Dienstag, 13. September 2016

Habermas and Brandom, differences explained

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/27517740_On_Normative_Pragmatics_A_Comparison_between_Brandom_and_Habermas



Habermas seems to assum that we need to get back to the life-world, and have a kind of real-world interaction with it. So we do not deny that there is something going on on the base level of our lives, but we exclude that it can be represented meaningfully in discourses. Discourses on the other hand, have to secure that they bring us back to the bottom of this reality.

"Because agents must get to the bottom ‘of’ the world, they can’t help but being realist in
their life-world. And they also must be so, because their linguistic games and
practices prove in their execution, until these work without surprises” [Haber-
mas (1996), p. 735]." (60)


Freitag, 9. September 2016

Externalism vs. Internalism

the Stanford Encyclopedia gives the best example:

"To give a trivial example, externalism is true of mosquito bites since having them requires having been bitten by a mosquito. A mark on the skin created by careful micro-surgery is not a mosquito bite, even if it is intrinsically indistinguishable from a real one." http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/content-externalism/#Int

Donnerstag, 8. September 2016

Brandom's Kripke Puzzle


Brandom und das Kripke Puzzle: http://www.dif.unige.it/epi/hp/penco/pub/bpuz.htm

1. Proper names have no senses, meaning different ways of being given


"Now Kripke argued that co-referential proper names are rigid designators, and so are intersubstitutable in modal contexts after all"

Kripke argues with necessity and experience “Hesperus = Phosphorus” is aposteriori; but “Hesperus = Hesperus” is obviously apriori.) http://tedsider.org/teaching/language/HO_Kripkes_puzzle_about_belief.pdf


1 3. Substitution in attitude contexts Disquotational principle If a normal English speaker re ectively and sincerely assents to ‘ p’, then she or he believes that p Strengthened disquotational principle A normal English speaker who is not reticent will be disposed to sincere re ective assent to ‘ p’ if and only if she or he believes that p Logical principle No logically competent person believes contradictory things The anti-Mill argument: 1. Lois assents to ‘Superman can y’ 2. If 1 is true then Lois believes that Superman can y 3. Lois assents to ‘Clark cannot y’, and does not assent to ‘Clark can y’ 4. If 3 is true then Lois does not believe that Clark can y 5. If Mill’s view is true then Lois believes that Superman can y if and only if she believes that Clark can y 6. Therefore, Mill’s view isn’t true. 4. Pierre Suppose Pierre is a normal French speaker who lives in France and speaks not a word of English or of any other language except French. Of course he has heard of that famous distant city, London (which he of course calls ‘Londres’) though he himself has never left France. On the basis of what he has heard of London, he is inclined to think that it is pretty. So he says, in French, “Londres es jolie.”… Later, Pierre, through fortunate or unfortunate vicissitudes, moves to England, in fact to London itself, though to an unattractive part of the city with fairly uneducated inhabitants. He, like most of his neighbors, rarely ever leaves this part of the city. None of his neighbors know any French, so he must learn English by ‘direct method’, without using any translation of English into French: by talking and mixing with the people 2 he eventually begins to pick up English. In particular, everyone speaks of the city, ‘London’, where they all live… Pierre’s surroundings are, as I said, unattractive, and he is unimpressed with most of the rest of what he happens to see. So he is inclined to assent to the English sentence: (5) London is not pretty. He has no inclination to assent to: (6) London is pretty (pp. 442–43) Now consider: 1. Pierre assents to ‘Londres es jolie’ 2. If 1 is true then Pierre believes that London is pretty 3. Pierre assents to ‘London is not pretty’ and does not assent to ‘London is pretty’ 4. If 3 is true then Pierre does not believe that London is pretty These lines form a paradox: they are mutually contradictory. But they’re nearly exactly parallel to the rst four lines of the anti-Mill argument. The only difference is that the sentence assented to in 1 is in French. So, to argue for 2, rst speak French and use the disquotation principle in French to get: Pierre croit que Londres est jolie Then use the following principle to get that Pierre believes that London is pretty: Translation principle if a sentence of one language expresses a truth in that language, then any translation of it into any other language also expresses a truth (in that other language)

Davidson and Swindal's Action and Existence

http://reasonpapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/rp_361_15.pdf

Davidson's Artikel zu Action and Existence:

https://bibliotecamathom.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/actions-reasons-and-causes.pdf

Anaphora - Does Brandom solve the communication problem?

Does Brandom solve the problem of communication?

Source: Mueller, A. (2014) Löst Brandoms Inferentialismus bedeutungsholistische Kommunikationsprobleme? In: Zeitschrift für Semiotik 36: 3-4 https://www.academia.edu/15554205/L%C3%B6st_Brandoms_Inferentialismus_bedeutungsholistische_Kommunikationsprobleme , accessed 09.09.2016


1. Definition of the problem of communication:

Inferentialism, the idea that we know objects by virtue of inferences, and the assumption that speakers can always hold different opinions based on the possibly different inferences that constitute an object for them.

The different backgrounds of people, however, lead to the communication problem which means that it is unclear of how we communicate about given objects.

Without a point of stable reference, we face the problem of relativism.

The problem can also be explained in another way: What does it mean to have determinate objects?

2. Explanation of different terms:

Before we dedicate ourselves to this problem, we have to clarify some terms and references.

2.1 Meaning Holism:

In order to explain this term, it is helpful to look at atomism first.

Atomism assumes that we can refer to single, independent points in our surroundings.

A meaning holism assumes, in contrast to an atomism, that the meaning of all words is interconnected. This means that there are no points that we refer to, but we point out structural relations.

It is also different from molecularism according to which words are bound to small groups of meaning. "Kill", for example, is bound to "die" and "cause". This means that each word is composed by smaller atomistic parts.

According to a Conceptual Realism, these interconnected words have the same structure as reality. Conceptual Realism is a strategy that Brandom upholds.

Traces of meaning holism in Quine:
“It is misleading to speak of the empirical content of an individual statement” (Quine 1951: 43), and that “the unit of empirical significance is the whole of science” (Quine 1951: 42) " http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/meaning-holism/ Quine, W.V., 1951, “Two dogmas of empiricism”, reprinted in W.V. Quine, 1953, From a logical point of view, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 20–46.
In these two statements Quine expresses that there is no direct reference of an individual statement, but that it is instead the whole of science that is captured in each statement, because each statement is made on the grounds of a possible whole. Hempel comes up with a similar idea.
"the cognitive meaning of a statement in an empirical language is reflected in the totality of its logical relationships to all other statements in the language. (Hempel 1950: 59) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/meaning-holism Hempel, C.G., 1950, “Problems and changes in the empiricist criterion of meaning”, Revue internationale de Philosophie , 41(11): 41–63.
Meaning holism means therefore that each individual statement refers to language as a whole. Meaning Holism has some costs and they actually lead to the communication problem (according to http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/meaning-holism/)

2.2 Problem of Idiolects

A more specific way to define the problem that Brandom encounters with his communication problem is the problem of idiolects.

Definition: "idiolect is a language (or some part or aspect of a language) that can be characterized exhaustively in terms of intrinsic properties of some single person, the person whose idiolect it is. The main force of ‘intrinsic’ is to exclude essential reference to features of the person's wider linguistic community, and perhaps too of their physical environment"  http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/idiolects/#3

Note: The concept of intrinsic expresses an internalist standpoint that something can be entirely independent of external causes and still is such a thing.

Just because Brandom believes that we can operate without references does not mean that we have a problem of idiolects. In fact, humans who say we share a common capacity, namely to exchange reasons. And an approach of how that is supposed to work is Brandom's inferential-substitutional-anaphoric semantics

2.3 Brandom’s ISA (inferential-substitutional-anaphoric) semantics

Brandom's approach to explaining how determinate content is possible is lead by three basic concepts: inferences, substitution and anaphora.

So Brandom's main idea is that the content of inferences is preserved if it does not change a correct inference into a false inference

Example?

Two claims are incompatible if they are not substitutable.

Thus inferences have subsentential meaning that means that substitutes belong to them in a certain relation.

Making It Explicit (MIE) is Brandom's central book that is supposed to replace a representational semantics with a inferentialist semantics.

2.4 Brandom's navigation-model

According to Mueller, Brandom defends the navigation-model. This means that we do not share contents but give information of how to navigate around contents.

There are some premises for understanding this:

a) First of all, we communicate, because we have different perceptions and conceptions of objects which make it necessary to share inferences that we could draw on objects so far:
"Brandom considers the systematic difference in information among individuals as the „point“ of communication""
This point of communication leads to a model of “navigating among perspectives without sharing contents” (see Mueller 2014). This must mean that we do not have correct contents in our mind, just because somebody utters a word. The relationship between mental images and communication must be more complex.

The main point of discussion, however, is: How can we secure such communication without having any points of stable reference? 

Brandom uses here the concept of anaphora which means that we always refer to something that preceded our utterances.

Main Question is then:

"Do "anaphoric connections between tokens uttered in discourse that can be used by every individual speaker in their own perspectival semantic substitution-economies" function?"

This question translates into: Can we communicate with each other, if we have no references that means objective things we can refer to?

3. Anaphora as a solution to the communications problem in inferentialism

Again Brandom’s semantics is "purely inferential, hence non-referential nature of anaphora, coupled with the claim that anaphoric-inferential semantic mechanisms yield sufficient conditions for mutually successful “information-extraction” or interpretation".

Let us explain again the single words of this statement

Information-extraction means that we can extract information from sentences that are transmitted to us.

Anaphora are components a sentence that refer to another content, an antecedent, that precedes this content.

An anaphoric-inferential semantic mechanism means that the meaning of a word (semantic) is decoded by a backward inference (a conclusion back to the premises of a word). This backward inference is of a specific type that resembles anaphoras.

Critique of Mueller: Brandom's inferentialist approach might not be successful to solve the communication problem, because Brandom relies on "covert “reference-infiltrations” that cannot be eliminated.

So Brandom does not work without reference? That is what Mueller claims:
"Regarding the latter, a new argument based on context-sensitive semantic phenomena in anaphoric settings shows that the crucial distinction between initiator or anaphoric antecedent and anaphoric dependent cannot be drawn according to Brandom’s own premises without overt and irreducible referential premises."
The question is more fundamental whether reference is necessary for having determinate concepts. Brandom's substitutional semantics will be explained further: Here.


4. The communication problem (in more specifics)

Müller defines the communication problem:
"Wird Signifikanz oder Gehalt von verwendeten Ausdrücken, Gedanken und Handlungen inferentialistisch als Rolle in einem gegebenen Folgerungssystem charakterisiert, aber zugleich bedeutungsholistisch keine noch so wahrnehmungsrelative Festlegung oder Folgerung eines kognitiven Systems von den potentiell gehaltsbestimmenden Bedingungen ausgeschlossen, dann stellt sich unter der unproblematischen Annahme, dass die genauen Hintergrundbedingungen zur Gehaltsbestimmung individuell variieren werden, die unmittelbare Frage, wie Kommunikation unter dieserart perspektivisch gehaltsbestimmenden Individuen möglich ist."
Müller gives a grammatically complicated analysis of the problem. For the most part it means: Inferentialism, and the assumption that speakers can always hold different opinions lead to the communication problem. This means we have no idea what we are talking about. We might say that this is not such a big problem, but it becomes clearer when Mueller writes:
 (4) "Welchen Gehalt ein bestimmter Ausdruck (im Gegensatz zu anderen gehaltvollen Ausdrücken ähnlicher grammatischer Art) hat, ergibt sich wiederum vollständig aus der Rolle, die der Ausdruck für das Gesamtsystem guter Schlussfolgerungen spielt, dem er angehört." (page 5)
So the content of an expression is defined by the role it has in a complete system of conclusions to which it belongs. Since, however, an expression can be interpreted in dependence of the language user, there is no determinate content.

So let us assume that we can grasp all possible interpretations of an expression x in a language t. Now let us assume that we also have all possible interpretations of an expression y in a language t. If interpretation, however, is not limited then the possible interpretations of x and y are exactly the same, namely the complete range of language t. If, however expression x, and expression y express everything in language t, then they do not express anything.

For example, let us say I see an object and call it a helicopter, while another person sees it and says it is car. Now both of our statements are interpretations and depending on the contextual conditions. We both might have reasons to call it this or that. Now, if any interpretation was possible, so that somebody else could call it a mule, or another on a planet, then we are in deep problems of contributing meaning to something at all. So what actually restricts us from having the most absurd interpretations of our surroundings and what makes us to specify?

We can also find an example that is more understandable. If I say "I see a bird", then 'bird' might mean very different things to people. It might mean an object that can fly, or it might mean a bird that cannot fly (like pinguins). In one instance I could express something that is capable of flying, in another instance I might not refer to this feature. The main problem is that referring to something does not mean to refer to its essence, but referring to its reconstruction. That, however, means that referring is preceded by certain types of inferences and this means we are not talking about things in the first place, but about agreed ideas of how to reconstruct something.

Also Abelard makes the argument that our statements cannot be about things because a statement can be about something that includes contradictory features, while things (according to the principle of non-contradiction that will be discussed elsewhere) cannot have contradictory features. For example, saying "There is a man in the house" might express that there is a man who is either black or white, but he cannot be both. We are, however, not surprised if we discover that the man is black and not white, though he could have been white. For this reason, Abelard concludes that a statement is not about things, but about states. Things cannot bear contradictory properties, but it is possible for stated objects as long as their features are not expressed, or if the features do not analytically follow from their meaning (I mean if they are not properties).

I do believe that Brandom attempts to tackle this problem with a similar approach in his inferentialism. Expressing something is at the same time expressing something about our conceptual net of reasons that we have gathered during our life, and an expression is never independent of this conceptual net. Now, Brandom tries to describe three basic rules of how we refer.

Brandom's idea is that our meanings are guided by substitutional rules. I do not make references but point out rules of substitution.

It is about exchanging structures (very good source: https://books.google.de/books?id=WMCoBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA144&lpg=PA144&dq=brandom+substitution&source=bl&ots=FXT4ViJS7U&sig=isEdvPUbIGHWJ1fVilK4TnH60ow&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjdl8z2npTPAhWEGT4KHXDqDxEQ6AEITjAI#v=onepage&q=brandom%20substitution&f=false)

Brandom's solution is to work without the representationalist repertoire, and to operate with so called norms of coherence and to achieve communication by virtue of that. ("inferenziell durch Kohärenznormen vollauf bestimmten und gehaltsbestimmenden Überzeugungssystemen hinweg"). His approach is "sozial-inferentialistisch". Brandom states:

" „inferential articulation broadly construed is sufficient to account for conceptual content“ (AR: 28)„inferentialist semantics is resolutely holist. On an inferentialist account of conceptual content, one cannot have any concepts unless one has many concepts. For the content of each concept is articulated by its inferential connections to other concepts. (…) Conceptual holism is (…) a straightforward consequence of this approach” (AR: 15-6)"
Conceptual holism is the idea that the content of an utterance is not its reference, but the whole of the life-form that uses this language as a possible whole. But how then does Brandom understand the content of an expression?

Brandom relates meaning (content) strongly to the reasons of why we exchange at all. For Brandom it is first of all a claim that is made, and by which somebody makes a content available to others. Claims then are for giving reasons, and not for representing in the first place:

„For information (whether true or false) to be communicated is for the claims undertaken by one interlocutor to become available to others (who attribute them) as premises for inferences. Communication is the social production and consumption of reasons” (MIE: 474). (page5)
 We will look at the solution in more detail in the next point. First of all, however, we discuss

Brandom's deflationism. He states:

„truth and reference are philosopher’s fictions, generated by grammatical misunderstandings” (MIE: 324)
Brandom's deflationism, however, does not extend beyond the criticism of a direct empirical, referentialist approach.




5. Intentionality 

Intentionality should also be understood within the boundaries of an inferentialist semantics. It is not simply located in the internal goal of the action.

»Daß etwas von jemandem als intentionales System betrachtet oder behandelt wird, rangiert in der Reihenfolge der Erklärung vor der Tatsache, daß es ein intentionales System ist« (Brandom 2000, 109).

Intentionality is depending on the linguistic community that institutionalizes certain behaviours that are evaluated as intentions afterwards. see http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~vogd/Brandom.pdf 1 Werner Vogd, 2004, vogd@zedat.fu-berlin.de

Intentional states are determined by the social practice of giving and asking for reasons.

»Ewas als verstandesfähig zu behandeln heißt, sein Verhalten dadurch zu erklären, dass man ihm intentionale Zustände wie Überzeugungen und Wünsche für sein Verhalten unterstellt« (ders., 38).

For these issues we developed a normative vocabulary and express it in the deontic score keeping.

"Erst die gemeinsame sprachliche Praxis »überzieht eine natürliche Welt mit normativen Signifikanzen, die intrinsisch keine Richtlinien oder Urteilsmaßstäbe enthält«. Objektivismus und Subjektivismus, »bedeutungslose Gegenstände und Bedeutung schaffende Subjekte« erscheinen so als »zwei Aspekte eines Bildes« (ders., 96), nämlich der pragmatisch normativen Konstitution von Wirklichkeit mittels der wechselseitigen Zuweisung entsprechender Status." (Seite 2)

So what is truth?
"Wenn im Diskurs beispielsweise der Äußerung a von Sprecher A, durch B Wahrhaftigkeit zuerkannt wurde, so sieht sich hierdurch auch B berechtigt, im weiteren Gespräch a als wahr zu nehmen. Die Begriffe „wahr“ und „falsch“ brauchen hier nicht mehr im traditionellen Sinne als Eigenschaften, die den Dingen innewohnen, verstanden werden. Vielmehr wird eine »Behauptung als wahr zu betrachten« zuallererst »als das Übernehmen einer normativen Einstellung« verstanden (ders., 464).

The main idea is that language is not something that simply is established, but that it can be derived from the idea of cooperation:

"Die Annahme einer priviligierten Wir-Perspektive der Gemeinschaft gibt hier keinen erklärenden Sinn mehr, denn den hieraus abgeleiteten normativen Regelkonzepten fehlt die für die Zuweisungeines normativen Status benötigte Referenz auf einen konkreten Beobachter."


It is time now to look more into Brandom's solution


6. The solution: Subsitution, and anaphora


To "pick up a speaker’s tokening [to, AM] (...) connect it to their own substitution-inferential commitments. is part of what makes it possible (…) (to extract) information from it” (MIE: 475) " (according to Mueller)

Deixis präsupponiert Anapher. (see Müller 20)

For example:


Bra I
R. Brandom
Expressive Vernunft Frankfurt 2000
 I 438
Anapher/Brandom: man beschreibt eine Katze nicht, wenn man sich auf sie mit "sie" bezieht."man beschreibt eine Katze nicht, wenn man sich auf sie mit "sie" bezieht."

I 627
Anapher/Referenz/Einmaligkeit/Unwiederholbarkeit/Brandom: Substitution ist für unwiederholbare Tokenings natürlich nicht definierbar - daher muss sich anaphorisch auf sie bezogen werden

Final ideas of anaphers
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237611969_A_UNIFIED_ACCOUNT_OF_ANAPHORA_FOR_BRANDOM_%27S_INFERENTIALISM

Brandom on Expressive Deflationism http://www.academia.edu/12318848/Explanatory_vs._Expressive_Deflationism_About_Truth




X. Final remark: a possible middle

  An anderen Stellen deutet Brandom eine in Diskussionen mit McDowell entwickelte konziliatorische Selbstdarstellung an, in der er die Plausibilität eines Mittelwegs zugesteht, der inferentialistisch und referenzialistisch identifizierbare Normen als irreduzibel aufeinander zugrundelegt und aufeinander als gegenseitige Beschränkungen bezieht. Als Hilfestellung zur korrekten Einordnung seiner Erklärung des „commitment to invert the representationalist order of explanation” (MIE: 135) gesteht Brandom bereits in MIE in einer Fußnote zu , dass er zwar den Gegensatz repräsentationalistischer und inferentialistischer Herangehensweisen betone, aber „other possibilities include treating neither representation nor inference as explanatorily prior to the other. One might then go on to explain both in terms of some third notion, which is treated as more fundamental. Or one might eschew reductive explanations in semantics entirely“. 64 Auch in Antwort auf McDowells prinzipielle Einwände gegen den Versuch, begrifflichen Gehalt in Absehung von der Repräsentationsfunktion begrifflicher Ausdrucksmittel aufklären zu wollen (den McDowell als reduktionistisch versteht), macht Brandom wiederholt deutlich, dass It may be, after all, that neither can be understood apart from the other — that reference and inference come as an indissoluble conceptual package that cannot be analyzed reductively, but only relationally. I agree, of course . [Herv.AM] Looking for a way to get an independent theoretical grip on one range of concepts, and then explicating the other in terms of it is only one strategy for illuminating the relations between the representational and inferential perspectives on semantic content. (…) The aim of MIE is not to say that the inferentialist order of explanation is the only one that can provide semantic illumination. It is to explore what kind of illumination it can provide (…) inference and representation are co-ordinate concepts”.

more definitions here: http://www.hausarbeiten.de/faecher/vorschau/114291.html


Normativity
"He maintains that the meaning of linguistic expressions should not primarily be specified in terms of truth conditions but in terms of their entailments."

This means the truth of a sentence depends on what it entails, not on what it represents. 

"That is, the propositional content of linguistic expressions is determined by what they materially entail. Logical rules are explained as generalizations of good material inferences which are presupposed as primitives of the system (Brandom 1994: Ch. 6)[...]. Due to the inferential character of assertions, if some one asserts something, she is not only committed to t he assertion she just asserted, but also to every assertion which is materially entailed by it. And vice versa, the only way of licensing an assertion is a commitment to assertions which entail the assertion in question. For this reason, Brandom describes our linguistic practice as ‘the game of giving and asking for reasons’ : I’m responsible for every statement I assert. Responsibility is understood as an obligation to justify my assertion by giving reasons for it . In giving reasons for an assertion, one makes explicit the inferential relations which are already implicit in the propositional content of the original assertion.http://philpapers.org/archive/REIBPI










Brandom for introductory purposes

A Reader for further research, Comments on further sources are welcome


I. General Ressources

1. Brandom on Wikipedia (EnglishGerman)

German Wiki lists Brandom as one of the most influential philosophers of the present

2. Brandom's CV

Just to get a general idea of him.

3. Brandom's Prepuslished Work and Courses

Brandom publishes many unfinished papers, and course manuscripts on his webpage.

4. Brandom's Recommendations on Brandom

Brandom recommends books that are central to understand his work.




II. Further Detailed Explanations of the Brandomian Framework

1. Some Fundamental Problems and Explanation of Terms

Explanation of Brandom's normative pragmatics (a rulebound understanding):

a) The "most important activity of humans" is "undertak[ing] commitments.
b) These commitments are bound by rules according to which we understand our actions.

Wittgensteinian critique of a rulebound understanding: We run into an infinite regress of rules because we need meta-rules of how to apply rules and so forth.

Brandom's solution for the infinite regress of rules: Rules do not come from the internal source of the thinking self, but are established by preexisting human communities with preexisting understandings. We thus follow implicitly performatives that are established by societies (see Bacon, M. (2014) Pragmatism: An Introduction. John Wiley & Sons.)

Why is this important?

A Normative Pragmatics avoids problems of externally approached meaning. It does not presuppose a naked reality but approaches persons as first instances of meaning. I claim that our theoretical discourses should be lead by the question of how we are, and not of what we are with regard to a physicalist, or realist mindset.

Inferentialism: The idea that there is never only one concept, but that concepts are only true with regard to other concepts. The condition for the truth of a concept is thus not its reference to a given object, but its embeddment into inferences

Brandom's Antirepresentationalism: It is his inferentialism, namely the rejection that our utterances represent most and for all objects in an external real world. Representation is rather a minor function in a game of giving and asking for reasons.

Brandom's two sides of the coin, Pragmatism and Semantics

Raffaela Giovagnoli writes:
"Brandom’s theory presents two different but related sides: a pragmatic side, in which he investigates the significance of the speech-act, referring to the normative roles that govern the keeping of deontic score; a semantic side that clarifies the contents of discursive commitments, referring to the inferential substitutional rules."
These two sides are concerning the intended pragmatic integration of semantics, or as Brandom claims "semantics has to answer pragmatics". Brandom states the following:

“The essential point is that philosophical semantic theory incorporates an obligation to make the semantic notions it appeals to intelligible in terms of their pragmatic significance”[Brandom (1994a). p. 145, according to Giovagnoli].
 So the main point is here that semantic notions have no meaning if they are not embedded in the contexts of a community that communicates these semantic concepts. For example, there is no reason to discuss an object, like mushrooms, if there is not a pragmatic difference in perceiving such objects. What counts as a mushroom for one person, might be interpreted much different by another person. So, to progress with the example, a poisonous mushroom is relevant to be identified. In this sense Giovagnolie proceeds:

The goal of a philosophical semantic theory is, therefore, to show how the content is associated with expressions or states (Raffaela Giovagnoli)
Semantic content must depend on rules of expression that make utterances viable for a communication culture. There is no need to communicate about the fact that I have a representation of a mushroom in my head. There is a pragmatic significance, however, that I perceive a certain mushroom to be a poisonous mushroom, and that should be communicated to affected members of my community. If, moreover, there was not this problem of communication, then communication would be unnecessary.


Brandom's Deflationism (Denying a Theory of Truth): The Inferential Embeddment of Propositions

a) The Midas' Touch:

"Brandom does not understand content here in terms of referential, intentional properties which have a phenomenal "aboutness" as their essential nature. Brandom understands propositional content "in terms of inference rather than truth" (Mosteller 2014: 80)
Brandom denies that the content of our utterances is primarily directed towards things that we are refering to (referential). Things are also not derived from our intentional approach towards them as outer beings (intentional properties). Our utterances are not about something but are related to our activity of inferences. Our utterances are expressing our normative attitude towards contents. For this reason, Brandom writes:

"two claims that have the same conceptual content iff [if and only if] they have the same inferential role" (p.167)" (according to Mosteller 2014: 80)

Brandom's inferentialism kicks in here, and is explained in the following:
"To be propositionally contentful is to be able to play the role both of premise and of conclusion in an inference" (pp. 167-168)." (according to Mosteller 2014: 80)
So conceptual content is accepted, iff its possible term can be substituted in other inferences without changing their truth-outcome. So what does it mean to understand a sentence and its declared proposition?
"we have "practical mastery of its inferential role. This is according to Brandom, a "kind of know how rather than knowing that." (Mosteller 2014: 81)

So knowledge is about our mastery of treating something inferentially, instead of only referring to things. This means, we can distinguish between good and bad inferences. A photocell, as well as a parrot, they both do not understand the concept of red. If they 'answer' it will only be a stimulus response: "This is red". Humans, on the other hand, can master this concept by understanding its inferential role. (See Mosteller 2014: 81) Understanding its inferential role means to accept that 'red'

see Mosteller, T. (2014) Theories of Truth: An Introduction. Bloomsbury Publishing



"For the same reasons that baseball can be played on the sandlots and soccer can be played in the streets, ethical discourse can retain an objective dimension without there being a single authority on questions of truth and falsity. In ethics, as in most other forms of objective discourse, we are all keeping track of our interlocutors' attitudes, as well as our own. (Stout, 2004:272, according to Bacon, M Introduction to Pragmatism) https://books.google.com/books?id=ZSz4AgAAQBAJ&pg=PT160&dq=brandom+representing+represented&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwifxOHhh_HOAhXBGh4KHaecCNoQ6AEILjAD#v=onepage&q=brandom%20representing%20represented&f=false

Frege's Begriffsschrift

"Frege's Begriffsshrift: here Frege suggests that two sentences have the same conceptual content if they may be substituted one another preserving the goodness of the inferences in which they appear, or preserving the consequences we may trace from them (the original example of Frege is a pair of sentences in active and passive form)." http://www.dif.unige.it/epi/hp/penco/pub/bpuz.htm#0
Commitments and Entitlement

"Entitlements are to be interpreted as the circumstances of applications or premises which entitle you to make a claim; commitments are the consequences you are bound to accept, given the claim you have" made. http://www.dif.unige.it/epi/hp/penco/pub/bpuz.htm#0
"Therefore a perceptual report, like "it is red", is a proper meaningful utterance only in a game where the speaker is committed to the consequences of the utterance, for instance: "it is not blue" or "it has a color". A parrot who has been trained to utter the same sounds when facing a red thing does not give to the sounds any conceptual content." http://www.dif.unige.it/epi/hp/penco/pub/bpuz.htm#0
"It is easy to define an inferential role for predicates (let us think, for instance, to a semantic network given via meaning postualtes); but it is really hard to define an infernetial role for indexicals and proper names. One of the most original aspect of Brandom's analysis is to enclose also these kinds of subsemntential expressions in an inferentialist framework, via the concept of anaphora." http://www.dif.unige.it/epi/hp/penco/pub/bpuz.htm#0

Remaining problem: "A problem remains: which kind of inferential role may be given to subsentential parts? It is easy to define an inferential role for predicates (let us think, for instance, to a semantic network given via meaning postualtes); but it is really hard to define an infernetial role for indexicals and proper names. One of the most original aspect of Brandom's analysis is to enclose also these kinds of subsemntential expressions in an inferentialist framework, via the concept of anaphora." 
Continuation in the article on Anaphora

Dienstag, 6. September 2016

Brandom - Some Metaphorical Ideas

Thoughts: Is reality a propositional structure?

"The Midas Touch": We transform everything we think. see Mosteller, T. (2014) Theories of Truth: An Introduction. Bloomsbury Publishing

The Kantian Blur: We loose the distinction between what is real, and what is our thought, so that metyphsical questions have to be abandoned. see Mosteller, T. (2014) Theories of Truth: An Introduction. Bloomsbury Publishing

Montag, 5. September 2016

The importance of Philosophy

http://qz.com/768450/one-of-the-most-famous-living-philosophers-says-much-of-philosophy-today-is-self-indulgent/?utm_source=qzfb

Zur Rolle der Logik bei Hegel

Was ist Logik?

Es geht um die Beziehung zwischen Form und Materie. In diesem Sinne verbleibt die Logik Metatheorie soll aber zugleich nicht ihren Bezug zur Realität verlieren. (see http://www.thur.de/philo/hegel/hegel35.htm)

Form-Materie-Metatheorie (logischer Hylemorphismus)

Voraussetzung des logischen Standpunkts:

Das heißt, dass Hegels Theorie nicht ohne die Erkenntnisse der vorangegangen Debatte des Idealismus geht. Hierbei geht es darum, weder die subjektive Seite noch die objektive Seite der Erkenntnis zu vernachlässigen und beide eindeutig aufeinander zu beziehen. (see https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wissenschaft_der_Logik)

subjektiv-objektiver Standpunkt, Dualismuswende, Holismus

Logik und Metaphysik sollen vollständig vereint sein und eine neue Begründung des Denkens liefern:

„Das Reich des Gedankens philosophisch, d.i. in seiner eigenen immanenten Tätigkeit oder, was dasselbe ist, in seiner notwendigen Entwicklung darzustellen [...]“ (HW 5: 19).

Kartographie  einer determinierten Denklandschaft 

Problematisch für mich: Die logischen Bestimmungen gelten als ontologisch relevant, das heißt sie sind real und nicht nur formallogische Kategorien wie bei Kant. Warum ist das der Fall?


Weiterlesen: http://www.thur.de/philo/hegel/hegel35.htm 


Subjektivität und der Begriff

Für Hegel hat der Begriff fundamentale Ähnlichkeit zum Ich. Auch das Ich ist eine Selbstbeziehung, die nicht unmittelbar stattfindet.

Fragen, die ich mir stelle: Was ist das Ich? Was ist Freiheit? Was ist Seele? Woher weiß ich, was die Seele ist? Gibt es ein Leben nach dem Tod? Was bedeutet es, wenn ich darauf keine Antwort finden kann? Ist das Existentialismus?

The Great Divide: Analytic and Continental Philosophy

What is specific about the divide?

Considerable sources:
  • A good summary: https://philosophynow.org/issues/74/Analytic_versus_Continental_Philosophy

Content

Is the divide only stylistic?

In A House Divided, C.G. Prado begins to point out the difference between Continental and Analytic Philosophy with respect to methodology. He says:
“The heart of the analytic/Continental opposition is most evident in methodology, that is, in a focus on analysis or on synthesis. Analytic philosophers typically try to solve fairly delineated philosophical problems by reducing them to their parts and to the relations in which these parts stand. Continental philosophers typically address large questions in a synthetic or integrative way, and consider particular issues to be ‘parts of the larger unities’ and as properly understood and dealt with only when fitted into those unities.” (p.10.) (Source has to be controlled)
Given this interpretation Analytic Philosophy goes down the path to atomism, while Continental Philosophy is interested in the broader structure, and is thus more interested in systems.

This oversimplification, however, might not hold true anymore.

A sketch of the divide

1. Kant distinguishes Noumenon and Phenomenon
2. Hegel: objects to the division between known and knower

Foucault, nevertheless, describes Hegel here as a totalizer:
"Well, perhaps one could say this: philosophy from Hegel to Sartre has essentially been a totalizing enterprise, if not of the world or of knowledge [savoir], at least of human experience." according Thomas, F. (2010) Sartre, Foucault, and Historical Reason, Volume Two: A Poststructuralist Mapping of History. University of Chicago Press, p. 18)

Systematicity, Theses and Introduction

Thesis:

  1. Systematicity is not yet worked out as a concept in Analytic Philosophy. 
  2. Systematicity is rejected by Analytic Philosophy
  3. Systematicity is rejected by Analytic Philosophy, because Analytic Philosophy does not pursue a Holism, but believes in the independent existence of facts.

Is the divide only stylistic?

 A House Divided, C.G. Prado begins with their difference in methodology. He says:
“The heart of the analytic/Continental opposition is most evident in methodology, that is, in a focus on analysis or on synthesis. Analytic philosophers typically try to solve fairly delineated philosophical problems by reducing them to their parts and to the relations in which these parts stand. Continental philosophers typically address large questions in a synthetic or integrative way, and consider particular issues to be ‘parts of the larger unities’ and as properly understood and dealt with only when fitted into those unities.” (p.10.) (Source has to be controlled)
Given this interpretation Analytic Philosophy goes down the path to atomism, while Continental Philosophy is interested in the broader structure, and is thus more interested in systems.

This oversimplification might not hold true anymore.

A short sketch here:

"While Hegel had reacted to Kant’s two-tiered epistemic reality, others now reacted against Kant’s synthetic a priori. G.E. Moore led the attack in Cambridge, rapidly convincing his colleague Bertrand Russell. Moore insisted on the importance of analysing concepts; Russell, who was a philosopher of mathematics, developed a reductionist approach to knowledge called logical atomism and a general focus on particular logical problems in opposition? to any sort of totalizing enterprise, both of which things led him away from the Hegelians. Meanwhile, Ernst Mach, a leading physicist and philosopher, saw Kant’s joining of metaphysics and epistemology as hazardous to science, and even referred to Kant’s epistemology as ‘monstrous.’ A group of philosophers in Vienna eventually gathered around the philosopher Moritz Schlick, with the intention of furthering Mach’s philosophy. They first called themselves the ‘Ernst Mach Society’ but eventually became known as the Vienna Circle. Among the many goals of this circle of philosophers, were the eradication of metaphysics (Carnap), reclaiming the supremacy of logic in philosophy (Gödel), linguistic conventionalism (Waismann), and also the debunking of Kant’s ‘synthetic a priori’. Those in the Vienna Circle instead made the Humean distinction between a priori (non-observable) and a posteriori (dependent on observation) truths; and they said that the only truths are either tautological (true by definition) or empirical (verified by observation)."


Sources:
https://books.google.com/books?id=mk8oSTk78oQC&dq=systematicity+analytic+philosophy&hl=de&source=gbs_navlinks_s


This article gives a good historical summary on the Continental, Analytic divide:

https://philosophynow.org/issues/74/Analytic_versus_Continental_Philosophy

Thesis: The divide between Continental and Analytic Philosophy is heavily influenced by the question of systematicity.

University Rankings in Philosophy?

http://www.utimes.pitt.edu/?p=3713

Sources and Thougths on Realism, Cogntive Realism (Rescher)

Some sources on realism


  • Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://www.iep.utm.edu/perc-obj/
  • The Stanford Encyclopedia should always be considered: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/realism/#2
  • A publication in nature that compares the results from Quantum Physics with concepts of Realism (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v446/n7138/abs/nature05677.html)
Cognitive Realism: 

Rescher a chapter on Cognitive Realism inl: https://books.google.com/books?id=-yS-NblGv1IC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22cognitive+realism%22&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwimvK_0y-7OAhUKziYKHX_OC7g4FBDoAQhUMAg#v=onepage&q=%22cognitive%20realism%22&f=false