ABSTRACT

Robert Brandom’s Making It Explicit: Reasoning, Representing and Discursive Commitment is one of the most significant, talked about and daunting books published in philosophy in recent years. Featuring specially-commissioned chapters by leading international philosophers with replies by Brandom himself, Reading Brandom clarifies, critically appraises and furthers understanding of Brandom’s important book.

Divided into four parts - ‘Normative Pragmatics’; ‘The Challenge of Inferentialism’; ‘Inferentialist Semantics’; and ‘Brandom’s Replies’, Reading Brandom covers the following key aspects of Brandom’s work:

  • inferentialism vs. representationalism
  • normativity in philosophy of language and mind
  • pragmatics and the centrality of asserting
  • language entries and exits
  • meaning and truth
  • semantic deflationism and logical locutions.

Essential reading for students and scholars of philosophy of language and mind, Reading Brandom is also an excellent companion volume to Reading McDowell: On Mind and World, also published by Routledge.

chapter |12 pages

INTRODUCTION

part |2 pages

PART I Normative Pragmatics

part |2 pages

PART II The Challenge of Inferentialism

chapter 11|14 pages

BRANDOM BELEAGUERED

part |2 pages

PART III Inferentialist Semantics

part |2 pages

PART IV Brandom’s Responses