The Pragmatics Of Inferential Content

Synthese 128 (1-2):157-181 (2001)
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Abstract

Carnap took the content of a particularsentence or set of sentences to consist in the set ofthe consequences of the sentence or set. This claimequates meaning with inferential role, but itrestricts the inferences to deductive or explicativeones. Here I reject a recent proposal by RobertBrandom, where inductive or ampliative inferences arealso meant to confer contents on expressions. I arguethat if Brandom's inferentialist picture is upheld, andboth explicative and ampliative inferences confermeaning, one consequence of this is that the contentof a sentence is to be read off from our ways ofrationally altering our beliefs. Meaning and contentthen are largely concepts of pragmatics, with no cleartheoretical interest. My critique affects certainaspects of Dummett's meaning-theoretic picture too,and the discussion also links up with the developmentof `dynamic semantics'.

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Wolfram Hinzen
Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Citations of this work

Truth-conditional pragmatics: an overview.Francois Recanati - 2008 - In Paolo Bouquet, Luciano Serafini & Richmond H. Thomason (eds.), Perspectives on Contexts. Center for the Study of Language and Inf. pp. 171-188.

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References found in this work

Explaining Language Use.Noam Chomsky - 1992 - Philosophical Topics 20 (1):205-231.
Contents.[author unknown] - 1966 - Apeiron 1 (1):I-I.

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