Normative Pragmatics

Brandom sees inferential semantics as tightly interwoven with normative pragmatics, and depending on it. Wittgenstein notwithstanding, pragmatics — concerned with linguistic usage — has historically often been neglected in favor of syntax and semantics, and most discussions of linguistic usage among analytic philosophers have focused on empirical usage rather than good usage (including good argument and good dialogue). Good usage for Brandom especially means good inferential usage, respecting material incompatibilities and material consequences. He holds that these have both an alethic modal role (having to do with truth and counterfactual robustness) on the semantic side and a deontic normative role on the pragmatic side (having to do with “oughts”). There is a natural close tie between meanings and proprieties of use. (See also Normative “Force”.)

Brandom’s interest in linguistic pragmatics also reflects his emphasis on practical doings and his broad identification with the American pragmatist tradition in philosophy. Saying something — even just meaning something — is unequivocally a kind of doing for Brandom.

I want to construe good natural language usage broadly as also involving a commitment to recognize all the ethical dimensions of communication as a social act, including both concern for others and concern for inferential proprieties.

In Spirit of Trust, Brandom actually goes further than I would in denying any real role for representational truth. He proposes that even concepts of truth-as-goal should be entirely replaced by concepts of truth-process. I think Truth as a Socratic ethical goal is an invaluable heuristic, provided we maintain Platonic/Aristotelian epistemic modesty and recognize that such a concept of Truth is materially incompatible with any claim to simple possession of it. The whole point of a goal is something to aim at. Aiming necessarily involves a defeasible element. Even if we think static Truth is unachievable, I’m sure he would agree that we should do the best we can at every moment in the larger process. After all, the natural workings of mere Understanding — if only they are taken far enough — lead beyond themselves to the recognition and resolution of error. (See also Honesty, Kindness; Definition.)

Syntax, Semantics, Ethics

How we understand one another in our social interactions is of paramount importance for ethics. Pointing, gestures, and similar cues can get us started, but we cannot get very far without considering linguistic meaning, and we cannot get very far with natural language meaning without considering implicit and explicit inferences.

In concrete utterances, syntax still plays a large role in specifying the overall shape of the inferences a speaker is implicitly asking us to endorse with respect to some content in question. Here we are concerned not with formal definition of syntactic features, but with specific, concrete usage that we implicitly, defeasibly take as specifying definite higher-level inferential connections by virtue of the grammar employed.

By understanding the structure of a speaker’s overall argument from syntactic as well as semantic cues, we get all sorts of nuances like intended qualifications and specifications of scope that can be all-important in assessing the reasonableness of what is being said. How well we do this depends at least partly on us as well as what was said, and also on our familiarity with the speaker’s particular speech patterns, which may vary from what is common or usual. We can also silently compare the speaker’s speech patterns to what is common or usual, and wonder if what they seemed to say was what they actually meant; or kindly point out to them that what they actually said could be misunderstood. (See also Inferential Semantics; Honesty, Kindness.)

“Said of”

Aristotle seems to have enjoyed using expressions in a polymorphic way. For example, he very commonly writes that B “is said of” A. This never just refers to an empirical report of linguistic practice. It always should be understood to refer to a judgment that B is properly said of A. This in turn means all of the following:

It is apparently a fact that A is B.
It is properly judged that A is B.
It is good usage to say that A is B.

He is using one abstract expression to make multiple isomorphic assertions (in respective registers of objective reality, normative judgment, and linguistic usage) all at the same time. Too often, people assume these are all mutually exclusive topics, when they are not. By actually doing it in a simple way, Aristotle offers hope that we can talk about reality, and be Critical, and follow the linguistic turn all at once.

Brandom refers to Frege to begin to explain Hegel’s notion of conceptual content. Frege said “A fact is a thought that is true.” As Brandom points out, this is a nonpsychological approach. Hegel, Frege, and Brandom have recovered ways of speaking that include at least the first two of the three senses above, and I imagine Brandom at least would be sympathetic to the third as well.

We might consider the “it is apparently a fact” form to be materially implied by the “it is properly judged” form. I think Plato and Aristotle considered the “it is properly judged” form to be materially implied by the “it is good usage to say” form, as well as accepting the first implication. Good language use should be consistent with good judgment, which should be consistent with reality. So, by transitivity, “said of” (understood as shorthand for “properly said of”) would also materially imply both the others.

All three forms are inherently normative. This is most obvious with the second form, which is expressly concerned with judgment. But the form concerned with language use is about good usage, not any and all randomly occurring usage; and the form concerned with fact is really about normatively valid judgments of apparent fact. (See also Aristotelian Semantics.)

Translations influenced by the Latin commentary tradition render “said of” in terms of predication, which misleadingly suggests the purely syntactic way in which a grammatical predicate is “said of” its grammatical subject, and obscures Aristotle’s focus on normative logical assertion.

Postscript

Some time after writing this post, I came to the realization — reflected in Aristotelian Propositions — that “said of” may also be taken to directly express a material-inferential relation. Based on an analysis of implicit propositions like the one developed there — and recalling that A and B are canonically universals or higher-order terms — I now think the root meaning of “B is said of A”, is that if we have x: A, then it is a good material inference that we also have x: B. Goodness of material inference is what stands behind and justifies the initial formulation that B is properly said of A, and the other polymorphic meanings.

Mutation of Meaning

It is fascinating how the meaning of terms can be inverted over time. Take form, for example. Plato and Aristotle’s notions of “form” include something like what Kant and Brandom would call conceptual content. What Kant and Brandom call “form”, on the other hand, while not properly equivalent to Aristotelian logical/semantic matter, seems to belong to that side of things.

Similarly, when medieval authors wrote about something being “merely objective”, they meant superficial or based on mere appearance, i.e., something close to what modern authors would call “merely subjective”. “Subject” had no mental connotations. It meant something more like a grammatical subject.

Such reversals or near-reversals are only the most dramatic examples. Nearly every philosophical term of interest has undergone historic shifts in its general meaning. When these are not taken into account, the result is endless confusion.

It is pointless to argue about what such a term “really means” in the abstract. Meaning is use, so we need to look at concrete contexts of usage, and ask what it means in this context.

I make opinionated remarks about usage, but always relative to a context. (See also Univocity.)

Aristotelian Semantics

When Aristotle talks about ways in which a word “is said” — which is one of the main things he does — it is not inappropriate to reconstruct this as a semantic concern. I would say the same about both Plato and Aristotle’s concern with definition and classification of terms. This is taking “semantics” in the broad sense of having to do with meaning.

For Aristotle and Plato, meanings are developed principally in terms of other meanings. Aristotle also pays a lot of attention to use. For neither of them is there any thought of reducing meaning to extensional criteria, as in modern model-theoretic semantics. Plato famously contrasted definition of “what” something is with enumeration of examples. Aristotle was interested in both, but respected the contrast.

Aristotle agrees with Frege that the minimal unit of truth or falsity is a complete proposition. (Medieval logicians working in a broadly Aristotelian tradition extended this to an elaborate theory of what they called “supposition” (see de Rijk, Logica Modernorum), which concerned meanings in the context of concretely uttered sentences. Various kinds of “supposition” — or ways in which a referential meaning can be logically intended — were analyzed, in a now forgotten technical vocabulary largely shared by realist and nominalist logicians.)

Aristotelian practical judgment (phronesis) is a kind of interpretation or hermeneutics of the implications of situations. Ultimately, I think Kantian judgment moves into the same territory. Judgment in general involves far more than mere assertion or belief. “Judgment” should refer first and foremost to a process, an investigation, and only very secondarily to a conclusion. All such processes are in principle open. The final word is never said.

For both Plato and Aristotle, implications and presuppositions uncovered in dialogue or many-sided monologue are more important in getting at meaning and truth than any referential pointing. Even medieval scholastics arguing for or against a proposition did this largely in terms of analyzing its implications and presuppositions.

I don’t think it’s possible to cleanly separate considerations of truth from considerations of meaning. Truth can only be apprehended in terms of some meaning. Much more interesting than the abstract question whether some proposition is true is insight into what is really being said. (See also Dialectic, Semantics; “Said of”; Aristotelian Propositions; Univocity; Agency; Inferential Semantics; Edifying Semantics.)

Edifying Semantics

I like Brandom’s recent motto of “edifying semantics”. It strikes me that this is what Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel were after more than anything else in their particular ways of doing philosophy — inquiry into meaning, with an ethical intent. Aristotle even developed natural science in the form of an edifying semantics.

Behind the formidable technical development of Brandom’s other recent motif of “semantic descent” is, I believe, a profound ethical concern to show the relevance of philosophy to ordinary life. Semantic descent shows how lofty higher-order abstractions are effectively operative in the ordinary use of concepts in ordinary experience.

This is not reductionism, but quite the opposite. It is a vindication of the relevance of higher-order things in ordinary life.