How can conceptual content be social and normative, and, at the same time, be objective? (eBook)

Introduction 10
Part IThe problem 34
The objectivity of content 34
The normative and social character of content 46
Kripke: A social, normative account of content 46
Why is semantics normative and social? 47
The rule-following problem and content 47
Rules as being constituted by normative practice 53
Rules as being constituted by social practice 61
Objections to Kripke’s specification of his pragm 63
Semantic naturalism 75
The notion of content 82
The Frege-Brandom proposal 82
Objections to inferential role semantics 101
A refined conception of content 111
The normative character of content in greater det 114
Part IICritical discussion of proposed answers 120
A naturalistic answer 120
Presentation and a first critical assessment 121
The rejection of the two-step model of content 132
Sellars’s antifoundationalism and its implication 135
A pragmatist reading of Heidegger – a middle posi 150
Protagonists of a pragmatist reading of Heidegger 150
Textual evidence for a pragmatist reading of Heidegger 154
What is wrong with Heidegger? 162
A primitivist answer 168
Presentation and a first critical assessment 168
The scorekeeping model 168
The Hegel model 199
How does a pragmatist reading of Brandom account for objectivity? 209
Circularity 226
Conceptual realism 231
Avoiding a gap between the world and our conceptualisations 232
Arguments against conceptual realism that have been formulated in the literature 252
Conceptual realism and the method of making explicit 256
Bibliography 258
Preface 5




Part IThe problem 8
1The objectivity of content31 8
Part IICritical discussion of proposed answers 8
5A primitivist answer165 8
Bibliography255 9