Between Saying and Doing: Towards an Analytic Pragmatism

by Robert B. Brandom

Between Saying and Doing aims to reconcile pragmatism (in both its classical American and its Wittgensteinian forms) with analytic philosophy. It investigates the relations between the meaning of linguistic expressions and their use. Giving due weight both to what one has to do in order to count as saying various things and to what one needs to say in order to specify those doings, makes it possible to shed new light on the relations between semantics (the theory of the meanings `f utterances and the contents of thoughts) and pragmatics (the theory of the functional relations among meaningful or contentful items). Among the vocabularies whose interrelated use and meaning are considered are: logical, indexical, modal, normative, and intentional vocabulary. As the argument proceeds, new ways of thinking about the classic analytic core programs of empiricism, naturalism, and functionalism are offered, as well as novel insights about the ideas of artificial intelligence, the nature of logic, and intentional relations between subjects and objects.

Genres: Philosophy, Language, Logic, Nonfiction, Linguistics

288 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 24, 2008

About the author

Robert B. Brandom is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh and a Fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the British Academy. He delivered the John Locke Lectures at the University of Oxford and the Woodbridge Lectures at Columbia University. Brandom is the author of many books, including Making It Explicit, Reason in Philosophy, and From Empiricism to Expressivism.

Reviews

[Caleb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brandom writes about complex issues with a remarkable clarity. In this book, he both develops his project in new directions (compared with MIE) but also shows how it relates to the aims of classical analytic philosophy and pragmatism. In short, Brandom argues that by thinking about what people have to do be saying something, we can think about philosophical analysis in a broader way. As always, Brandom seems to flirt with a reductive naturalism that would explain normativity in terms of more basic, non-normative notions, acknowledging that such an approach is inadequate, without fully articulating the limits of such limitations. In the light of notion of pragmatic analysis, Brandom's discussion of hermeneutics and tactic knowledge is particularly insightful.

[Yisu Z.]

用heuristic的方法读了一章，脑洞很大，离我又比较远，意外有收货：Empirical and Modal Vocabulary。

[Harry Vincent · Rating 4 out of 5]

8.5/10

[Aislan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Que livro! Que projeto filosófico! Fantástico! Primeira leitura anotada terminada com muito prazer.

[Adrian Woods · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is easily the best book in philosophy of language.