Inferentialism

Wittgenstein’s Investigations proposed an egalitarian view about language games, emphasizing their plurality (“language has no downtown”). Uses of words depend on the game one is playing, and may change when playing another. Furthermore, there is no privileged game dictating the rules for the others: games are as many as purposes. This view is pluralist and egalitarian, but it says little about the connection between meaning and use, and about how a set of rules is responsible for them in practice.
Brandom’s Making It Explicit attempted a straightforward answer to these questions, by developing Wittgensteinian insights: the primacy of social practice over meanings; the idea that meaning is use; the idea of rule–following to understand participation in social practices. Nonetheless, Brandom defended a non–Wittgensteinian conception of discursive practice: language has a “downtown”, the game of “giving and asking for reasons”. This is the idea of a normative structure of language, consisting of advancing claims and drawing inferences. By means of assertions, speakers undertake “commitments” that can be challenged/defended in terms of reasons (those successfully justified can gain “entitlement”). This game is not one among many: it is indispensable to the very idea of discursive practice.
In this paper, my aim will be that of exploring the main motivations and
implications of both perspectives.

"This paper examines the role played by derogatory terms (e.g., ‘inyenzi’ or cockroach, ‘inzoka’ or snake) in laying the social groundwork for the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994.  The genocide was preceded by an increase in the use of anti-Tutsi derogatory terms among the Hutu.  As these linguistic practices evolved, the terms became more openly and directly aimed at Tutsi. Then, during the 100 days of the genocide, derogatory terms and coded euphemisms were used to direct killers to their victims.  Understanding these speech acts helps to illuminate the important ways that power is enacted through discourse, how speech acts can prepare the way for physical and material acts, and how speech generates permissions for actions hitherto uncountenanced. Studying the role of speech acts and linguistic practices in laying the groundwork of the genocide illuminates how patterns of speech acts become linguistic practices that constitute permissibility conditions for non-linguistic behaviors. Further, the analysis presented here helps to make sense of the view that a steady, deep, and widespread derogation of a group can be part and parcel of genocide, not only an antecedent to it.

Keywords

Genocide
Rwanda
Derogatory terms
Epithets
Slurs
Linguistic violence
Language games
Speech acts
Expressive commitment
Inferential roles
Status-functions
Harm
"

La noción de prácticas inferenciales está obviamente relacionada con la noción de argumentar, puesto que esas prácticas consisten en dar, pedir y recibir razones, y argumentar es una especie del género dar razones, y por tanto una práctica inferencial.  Mi propósito en este artículo es, precisamente, esclarecer la naturaleza de la argumentación como práctica inferencial.
La comprensión de la argumentación como una práctica inferencial puede ser un paso preliminar en una reelaboración argumentativa de las propuestas inferencialistas. La versión argumentativa del inferencialismo –lo que podríamos bautizar como “argumentativismo”- mantendría que el contenido conceptual de un enunciado debe entenderse en términos de su papel en los intercambios argumentativos más que en términos del reconocimiento de lo que se sigue y lo que no se sigue de él.

Questo lavoro si propone di fornire un quadro critico-teorico sulle caratteristiche fondamentali dell’inferenzialismo semantico contemporaneo, la proposta di semantica filosofica che indaga il significato di un’espressione linguistica e il contenuto concettuale da essa veicolato mediante la nozione di inferenza materiale.
Il focus principale del mio lavoro di ricerca è la proposta teorica del filosofo statunitense Robert Brandom, presentata nel libro Making it Explicit, e finalizzata ad articolare in un complesso sistema filosofico la semantica inferenzialista e l’apparato pragmatico-normativo che descrive le nostre pratiche discorsive mediante il gioco linguistico fondamentale del “dare e chiedere ragioni”.
Nella prima parte di questo lavoro si offre una retrospettiva “Brandom-oriented” sulle basi fondanti dell’inferenzialismo contemporaneo, e si analizza il ruolo del pensiero di Gottlob Frege, Wilfrid Sellars e Michael Dummett, nella prospettiva generale di Brandom.
Nella seconda parte si analizzano le semantiche inferenzialiste del ruolo concettuale sviluppatesi negli anni Ottanta del Secolo scorso, e si differenzia il loro approccio “disposizionalista” da quello “normativista” presentato dal nostro autore
Nella terza parte viene presentata nel dettaglio la teoria di Brandom. Il primo stadio è un’analisi metodologica sul “neopragmatismo” di Brandom e sulle affinità e divergenze con l’anti-rappresentazionalismo di Richard Rorty. Il secondo stadio riguarda la pragmatica-normativa e la descrizione del gioco linguistico fondamentale del “dare e chiedere ragioni” e del suo nucleo teorico: lo scorekeeping deontico. Il terzo stadio esamina la semantica inferenzialista costruita intorno al primitivo semantico dell’inferenza materiale, e il quarto offre una prospettiva generale sull’approccio inferenzialista e deflazionista alla dimensione rappresentazionale, e ai concetti di “verità” e “riferimento”.
Dall’analisi della proposta di Brandom emergono due problemi centrali nella semantica inferenzialista: il “problema dello standard semantico” e il “problema dell’oggettività”.
Questi due problemi vengono analizzati nella quarta parte del mio lavoro, insieme alle altre sfide chiave dell’inferenzialismo: la composizionalità del linguaggio e del pensiero, i problemi legati al “grasp of concepts” e alle inferenze costitutive, e il problema esternista dei contenuti concettuali oggettivi.
Sempre in questa sezione si prova ad avanzare una soluzione ipotetica al “problema dello standard semantico”, cercando di ampliare la teoria di Brandom con degli elementi che non compaiono nella sua proposta: l’esistenza degli esperti nella comunità e il ruolo normativo dei processi comportamentali di deferenza semantica.
Nelle conclusioni vengono avanzate alcune riflessioni sulla possibilità (o meno) di poter abbracciare in toto la proposta inferenzialista.

In "Psychopower and Ordinary Madness" my ambition, as it relates to Bernard Stiegler's recent literature, was twofold: 1) critiquing Stiegler's work on exosomatization and artefactual posthumanism-or, more specifically, nonhumanism-to problematize approaches to media archaeology that rely upon technical exteriorization; 2) challenging how Stiegler engages with Giuseppe Longo and Francis Bailly's conception of negative entropy. These efforts were directed by a prevalent techno-cultural qualifier: the rise of Synthetic Intelligence (including neural nets, deep learning, predictive processing and Bayesian models of cognition). This paper continues this project but first directs a critical analytic lens at the Derridean practice of the ontologization of grammatization from which Stiegler emerges while also distinguishing how metalanguages operate in relation to object-oriented environmental interaction by way of inferentialism. Stalking continental (Kapp, Simondon, Leroi-Gourhan, etc.) and analytic traditions (e.g., Carnap, Chalmers, Clark, Sutton, Novaes, etc.), we move from artefacts to AI and Predictive Processing so as to link theories related to technicity with philosophy of mind. Simultaneously drawing forth Robert Brandom's conceptualization of the roles that commitments play in retrospectively reconstructing the social experiences that lead to our endorsement(s) of norms, we compliment this account with Reza Negarestani's deprivatized account of intelligence while analyzing the equipollent role between language and media (both digital and analog).

This is the introductory chapter to "Meaning Without Representation" (OUP 2015).  In it I discuss the nature and promise of, as well as some of the challenges to, anti-representational semantic theories.  Along the way I provide summaries of the remaining essays in the volume.

In their own way, inferentialists and interactionists both trace the roots of reflective reasoning to practices and skills for making, assessing and responding to public performances in communicative practices of giving and asking for reasons. Inferentialists have developed the idea mostly on conceptual grounds. Interactionists ask, in a more empirical spirit, why and how such practices and skills might have evolved. Thus they promise complementary "anthropological" insights of foremost interest to inferentialists. But interactionist theories advance a number of controversial claims that deserve careful scrutiny. In this essay I focus on one such claim: namely that confirmation bias can be plausibly explained as a design feature that promotes postulated functions of interactive reasoning. And I argue that each of three extant proposals fails to make the claim good.

Squarely in the Chomskyan tradition, Paul Pietroski’s recent book, Conjoining Meanings, offers an approach to natural-language semantics that rejects foundational assumptions widely held amongst philosophers and linguists. In particular, he argues against the view that meanings are, or at least determine, extensions (truth conditions, satisfaction conditions, and denotation/reference). Having arrived at the same conclusion by way of Brandom’s deflationist account of truth and reference, I glimpse the possibility of a fruitful merger of ideas.  In the present essay, I outline a strategy for integrating the generative linguist’s empirical insights about human psychology with Brandom's pragmatist approach to language. I’ll argue that both have important contributions to make to our overall understanding of language, and that the differences between them almost all reduce to a cluster of interrelated verbal differences. Contrary to first appearances, there are actually very few points of substantive disagreement between them. The residual differences are, however, stubborn. I end by raising a question about how to square Pietroski’s commitment to predicativism with Brandom’s argument that a predicativist language is in principle incapable of expressing ordinary conditionals.

Derogatory terms (racist, sexist, ethnic, and homophobic epithets) are bully words with ontological force: they serve to establish and maintain a corrupt social system fuelled by distinctions designed to justify relations of dominance and subordination. No wonder they have occasioned public outcry and legal response. The inferential role analysis developed here helps move us away from thinking of the harms as being located in connotation (representing mere speaker bias) or denotation (holding that the terms fail to refer due to inaccurate descriptive content). The issue is not bad attitudes or referential misfires. An inferential role semantic analysis of derogatory terms shows exactly what is at stake between those who argue that the terms should be eliminated (Absolutists) and those who claim they can be successfully rehabilitated (Reclaimers). The Reclaimer maintains, and the Absolutist denies, that certain contexts can detach the derogatory force from deeply derogatory terms. The article looks at these claims with respect to ‘nigger’ and ‘dyke,’ setting out the inferential role of each term and examining detachability potential. Explaining detachability in terms of linguistic commitments, this article also addresses the issue of whether such terms count as political discourse, and examines the implications of that issue.

Political disagreement and verbal derogation are both separately and jointly ubiquitous in our everyday lives. In recent years, philosophers of language have increasingly turned to the phe-nomenon of slurring terms. By contrast, not so much attention has been paid to otherwise po-litically significant terms, at least as far as semantics are concerned. This paper aims to ac-count for the social complexity with regard to the meaning of politically significant terms. By the example of the race term ‘black,’ I shall show that different discursive practices among dif-ferent communities sometimes have to be understood as semantic contestations. I develop a model of discursive sub-communities which explains the connections between political contesta-tion, verbal derogation, and semantics in the case of ‘black’. Moreover, my discussion of polit-ically significant terms has important consequences for a broad range of politically significant linguistic phenomena such as so-called politically correct language, the reclamation of slurring terms by the target group, or slurring terms more generally. This paper not only accounts for the political aspects of a linguistic phenomenon, but equally highlights and explains the oft-neglected but crucial role that language plays in social and political struggles. It thus contrib-utes to ongoing discussions both in philosophy of language and in social and political philosophy.

In connecting educational theory to a neo-pragmatist social epistemology, we set out to understand education as knowledge practices that yield ‘the cultural world again’ by retelling culture or by making explicit what is implicit in culture. Recent trends in German educational studies towards holistic understanding of education demonstrate that such a holistic, non-representationalist framework is deliberately placed outside the traditional procedure of merely applying knowledge gained in the so-called foundational disciplines such as philosophy, sociology or psychology to the field of education. By constructively relating Brandom’s non-representational inferentialism to a re-reading of Mollenhauer’s distinction of the presentation and representation of culture in and through education, we try to show that Brandom’s philosophy can also be used to point out an inferentialism that is already at work in educational theory. Together, this strengthens a social theoretic account of education that explores how to conceptualise the role of knowledge in educational processes in terms of a holistic epistemology.

Drawing on my recent work using inferential role semantics and elements of speech act theory to analyze the role of derogatory terms (a.k.a. ‘hate speech’, or ‘slurs’) in the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda, as well as the role of certain kinds of reparative speech acts in post-genocide Rwanda, this paper highlights key pragmatist commitments that inform the methods and goals of this practical analysis of real world events. In “Genocidal Language Games”, I used conceptual tools from Wittgenstein, Sellars, Lewis, and Brandom, with a nod to Searle’s concept of status-functions, to develop an analysis that helps to make sense of the view that a steady, deep, and widespread derogation of a group can at least partially constitute genocide, not only be an antecedent to it.  In this paper, I sketch some of the tools and lessons of this project, with an eye to highlighting their pragmatist roots and the directions to which such real-world investigations lead.

La presente tesis demuestra la influencia del idealismo trascendental kantiano en la reforma epistemológica desarrollada por el filósofo Wilfrid Sellars en su propósito de lograr una filosofía desprovista del Mito de lo Dado y afín al ideal de conciliar la imagen manifiesta y la imagen científica en una visión estereoscópica del ser humano en el universo. Se argumenta que Sellars transforma la filosofía teórica de Kant en una propuesta contemporánea que enfatiza el aspecto normativo de las reglas trascendentales y las convierte en presupuestos de una actividad lingüística que opera, incluso, desde el nivel del reporte de nuestras percepciones. Para dar cuenta de lo anterior, la tesis se encuentra dividida en tres momentos argumentativos: en el primer momento se demuestra la adopción y redefinición que Sellars hace de nociones claves kantianas (las distinciones analítico–sintético, a priori–a posteriori, fenómeno–noúmeno) y su interpretación del modelo conceptualista de la cognición humana desarrollado por Kant a partir de sus principales compromisos filosóficos: el naturalismo, el realismo científico y el nominalismo psicológico. En el segundo momento, se analiza la interpretación sellarsiana de la metafísica de la experiencia desarrollada en la primera parte de la Crítica de la Razón Pura, específicamente en la Doctrina Trascendental de los Elementos, lugar de la obra en la cual se definen las condiciones a priori de posibilidad de todo conocimiento objetivo y válido universalmente, como también la función de las facultades del pensamiento humano. En el tercer y último momento, se expone la reapropiación que hace Sellars del idealismo trascendental kantiano en su teoría normativa del rol conceptual, en términos de un viraje del idealismo trascendental a la lingüística trascendental. En las conclusiones de la tesis, se desarrolla y defiende el naturalismo científico kantiano como la apuesta teórico-metodológica más coherente con el propósito mencionado inicialmente.

This paper discusses the integrated approach to the semantics and pragmatics of language developed in my Making It Explicit (Brandom 1994). The core claim is that there are six consequential relations among commitments and entitlements that are sufficient for a practice exhibiting them to qualify as discursive, that is, as a practice of giving and asking for reasons, hence as one conferring genuinely conceptual content on the expressions, performances, and statuses that have scorekeeping significances in those practices. I divide the six consequential relations into two groups, the fundamental-semantic and the social-pragmatic, and I characterise the complex interactions between them. The bold and potentially falsifiable overall claim is that any practice that exhibits this full six-fold structure will be interpretable in a broadly Davidsonian sense: roughly, mappable onto ours in a way that makes conversation with us possible.

I argue against inferentialism about logic. First, I argue against an analogy between logic and chess, before considering a more basic objection to stipulating inference rules as a way of establishing the meaning of logical constants. The objection-the Mushroom Omelette Objection-is that stipulative acts are partly constituted by logical notions, and therefore cannot be used to explain logical thought. I then argue that the same problem also attaches to following existing conventional rules, since either those rules have logical contents, or following those conventional rules is done for logical reasons. Lastly, I compare this argument with other arguments found in Quine's early work, and consider two attempts to reply to Quine.

John McDowell articulated a radical criticism of normative inferentialism against Robert Brandom’s expressivist account of conceptual contents. One of his main concerns consists in vindicating a notion of intentionality that could not be reduced to the deontic relations that are established by discursive practitioners. Noticeably, large part of this discussion is focused on empirical knowledge and observational judgments. McDowell argues that there is no role for inference in the application of observational concepts, except the paradoxical one of justifying the content of an observational judgment in terms of itself. This paper examines the semantical consequences of the analysis of the content of empirical judgments in terms of their inferential role. These, it is suggested, are distinct from the epistemological paradoxes that McDowell charges the inferentialist approach with.

The aim of this paper is to provide context for and historical exegesis of Carnap's alleged move from syntax to semantics. The Orthodox Received View states that there was a radical break, while the Unorthodox Received View holds that Carnap's syntactical period already had many significant semantical elements. I will argue that both of them are partly right, both of them contains a kernel of truth: it is true that Carnap's semantical period started after his Logical Syntax of Language – in one sense of semantics. But it is also true, that Carnap had semantical ideas already in LSL: though not (just) in the sense as URV maintained it. This latter sense of semantics is related to what is usually called inferentialism, and by getting a clearer picture of Carnap's original aims, context, and concept-usage, we might be in a better position to approach his alleged inferentialism.

La philosophie et la science ont toujours évolué ensemble, se sont nourries l’une l’autre et, à ce titre, l’apport kantien constitue une étape décisive dans l’histoire de la science. Les communications que nous proposons viseront à éclairer les différents régimes des relations entre science et philosophie transcendantale : sur le plan de la méthode, des catégories du savoir et de l’histoire des idées.
La philosophie transcendantale a évolué au fil de ses illustrations, et l’on sait que l’idéalisme et le positivisme s’affrontèrent autour d’elle. Il semble toutefois que l’idéalisme était mal interprété et qu’on l’a réduit à certaines de ses limites. La rupture identifiée par les positivistes à la fin du XIXe siècle ne serait peut-être pas aussi radicale que l’histoire le laisse penser. On pourrait observer et démontrer une continuité méthodologique, notamment dans le mode de probation apagogique et l’inférentialisme, entre les postures scientifiques de l’idéalisme et la science contemporaine, de telle sorte que les ruptures historiques ou conceptuelles avec le transcendantalisme demanderaient qu’elles soient à nouveau évaluées.

I consider the ‘inferentialist’ thesis that whenever a mental state rationally justifies a belief it is in virtue of inferential relations holding between the contents of the two states. I suggest that no good argument has yet been given for the thesis. I focus in particular on Williamson (2000) and Ginsborg (2011) and show that neither provides us with a reason to deny the plausible idea that experience can provide non-inferential justification for belief. I finish by pointing out some theoretical costs and tensions associated with endorsing inferentialism. [Forthcoming in Synthese . . . ]

According to the logical inferentialist, the meaning of a logical connective is determined by the inference rules that govern its use. Proof theoretic semantics attempts to make this idea precise in a proof theoretic framework, using for example natural deduction or sequent calculus rules. Since Prior's infamous connective tonk much of proof theoretic semantics have been occupied with formal anti-tonk conditions which rule out ill-behaved connectives (e.g. conservativeness, harmony). Common between them is that inference rules only succeed in determining the meaning of a connective if the proof theoretic conditions are fulfilled. On the traditional account, however, such conditions are insensitive to substructural dimensions of proof theory, e.g. the distinction between additive and multiplicative connectives. We argue that proof theoretic semantics ought to have the resources to attribute different meanings to substructurally distinct connectives. Subsequently we show how to develop a notion of proof theoretic harmony that preserves substructural distinctions from introduction to elimination rules. The substructural account of harmony can rule out cases of nonconservativeness that previous accounts have not dealt with.

The paper surveys different notions of implicit definition. In particular , we offer an examination of a kind of definition commonly used in formal axiomatics, which in general terms is understood as providing a definition of the primitive terminology of an axiomatic theory. We argue that such "structural definitions" can be semantically understood in two different ways, namely (i) as specifications of the meaning of the primitive terms of a theory and (ii) as definitions of higher-order mathematical concepts or structures. We analyze these two conceptions of structural definition both in the history of modern axiomatics and in contemporary philosophical debates. Based on that, we give a systematic assessment of the underlying semantics of these two ways of understanding the definiens of such definitions, by considering alternative model-theoretic and inferential accounts of meaning.

Inferentialism seems to be an unpopular theory where derogatory terms are concerned. Contrary to most theorists in the debate on the meaning of derogatory terms, I think that inferentialism constitutes a promising theory to account for a broad range of aspects of derogatory language use. In order to make good on that promise, however, inferentialism must overcome four main objections that are usually raised against Michael Dummett's and Robert Brandom's inferentialist explanations of derogatory terms. This paper aims at debunking these objections and thereby further developing the inferentialist interpretation of derogatory terms. I shall first discuss and reject three of the objections by pointing to the core assumptions of Brandomian inferentialism. Overcoming the fourth objection requires adjusting Dummett's and Brandom's explanation of the meaning of derogatory terms. In order to do so, I shall elaborate on the role that the explication of implicit material inferences plays with regard to different kinds of derogatory terms. The inferentialist account I am proposing fares better in terms of its explanatory power and broadness of application than Dummett's and Brandom's sketchy and oft-criticised views.

One of the most surprisingly prominent themes in Robert Brandom's A Spirit of Trust is the role of genealogical explanations. Brandom sees genealogies or 'debunking arguments' as significant because of their ability to deprive our discursive acts (claims and actions) of the normative status they require to be genuinely discursive or conceptual. His solution to the problem of genealogy is to offer rationalizing reconstructions of others' discursive acts, which credit them with normative status. He calls this "forgiveness" (a notion similar to Davidson's "charity"). In this paper, I provide some additional conceptual resources to explicate Brandom's notions of genealogy and forgiveness. These resources allow me to discriminate between two alternate and seemingly incompatible ways of responding to genealogies. One way depends on rationalizing explanations that still attempt to attribute commitments to their subjects, the other avoids making such attributions in favor of explaining commitments only in terms of norms accepted by the rationalizer. I argue that Brandom's work sometimes promotes the latter response to genealogy but that this tendency should be eliminated from the account.

Proof-theoretic semantics is a well-established inferentialist theory of meaning that develops ideas proposed by Prawitz and Dummett. The main aim of this theory is to find a foundation of logic based on some aspects of the linguistic use of the logical terms, as opposed to the regular foundation offered by a model-theoretic approach à la Tarski, in which the denotation of non-linguistic entities is central. Traditionally, intuitionistic logic is considered justified in proof-theoretic semantics (although some doubts are sometimes raised regarding ex falso quodlibet). Even though this approach to semantics has greatly progressed in the last decades, it remains nonetheless controversial the existence of a justification of classical logic that suits its restraints. In this thesis I examine various proposals that try to give such a justification and propose a new one greatly inspired by one of Peter Milne’s papers. The conclusion is, to some extent, open since a reformulation of some notions of proof-theoretic semantics is needed in order to justify classical logic. I conclude the thesis with a general defence of logical pluralism and a description of the kind of pluralism that can be applied to our reformulation of proof-theoretic semantics.

In his influential book Truth, Paul Horwich deploys a philosophical method focused on linguistic usage, that is, on the function(s) the concept of truth serves in actual discourse. In doing so Horwich eschews abstract metaphysics, arguing that metaphysical or ontological conceptions of truth rest on basic misconceptions. From this description, one might reasonably expect Horwich's book to have drawn inspiration from, or even embodied philosophical pragmatism of some kind. Unfortunately Horwich relies upon Russell's tired caricature of pragmatism about truth (''p' is true if and only if it is useful to believe p' (Ibid., p. 34, p. 47)), and as a result underestimates the challenge it poses to Minimalism. This paper develops a pragmatist critique of minimalism that focuses on the seemingly central, plausibly constitutive role played by the concept of truth in the speech-act of assertion. The critique suggests that Horwich's Minimalism does not and cannot accomplish its stated goal of explaining all of the facts involving truth. Indeed, the kind of thorough-going deflationism sought by Horwich and others (including pragmatist sympathizer Bob Brandom) is incompatible with an adequate account of assertion, and perhaps other concepts (like belief, judgement and inquiry) as well.

"The Perceptual Hypothesis is that we sometimes see, and thereby have non-inferential knowledge of, others’ mental features. The Perceptual Hypothesis opposes Inferentialism, which is the view that our knowledge of others’ mental features is always inferential. The claim that some mental features are embodied is the claim that some mental features are realized by states or processes that extend beyond the brain. The view I discuss here is that the Perceptual Hypothesis is plausible if, but only if, the mental features it claims we see are suitably embodied. Call this Embodied Perception Theory.

I argue that Embodied Perception Theory is false. It doesn’t follow that the Perceptual Hypothesis is implausible. The considerations which serve to undermine Embodied Perception Theory serve equally to undermine the motivations for assuming that others’ mental lives are always imperceptible."

https://www.routledge.com/Practices-of-Reason-Fusing-the-Inferentialist-and-Scientific-Image/Koren/p/book/9780367702212

This book offers new insights into the nature of human rational capacities by engaging inferentialism with empirical research in the cognitive sciences.

Inferentialism advocates that humans’ unique kind of intelligence is discursive and rooted in competencies to make, assess and justify claims. This approach provides a rich source of valuable insights into the nature of our rational capacities, but it is underdeveloped in important respects. For example, little attempt has been made to assess inferentialism considering relevant scientific research on human communication, cognition or reasoning. By engaging philosophical and scientific approaches in a productive dialogue, this book shows how we can better understand human rational capacities by comparing their respective strengths and weaknesses. In this vein, the author critically revisits and constructively develops central themes from the work of Robert Brandom and other "language rationalists": the nature of the assertoric practice and its connection to reasoned discourse, the linguistic constitution of the shared space of reasons, the social nature and function of reasoning, the intersubjective roots of social-normative practices and the nature of objective thought.

Practices of Reason will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and philosophy of logic.

Characteristic of neo-pragmatism is a commitment to deflationism about semantic properties, and inferentialism about conceptual content. It is usually thought that deflationism undermines the distinction between realistic discourses and others, and that the neo-pragmatists, unlike the classical pragmatists, cannot recognize that truth is a norm of belief and inquiry. I argue, however, that (1) the distinction between realistic discourses and others can be maintained even in the face of a commitment to deflationism, and (2) that neo-pragmatists can recognize that truth is a norm of belief and inquiry. If deflationism is true, realistic discourses, it turns out, are those that are inferentially integrated with a large body of other commitments, whereas those that call for an anti-realist treatment are inferentially isolated. Now, Grimm has persuasively argued that inquiry aims at achieving understanding, and that to understand something is, roughly, to grasp a large body of inferential connections in which it features. So, if he is right, realistic discourses are those in which the aim of inquiry can be achieved. This fact, together with an inferential theory of conceptual content, will, I argue, allow neo-pragmatists to recognize truth as a norm of belief and inquiry, despite their commitment to deflationism.

I elucidate and defend according to a view of critique of knowledge the materialistic character that appears in Adorno’s concept of reason. Adorno, diagnosing violent feature of modern rationality and performing a critique on it, involves concept of nature in reason as its profound constituent. Implicit or explicit, Adorno lays stress on “material” character of his own concept of reason by claiming entanglement of reason and nature, thus turning it materialistic. Adorno’s view that history of reason developed in essential relation to nature, especially implies that reason not only in genetic sense but also in structural sense. Therefore the main objective in Adornian critique of reason is realization of natural elements within reason itself, and above all, in context of critique of knowledge this transforms into a claim that rational beliefs can function only by attributing natural character to itself. This thesis mainly aims to clarify epistemologically and critically arguments that could be derived from Adorno‘s position which emphasizes natural character of reason.
I develop my points in following ways: In Chapter II, I clarify the materialistic character of Adornian reason by showing that it is historically entangled to nature. This
can be fulfilled by showing that (i) nature breaks out of static character as an ultimate, non-historical  source  of  history  itself  and  determines  history  within  history,  (ii) self-destructive history of reason argued in Dialectic of Enlightenment has “forgetting nature” as a cause and “blind nature” as an effect, and (iii) self-reflection of reason as an alternative way directs toward self-realization of its affinity to nature (mimesis). The purpose of Chapter III is to show nature as an internal element of reason despite its otherness. It is accomplished by proving (a) nature has no determinations in itself but a
negative determination of a marginal concept in relation to reason, (b) no extra-rational criterion  is  philosophically  necessary  in  Adornian  critique  of  reason,  and  (c)
“non-conceptual” character of nature needs to be distinguished from unintelligibility. In Chapter IV I want to show how Adorno’s attempt to recover the proper role of sensible intuition in knowledge reveals the natural character of reason. In Chapter V I make explicit how “materialism” in Adorno’s sense properly emphasizes nature as a necessary condition of genesis and operation of rational capacity without reducing it to mere nature,
and how Adornian materialism, far from popular concept of materialism, can be properly understood in non-metaphysical sense. Finally, The aim of Chapter VI is to argue the significance of Adornian insight into involvement of reason in nature by reexamining two
points of critique by Habermas and Benhabib that Adorno’s critical model shows the limit of the paradigm of philosophy of consciousness.

I think that Peregrin is wrong to think that there is a serious tension between Quine's views and inferentialism as an account of natural language. Quine did not see anything wrong with a " science " of norms (although it might well fail to be a hard science), and his notion of a linguistic disposition is not crippling the way that Peregrin supposes. I sketch the beginnings of something that Quine never offered: a positive Quinean account of normativity, landing him squarely with Hume.

Homotopy Type Theory (HoTT) has recently been challenged as to its foundational status. James Ladyman and Stuart Presnell have contested that HoTT's presentation is not sufficiently `pre-mathematical'. I argue that indeed the presentation is not pre-mathematical and that's a good thing. I give a \emph{mathematical} justification for the rule of inference in HoTT they find particularly problematic: Path Induction. I provide a categorical justification of both the internal structure and external representation of Path Induction. This justification, although mathematical, has its philosophic roots in philosophy of logic and language. Particularly, I draw from Prawitz style \emph{inferentialism} and the notion of \emph{Harmony} championed for example by Michael Dummett. This constellation of ideas is unified through categorical logic. In the end, I hope to have justified Path Induction in response to valid philosophical concerns.