Abstract

Robert Brandom has maintained that Wittgenstein is wrong in denying the notion of interpretation any theoretical role in the task of accounting for our linguistic practices. In this paper, I intend to throw some doubts on this thesis. First of all, I argue that Brandom´s objection is unfair: in my opinion, giving up the concept of interpretation does not amount to condemning oneself to silence on rule – governed practices. Secondly, I try to show that Brandom´s appeal to the concept of implicit interpretation is not without problems in as far as it involves the thesis that all the participants in a certain practice may be wrong about the interpretation of its rules. This makes room for a dichotomy between what we do and what we say we do, which should be thoroughly avoided