Norm, Inference, And Social Practice

The subject of this dissertation is Robert Brandom's inferentialism. By using the inner logic of Brandom's inferentialism as a clue, I try to present the basic content of Brandom's philosophy and the logical relations between its parts, and evaluate its significances and contributions properly in the context of the development of contemporary philosophy of language and in the context of the blending of analytic philosophy and pragmatism.In introduction, I introduce background and significance of the selected title, research status and review of literatures, and research methods and structure of the dissertation. The main body of this dissertation includes six chapters, which consists of three parts. Part one is chapter 1. Part two includes chapter 2-5. Part three is chapter 6. In chapter 1, I present theoretical backgrounds for understanding Brandom's philosophy of language. I first introduce the main theory resources of inferentialism, then introduce the basic study strategies, finally introduce some representatives of philosophy of language competing with inferentialism. Introduction of these backgrounds provides a platform for understanding Brandom's inferentialism.The dissertation start from chapter 2 to enter Brandom's inferentialism officially. In chapter 2, I first examine Brandom's discussion of the adequacy standards for a pragmatic theory explaining discursive practices, then discuss Brandom's stress on the normative dimension of linguistic practice, necessity of explaining linguistic practices in normative terms, finally discriminate norms implicit in linguistic practice from explicit rules and regularities of behavior, and discuss the relation between normative attitude and norm and the objectivity of norm. By these discussions, I present the basic route and general framework of Brandom's inquring into pragmatics. It is seen that Brandom's explanation of linguistic practice would be a normative pragmatics.In chapter 3, I first discuss brandom's basic view of the relation between pragmatics and semantics, point out the standards of a proper semantics set by the pragmatist standpoint of "semantics must answer to pragmatics", then introduce the basic ideas of an inferential semantics grounded on a normative pragmatics, analyze the relation between material inference determining conceptual content and logical inference, finally discuss the "Dummett mode", which is used by Brandom to explain inferentialism. By discussion of these questions, the basic appearance of an inferential semantics grounded on a normative pragmatics is already outlined.In chapter 4, I start to fill the basic framework of "grounding an inferential semantics on a normative pragmatics" with details. I first explain the explanatory priority of assertion in linguistic practice, then start to explain the mode of linguistic practice, which takes assertion as its core. By showing three dimensions of inferential articulation between assertions, explaining the authority and responsibility specially, how assertion gets pragmatic significance and conferred conceptual content in linguistic practice is shown. After that the deontic scorekeeping mode is introduced, how deontic status in linguistic practice is instituted by practice of deontic scorekeeping, and the relation between deontic attitude and semantic content, are exhibited. Finally, perception and action are also put into the mode of linguistic practice established earlier. By showing the pragmatic significances related to perception and action, the empirical and practical dimensions of the conceptual content conferred in linguistic practices are explained. So far, Brandom's inferential explain of linguistic practice,through unite inferential semantics and normative pragmatics, is showed to us.In chapter 5, I turn to discuss Brandom's explanation of objective representational dimension of conceptual content and linguistic practice. Brandom's effort to extend inferential semantics to its sub-sentential level is first discussed. Brandom's explanation of the representational dimension of conceptual content is discussed then. By analyzing representational terms, the relation between the social dimension of inferential articulation conceptual content involved in and the representational dimension of conceptual content is shown up, and the question of objectivity is explained on this basis. After that, the criticism of "losing world" possibly caused by Brandom's explanation of representation and objectivity is analyzed and responsed. Finally, by comparing MacDowell's thought with Brandom's, the advantages and disadvantages of Brandom's conception of world relative to others'are pointed out.The last chapter of this dissertation is an conclusive evaluation of Brandom's inferentialist philosophy of language. First, the position of inferentialism in contemporary philosophy of language is evaluated, from its development of theory of meaning and from its influences on other fields of philosophy. Finally, inferentialism is evaluated in a more general context. In other words, inferentialism is evaluated in the context of the blending of analytic philosophy and pragmatism for its significance and contribution.