Robert Brandom's Normative Inferentialism
What is it about?
What does it mean for the expressions of our language to have a meaning? According to the standard representationalist approach in semantics, meaning is to be explained in terms of the possibility to represent something. According to an inferentialist like Robert Brandom, instead, linguistic expressions have meaning because they are connected by a net of inferential relations and can be used to give and ask for reasons. This book is a concise, selfcontained and comprehensive presentation of Brandom's normative inferntialism.
Why is it important?
The book guides the reader through the analysis of the imposing theoretical apparatus of Brandom's philosophy of language, 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.