Course Description
The course will offer an overview of the inferentialist strategy of understanding meaning in the sense of conceptual content in terms of the role linguistic expressions play in reasoning—from its historical origins in classical rationalism to the most recent results in formal implication-space semantics. Along the way we will read chunks of Making It Explicit, Between Saying and Doing, and Pitt Ph.D. (2016) Ulf Hlobil’s and Bob Brandom’s jointly authored 2024 book Reasons for Logic, Logic for Reasons. Central topics include the relations between pragmatics and semantics (theories of use and theories of meaning) and the relations between inferentialist and representationalist semantics (the latter represented by Kit Fine’s hyperintensional truth-maker semantics).
Meeting 1: August 28, 2024
Introduction to the Course:
Philosophy, Norms, and Reasons. Two Traditions in the Philosophy of Language.
Suggested reading
What Is Philosophy? (Lecture 1 in Commitments and Concepts, pp. 3-21).
Supplementary
- Articulating Reasons Introduction, pp. 1-35
- Reasons for Logic, Logic for Reasons (2024), Front Matter
Meeting 1 Materials
Meeting 2: September 4, 2024
Vocabularies and Metavocabularies
Suggested reading
Reasons for Logic, Logic for Reasons (2024), Introduction.
Supplementary
- “Vocabularies of Pragmatism” Chapter 8 of Rorty and His Critics (2000), pp. 156-182.
- “Extending the Project of Analysis” Chapter 1 of Between Saying and Doing (2008).
- Rorty “Private Irony and Liberal Hope” Chapter 4 of Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989
Meeting 2 Materials
- Handout for Meeting 2
- Video of Meeting 2
- Bob’s Notes for Week 2
- Announcement of imminent international meeting on RLLR and related books.
Meeting 3: September 11, 2024
A Minimal Two-Sorted Deontic Bilateral Normative Pragmatic Metavocabulary for Reason Relations
Suggested reading
Reasons for Logic, Logic for Reasons (2024), Chapter 1.
Supplementary
- MacFarlane “In What Sense (if Any) Is Logic Normative for Thought?” (2004).
- Simonelli “Why Must Incompatibility Be Symmetric?” (2024).
Background
Meeting 3 materials
- Handout for Meeting 3
- Video of Meeting 3
- Bob’s Notes for Week 3
- Announcement of imminent international meeting on RLLR and related books.
Meeting 4: September 18, 2024
Bimodal Conceptual Realism
Suggested reading
Supplementary
- Hlobil, “Laws of Thought and Laws of Truth as Two Sides of One Coin” (2021).
- Fine, “A Theory of Truthmaker Content I: Conjunction, Disjunction, and Negation” (2017).
- Fine, “A Theory of Truthmaker Content II: Subject-Matter, Common Content, Remainder and Ground” (2017).
Meeting 4 materials
Facilities Cancellation September 25, 2024
No Class October 2, 2024
Meeting 5: October 9, 2024
The Open Structure of Material Reason Relations
Suggested reading
Reasons for Logic, Logic for Reasons (2024), Chapter 2.
Supplementary
- Price, “Why ‘Not’?”
- Brandom “An Introduction to Hegelian Logic and Metaphysics”
- Hlobil “Choosing your Nonmonotonic Logic: A Shopper’s Guide”
Meeting 5 materials
Meeting 6: October 16, 2024
Logical Expressivism and Expressivist Logic
Suggested reading
Reasons for Logic, Logic for Reasons (2024), Chapter 3.
Supplementary
- “Semantic Inferentialism and Logical Expressivism” (Chapter 1 of Articulating Reasons).
- Substructural Content Dan Kaplan’s Pitt Ph.D. Dissertation 2022.
- Brandom “From Logical Expressivism to Expressivist Logics”
Meeting 6 materials
Meeting 7: October 23, 2024
Implication-Space Semantics: The Pure Theory of Conceptual Roles
Suggested reading
Reasons for Logic, Logic for Reasons (2024), Chapter 5.
Meeting 7 materials
Meeting 8: October 30, 2024
The Metaphysics of Normativity and the Social Dimension of Discursive Practice
Suggested reading
“The Fine Structure of Autonomy and Recognition” (Lecture 1 of Brentano Lectures–2019)
Supplementary
- “A Social Route from Reasoning to Representing” (Chapter 5 of Articulating Reasons).
- “Ascribing Propositional Attitudes” (Chapter 8 of Making It Explicit).
- Appendix on iterated de re/de dicto ascriptions of propositional attitude, from Making It Explicit.
Meeting 8 materials
Meeting 9: November 6, 2024
Empirical and Historical Dimensions of Conceptual Content:
Normative Governance and Subjunctive Tracking. Recollection and Explicitation.
Suggested reading
“Representation, Expression, and Recollection” (Lecture 2 of Brentano Lectures–2019)
Supplementary
Meeting 9 materials
Meeting 10: November 13, 2024
Semantically Significant Essentially Subsentential Structure I:
What Are Singular Terms, and Why Are There Any?
Suggested reading
- “What Are Singular Terms, and Why Are There Any?” (Chapter 4 of Articulating Reasons).
- “Substituton: What Are Singular Terms, and Why Are There Any”, Chapter 6 of MIE.
Meeting 10 materials
Meeting 11: November 20, 2024
Semantically Significant Essentially Subsentential Structure (and Substructure) II:
Dissecting Reason Relations with a Substitutional Scalpel
Suggested reading
- Van Fraassen “Quantification as an Act of Mind” (1982)
- Brandom “Singular Terms and Sentential Sign Designs” (1987)
- Hlobil “Subsentential Syntax (ROLE Note 192)” (2024)
Supplementary
- Fine: “Neutral Relations” (2000)
- Macbride: “Neutral Relations Revisited” (2007)
- Quine: “Shoenfinkel on the Building-Blocks of Mathematical Logic” (1924)
- Brandom: A Binary Sheffer Operator that Does the Work of Quantifiers and Sentential Connectives" (1979)
- Brandom: “The Significance of Complex Numbers for Frege’s Philosophy of Mathematics” (2002)
Meeting 11 materials
No Class November 27, 2024
Thanksgiving Holiday Break
Meeting 12: December 4, 2024
Cutting Finer than Substitution: Token Recurrence Structures
Conclusion
Suggested reading
- “Anaphora: The Structure of Token Repeatables”, Chapter 7 of Making It Explicit.
- Reasons for Logic, Logic for Reasons, Chapter 6, Conclusion.
Supplementary
- Brandom: “Reference Explained Away” (1984)
- Reasons for Logic, Logic for Reasons, Endmatter (Bibliography and Index).