Articulating Reasons by Robert Brandom Week 4

Can you know what a word means without knowing what it refers to? Articulating Reasons is an introduction to Inferentialism, a view in philosophy of language holding that words get their meaning not from what they point to in the world, but from the role they play in reasoning, i.e. what follows from a claim, and what it commits you to. Championed by Robert Brandom and others as an alternative to the traditional referential view, inferentialism offers a genuinely different picture of how language works. We'll draw out connections to logic, epistemology, and metaphysics along the way, exploring the broader consequences of taking inference, rather than reference, as fundamental. Participants should read the entire reading before attending this in person meeting. We will read pages 157-210 for the last week. I will be reading from this version here. For questions please send me a message or post to meetup. Best, Brian