dimensions there are. Baron Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 98, 129–147 offered a strong argument intended to reach this general conclusion. However, his argument does not cover a peculiar case, i.e. a B-theoretical one-dimensional model of time that allows for the presence of internal times. Loss Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 96, 1–11 used the latter model (...) to argue that time travelers can change the past within such model. We show a way to debunk Loss’s argument, so that the general tenet about the impossibility of changing the past within B-theoretical models is maintained. (shrink)

We focus on Timothy Williamson’s recent attack on the epistemological significance of the a priori–a posteriori distinction, and offer an explanation of why, fundamentally, it does not succeed. We begin by setting out Williamson’s core argument, and some of the background to it and move to consider two lines of conciliatory response to it—conciliatory in that neither questions the central analogy on which Williamson's argument depends. We claim, setting aside a methodological challenge to which Williamson owes an answer, that no (...) satisfactory such reconciliation is in prospect. Rather, as we then argue, —and it is on this that we base our overall negative assessment of his argument—Williamson’s core analogy is flawed by an oversight. We conclude with some brief reflections on Williamson’s ideas about the imagination as a source of knowledge. Our principal conclusion is only that Williamson’s argument fails to perform as advertised. A constructive case for confidence, to the contrary, that the intuitive contrast between a priori and a posteriori reflects something of fundamental epistemological significance is prefigured in our final section, but will not be elaborated here. (shrink)