EXPRO - Inferentialism naturalized: norms, meanings and reasons in the natural world

Abstract

The doctrine of inferentialism, based on the idea that meaningfulness is a matter of rules of inference, was first presented in Robert Brandom`s book "Making it explicit" in 1994. Since then, inferentialists (ourselves included) have further developed the logical and semantic dimensions of this view, making it into one of the most discussed philosophical doctrines of the twenty-first century. However, inferentialism is usually conceived of as a purely philosophical doctrine that provides a new perspective on uniquely human rational and expressive capacities, but which does not intersect with what science tells us about us as (hyper)social creatures with a natural, cultural and developmental history. We find this a missed opportunity and our project aims to bridge this crevasse by drawing on the current scientific research on cooperation, conventions, norms, language and reasoning to explain the ontogeny and phylogeny of the inferential rules that constitute meaning. This project will thereby build a naturalistic foundation for inferentialism.