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Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... | 30000010251687 | B832 B67 2008 | Open Access Book | Book | Searching... |
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Summary
Summary
Between Saying and Doing aims to reconcile pragmatism (in both its classical American and its Wittgensteinian forms) with analytic philosophy. It investigates the relations between the meaning of linguistic expressions and their use. Giving due weight both to what one has to do in order to count as saying various things and to what one needs to say in order to specify those doings, makes it possible to shed new light on the relations between semantics (the theory of the meanings of utterances and the contents of thoughts) and pragmatics (the theory of the functional relations among meaningful or contentful items). Among the vocabularies whose interrelated use and meaning are considered are: logical, indexical, modal, normative, and intentional vocabulary. As the argument proceeds, new ways of thinking about the classic analytic core programs of empiricism, naturalism, and functionalism are offered, as well as novel insights about the ideas of artificial intelligence, the nature of logic, and intentional relations between subjects and objects.
Author Notes
Robert Brandom is Distinguished Service Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, a fellow of the Center for the Philosophy of Science, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His interests centre on philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of logic. He has published more than 50 articles on these and related areas.
Reviews 1
Choice Review
Brandom (Pittsburgh) has been working on intersecting themes from Hegel, pragmatism, and analytic philosophy for many years. The payoff might be immense, as this new book suggests, since the historicist enculturalization of reason and the pragmatic functionalization of language might be necessary to fulfill analytic philosophy's original aim to defend empiricism against transcendental rationalisms and to advance naturalism over strong dualisms. Semantic logicism will not suffice, as classical pragmatism always complained. But that does not mean that semantic meanings are chimerical or unreal. Brandom's analytic pragmatism, inspired by Wittgenstein and Wilfrid Sellars, tries to clarify the dependencies between semantics (the theory of the meanings of utterances and the contents of thoughts) and pragmatics (the theory of the functional relations among meaningful or contentful items). Brandom treats logical, indexical, modal, normative, and intentional vocabularies, revealing their pragmatically mediated relationships. Among Brandom's many speculative inspirations is his new aim of developing a universal pragmatic metavocabulary--not to legislate what can be meaningfully said, but only to explain how humans manage to actually use any vocabulary. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Academic libraries supporting lower-level undergraduates through faculty/researchers. J. R. Shook University of Buffalo
Table of Contents
| Preface | p. xi |
| Acknowledgements | p. xxiii |
| List of Abbreviations | p. xxiv |
| 1 Extending the Project of Analysis | p. 1 |
| 2 Elaborating Abilities: The Expressive Role of Logic | p. 31 |
| 3 Artificial Intelligence and Analytic Pragmatism | p. 69 |
| 4 Modality and Normativity: From Hume and Quine to Kant and Sellars | p. 92 |
| 5 Incompatibility, Modal Semantics, and Intrinsic Logic | p. 117 |
| 6 Intentionality as a Pragmatically Mediated Semantic Relation | p. 176 |
| Afterword: Philosophical Analysis and Analytic Philosophy | p. 201 |
| Bibliography | p. 236 |
| Subject Index | p. 241 |
| Name Index | p. 250 |
