Conceptual Norms and Argumentative Practices: the Question of Objectivity in Brandom's Inferentialism

SALIS, PIETRO MARIA

2012-01-01

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Abstract

Inferentialism, especially Brandom’s theory (Brandom, 1994), is the project purported to understand meaning in terms of inferences, and language as a social practice governed by discursive norms. Discursive practice is thus understood as the basic rational practice, where commitments undertaken by participants are evaluated in terms of their being correct/incorrect. This model of explanation is also intended to rescue, in terms of reasons, the commitments we undertake ourselves and assess the commitments we attribute to others, in an objective sense: starting from our subjective normative and doxastic attitudes we should be able to use the normative discursive resources apt to assess our commitments, not only referring to what we take to be correct, but also referring to how things actually are. My main hypothesis is that this objectivity is not achieved only on the basis of the rational structure of discursive practice. The main doubt concerns the fact that material inferences, those responsible for the cont ent of our concepts (and commitments), are in general non -­‐ monotonic. These inferences put experts in an advantageous position, namely as those capable of defeasible reasoning. I believe that this asymmetry among language users is the crucial factor in asse ssing the objectivity of claims within discursive