Abstract
In this paper, I develop an account of linguistic content based
on the active inference framework. While ecological and
enactive theorists have rightly rejected the notion of content
as a basis for cognitive processes, they must recognize the
important role that it plays in the social regulation of linguistic
interaction. According to an influential theory in philosophy
of language, normative inferentialism, an utterance has
the content that it has in virtue of its normative status, that is,
in virtue of the set of commitments and entitlements that the
speaker undertakes by producing this utterance. This normative
status is determined by the normative attitudes shared
by members of the utterer’s linguistic community. I propose
here an account of such normative attitudes based on the
ecological interpretation of the active inference framework. I
explain how social normativity can be understood in that
framework as the way in which members of a group shape
their social niche to make it more predictable. Finally, I apply
this account of social normativity to basic communicative
practices, thereby explaining how social normative expectations
can emerge to regulate these communicative practices,
eventually leading to the institution of the sort of normative
statuses constitutive of linguistic content.