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ABSTRACT
On Brandom’s view, we can understand objectivity in terms of the view that what is objectively correct potentially transcends any given attitude. But Levine challenges this view. He distinguishes between two questions of objectivity: ‘How do we grasp the concept of objectivity?’ and ‘What determines the difference between what is correct and what is merely taken to be correct?’ And he argues that Brandom’s account of objectivity fails to address the second question of objectivity. Furthermore, based on classical pragmatist views, he defends an alternative account, which he calls ‘an experiential-theoretical account of objectivity’. I agree with Levine that Brandom’s structural account of objectivity can hardly answer the second question of objectivity. In this paper, however, I argue that we can answer the second question of objectivity without accepting Levine’s claim that experience has a rational bearing on the contents of empirical thoughts.
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Notes
1. This example is from Brandom (Citation2000, 98).
2. For Brandom’s structural conception of objectivity, see Brandom (Citation1994, 592–608, Citation2000, 196–204).
3. For this distinction, see Levine (Citation2019, 5).
4. See Levine (Citation2019, 8). Brandom’s account of objectivity is also primarily about the objective content of a thought.
5. Sellars (Citation1963) proposed this theory of meaning, and Brandom (Citation1994) developed it.
6. For a more detailed discussion and defense of this view, see Lee (Citation2019, Citation2020).
7. Brandom (Citation1996, Citation1998) takes a conciliatory attitude toward this constraint. He does not deny the rational constraint. Instead, he argues that McDowell underestimates the significance of the social dimension of the practice of giving and asking for reasons due to a residual individualism, so that McDowell overlooks an alternative which can meet the rational constraint without resorting to experiences. On Brandom’s alternative view, our beliefs are rationally constrained in such a way that those beliefs can be rationally criticized by others in our social practice of giving and asking for reasons. I agree with this alternative view. But I think we don’t have to take a conciliatory attitude toward the rational constraint.
8. On Sellars-Brandom inferential semantics, our perceptual judgments are governed in part by the relevant language-entry norms. For example, in the presence of a visibly red thing, we may judge that a red thing is in front of us. And we need a reliable disposition to make such a judgment in accordance with the relevant language-entry rule. Unless one has such reliable dispositions, however, one is not qualified as a language user who can believe and act in accordance with the language rules. But it should be noted that such reliable dispositions are only a necessary condition for being a competent language user, who can participate in our social practice of justification. In addition, our ordinary perceptual judgments have a default positive justificatory status in our social practice of justification, not because one’s sensorimotor habits can serve as reasons for such judgments, but because, given that one is a competent language user, one’s perceptual judgments under normal circumstances are likely to be true due to one’s reliable disposition to judge in accordance with the relevant language norms.
9. For a more detailed defense of this view, see Lee (Citation2021).
10. For a more detailed discussion of this point, see Lee (Citation2019).