Naturalised Inferentialism and the Incompleteness Problem

Topoi (2024)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The paper argues that the naturalised version of semantic inferentialism advanced by Jaroslav Peregrin faces a problem which, following Michael Devitt, I call the incompleteness problem. The main issue has to do with how, according to inferentialism, language is connected to the world. My main claim is that Peregrin’s Protagorean account of correctness is in tension with the idea, made also by Robert Brandom, that language is embodied in the world analogically to how physical objects are embodied in games like football. Against this, I show the two are in fact importantly disanalogical. To solve the incompleteness problem, I argue that naturalised inferentialism should learn the central lessons of semantic externalism, namely that the connection between language and the world must be fundamentally external to the mind, or in Peregrin’s case, to the society of normative attitudes.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

    This entry is not archived by us. If you are the author and have permission from the publisher, we recommend that you archive it. Many publishers automatically grant permission to authors to archive pre-prints. By uploading a copy of your work, you will enable us to better index it, making it easier to find.

    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 101,810

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2024-06-02

Downloads
33 (#700,117)

6 months
16 (#197,135)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Jaakko Reinikainen
Tampere University

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Philosophy 56 (217):431-433.
Philosophical investigations.Ludwig Wittgenstein & G. E. M. Anscombe - 1953 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 161:124-124.
Articulating Reasons: An Introduction to Inferentialism.Robert Brandom - 2002 - Philosophical Quarterly 52 (206):123-125.
Coming to Our Senses.Michael Devitt - 1996 - Philosophy 72 (281):464-468.
Who Makes the Rules Around Here?Gideon Rosen - 1997 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 57 (1):163-171.

View all 9 references / Add more references