ABSTRACT
In Brandom's Making It Explicit, inferentialism was founded and developed as a relatively clear-cut philosophical edifice; and Brandom's subsequent writings, despite adding some new stocks, have not changed its layout significantly. That language is a matter of rules is generally accepted as a matter of course, but surprisingly, this feature is rarely pursued to its important consequences. Everybody knows that rules of grammar are crucial for language. There are many kinds of social animals, but none of them has developed such a spectacular correlate of their social bonds as our human culture. A paradigmatic convention, like the Geneva convention, takes the form of explicit agreement among people, usually written down and ratified by the parties involved. The crucial role of normativity for our human predicament, and the ubiquity of norms and rules in human lives, is not merely something that the philosophers have fancied as our way of embellishing reality.
