Making It Explicit

Robert B. Brandom is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh and a Fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the British Academy. He delivered the John Locke Lectures at the University of Oxford and the Woodbridge Lectures at Columbia University. Brandom is the author of many books, including Making It Explicit, Reason in Philosophy, and From Empiricism to Expressivism (all from Harvard).

• Preface PART ONE Toward a Normative Pragmatics Introduction From Intentional State to Normative Status From Norms Explicit in Rules to Norms Implicit in Practices From Normative Status to Normative Attitude From Assessment to the Social Institution of Norms From Intentional Interpretation to Original Intentionality Appendix: Wittgenstein's Use of Regel Toward an Inferential Semantics Content and Representation The Priority of the Propositional Conceptual Classification and Inference Material Inference, Conceptual Content, and Expression Circumstances and Consequences of Application Conclusion Linguistic Practice and Discursive Commitment Intentional States and Linguistic Practices Deontic Status and Deontic Attitudes Asserting and Inferring Scorekeeping: Pragmatic Significance and Semantic Content Perception and Action: The Conferral of Empirical and Practical Conceptual Content Assertions as Knowledge Claims Reliability Observation Reports and Noninferential Authority Rational Agency Practical Reasoning: Inferences from Doxastic to Practical Commitments Intentions PART TWO The Expressive Role of Traditional Semantic Vocabulary: 'True' and 'Refers' From Inference to Truth, Reference, and Representation Truth in Classical Pragmatism From Pragmatism to Prosentences Reference and Anaphorically Indirect Descriptions The Function of Traditional Semantic Vocabulary Is Expressive, Not Explanatory Substitution: What Are Singular Terms, and Why Are There Any? Multivalued Logic and Material Inference Substitution, Sentential Embedding, and Semantic Roles Subsentential Expressions What Are Singular Terms? Why Are There Singular Terms? Objections and Replies Conclusion Appendix: From Substitutional Derivation of Categories to Functional Derivation of Categories Appendix: Sentence Use Conferring the Status of Singular Terms on Subsentential Expressions--An Application Anaphora: The Structure of Token Repeatables Frege's Grundlagen Account of Picking Out Objects Definite Descriptions and Existential Commitments Substitution, Token Recurrence, and Anaphora Deixis and Anaphora Interpersonal Anaphora and Communication Appendix: Other Kinds of Anaphora--Paychecks, Donkeys, and Quantificational Antecedents Ascribing Propositional Attitudes: The Social Route from Reasoning to Representing Representation and De Re Ascription of Propositionally Contentful Commitments Interpretation, Communication, and De Re Ascriptions De Re Ascriptions and the Intentional Explanation of Action From Implicit Attribution to Explicit Ascription Epistemically Strong De Re Attitudes: Indexicals, Quasi-Indexicals, and Proper Names The Social-Perspectival Character of Conceptual Contents and the Objectivity of Conceptual Norms Appendix: The Construction and Recursive Interpretation of Iterated Ascriptions That Mix De Dicto and De Re Content Specifications Conclusion Two Concepts of Concepts Norms and Practices We Have Met the Norms, and They Are Ours Abbreviations Notes Index

Making It Explicit has already developed a justified reputation as a major contribution to the philosophy of language. It takes the traditional ill-fitting story of the relationship between language and the world and turns it upside down. Instead of starting with the existence of the world and explaining what it is for language to represent the world, it starts with language and explains what it is for the world to be represented by language...With tremendous panache, he launches into accounts of normativity, inference, meaning, truth, reference and objectivity, trying to show that the later concepts in that list are made intelligible by the earlier.