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Abstract
The two main challenges of the theory of conceptual content presented by Robert Brandom in Making It Explicit are to account for a referential dimension of conceptual content and to account for the objectivity of conceptual norms. Brandom tries to meet both these challenges in chapter 8 of his book. I argue that the accounts presented there can only be understood if seen against the background of Brandom’s theory of communication developed in chapter 7. This theory is motivated by the well‐known problem that semantic holism threatens the possibility of communication because it has the consequence that words mean different things in different mouths. Brandom offers a solution to this problem in terms of what he calls recurrence commitments. I show that chapter 8 of Making It Explicit should be understood as arguing that a practice that includes acknowledging interpersonal recurrence commitments institutes both conceptual contents with a referential dimension and objective conceptual norms. I close by raising the objection that Brandom’s argument can only show that conceptual norms are communally shared and not that they are objective. I propose an emendation of this argument, having recourse to a practice Brandom refers to as rational rectification in his new book Between Saying and Doing.
Notes
* I would like to thank Ansgar Seide and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments. Research on this article was supported by the German Research Council (DFG).
1 Apart from the question of objectivity, there are at least two other challenges which Brandom’s theory of norms faces and which cannot be addressed here. One is the so‐called gerrymandering problem (see Hattiangadi, Citation2003); the other is the question of how norms can be explained in terms of sanctions if sanctions can themselves be correct or not (see Rosen, Citation1997).
2 To my knowledge, the only exception from this rule is Ronald Loeffler’s ‘Normative Phenomenalism’. I am in general agreement with Loeffler’s reconstruction of Brandom’s argument for the objectivity of conceptual norms. My discussion differs from Loeffler’s with regard to the assessment and a proposed emendation of this argument. Moreover, I will also consider Brandom’s argument for the existence of a referential dimension of conceptual content, a topic which Loeffler ignores.
3 There is also the possibility of an incompatibility between the practical and explicit acknowledgments of inferential commitments by a speaker. Thus a speaker might endorse the conditional ‘If p, then q’, while she is not disposed to draw the inference from p to q. In such cases, which are rare, I also take the inferential significance of an assertion to be determined by the inferential commitments acknowledged in practice.
4 The same distinction can also be drawn with regard to an individual speaker considered at different times: ‘But must this alteration of the inferential significance different claims have for me be understood as involving an alteration in the inferential content they express?’ (MIE 478).
5 For the distinction between attitude transcendence and objectivity of norms, see Brandom, Citation2008b: p. 174.
6 Brandom endorses holism in another sense as well, namely in the sense that propositional content can be assigned to one assertion only if it is assigned to many (see MIE 2.III.3).
7 At this point it is important that inferential significances are at issue, and not inferential contents. Kripke’s finiteness argument only works for dispositions, not for norms. And only the inferential significances are constituted by the dispositions of speakers to draw inferences. Inferential contents, by contrast, are constituted by norms regulating inferences. Indeed, Brandom says that conceptual content ‘determines a function from perspective to significance’ (MIE 635). Since the perspective of a speaker is constituted by the collateral premises she endorses, this just means that the content of an assertion determines its intension.
8 For a discussion of three unconvincing attempts to avoid the problem of communication, see Scharp, Citation2003: p. 46. I disagree, however, with Scharp’s interpretation of the problem Brandom sees with intensions.
9 For reasons of space I will ignore the difficulty of distinguishing extensional from intensional contexts.
10 ‘For it follows that the idea of an object that can be picked out or referred to only in one way is not an idea of an object at all’ (MIE 425).
11 This is not quite right because there are non‐trivial equivalence classes of intersubstitutable singular terms. Each member of such a class matches the inferential significance of a singular term as used by a speaker equally well. However, this complication can be ignored here.
12 The reader will have noticed that this is an ascription in the de re mode. I will discuss the connection between de re ascriptions and the process of mapping repertoires more fully below.
13 For a different reading of how communication works according to Brandom, see Scharp, Citation2003: pp. 55–7.
14 Cf. Loeffler’s presentation of this aspect of Brandom’s theory in Citation2005: pp. 42–5.
15 The same point can be made for substitution inferences. The formal validity of the inference from Fa and a = b to Fb depends on the repeated occurrence of the singular terms a and b.
16 It should be stressed that it is not required for de re ascriptions that the ascribee does not take a and b to be co‐referential. Indeed, b can even be the same term as a. However, the cases of de re ascriptions relevant for Brandom’s theory are those in which the ascribee does not take the two singular terms to be co‐referential.
17 This interpretation of Brandom’s arguments for the objectivity of inferential norms is largely in agreement with the one presented by Loeffler in sections V and VI of ‘Normative Phenomenalism’. Unlike Loeffler, however, I am sceptical about their success.
18 This objection has also been raised by Lafont: the distinction between what different interlocutors take to be correct cannot be translated as the distinction between what is objectively correct and what is taken to be correct (see Citation2002: p. 195).
19 One can say, as Loeffler does, that there is ‘a general universal norm […] according to which all scorekeepers are obliged to converge in their substitution inferential treatments of every anaphoric chain [i.e., singular term]’ (Citation2005: p. 53).
20 It should be noted that this is an ideal of communicative practices that many actual communities do not live up to: the Pope is supposed infallible, kings rule by divine right, etc. As far as I can see, Brandom offers no argument about why we are entitled to this idealization.
21 In this context, it is useful to distinguish, as Loeffler does, between two kinds of norms. Loeffler distinguishes between sui generis norms governing our interpretive practice and objective semantic norms governing inferences (Citation2005: p. 34). Similarly, Laukötter et al. distinguish between fundamental discursive norms and inferential norms (Citation2008: pp. 82f.). Fundamental discursive norms (Laukötter et al.) or sui generis norms (Loeffler) determine our assertional practices as such. Among them are norms about how to keep score in general, Loeffler’s ‘general universal norm’ (p. 53), according to which speakers are obliged to sort out divergences between the inferential commitments they endorse, the norm of rational rectification, etc. Inferential norms (Laukötter et al.) or objective semantic norms (Loeffler) are norms about what follows from what. Through empirical investigations we learn more and more about what these norms actually prescribe. The fundamental discursive norms, on the other hand, seem to be given a priori.