Brandom’s Account of Reasoning Nonmonotonic, But Does Not Allow Entitlement Recovery
Brandom’s Account of Reasoning Nonmonotonic, But Does Not Allow Entitlement Recovery
In most everyday instances of reasoning, reasoners can gain, lose, and reacquire entitlement to (or justification for) a possible commitment (or belief) as a result of their consecutively acquiring new commitments. For example, we might initially conclude that ‘Tweety can fly’ from ‘Tweety is a bird,’ but later have to reject this conclusion as a result of our coming to learn that Tweety is a penguin. We could, even later, reacquire entitlement to ‘Tweety can fly’ if we became committed (and presumably entitled) to the claim ‘Tweety has a jetpack.’ I will call this very common feature of reasoning entitlement recovery. In this paper I will argue that the types of inferential relations that are central to Brandom’s entire account of language and reasoning make entitlement recovery impossible. I will then briefly attempt to diagnose why this problem arises for Brandom and suggest how his account should be modified so that it will successfully allow entitlement recovery.
defeasible logic, inferentialism, Non-monotonicity, epistemic norms, assertion, Uncertainty, Robert Brandom, Philosophy of language
129-150
Schaefer, Reiner
6fe601a0-3db8-4151-8754-87c4547b08eb
Schaefer, Reiner
6fe601a0-3db8-4151-8754-87c4547b08eb
Schaefer, Reiner
(2016)
Brandom’s Account of Reasoning Nonmonotonic, But Does Not Allow Entitlement Recovery.
Journal of Philosophical Research, 41, .
(doi:10.5840/jpr201663073).
Abstract
In most everyday instances of reasoning, reasoners can gain, lose, and reacquire entitlement to (or justification for) a possible commitment (or belief) as a result of their consecutively acquiring new commitments. For example, we might initially conclude that ‘Tweety can fly’ from ‘Tweety is a bird,’ but later have to reject this conclusion as a result of our coming to learn that Tweety is a penguin. We could, even later, reacquire entitlement to ‘Tweety can fly’ if we became committed (and presumably entitled) to the claim ‘Tweety has a jetpack.’ I will call this very common feature of reasoning entitlement recovery. In this paper I will argue that the types of inferential relations that are central to Brandom’s entire account of language and reasoning make entitlement recovery impossible. I will then briefly attempt to diagnose why this problem arises for Brandom and suggest how his account should be modified so that it will successfully allow entitlement recovery.
Text
jpr_2016_0999_6_30_73
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 1 July 2016
e-pub ahead of print date: 1 July 2016
Keywords:
defeasible logic, inferentialism, Non-monotonicity, epistemic norms, assertion, Uncertainty, Robert Brandom, Philosophy of language
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 455656
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/455656
ISSN: 1053-8364
PURE UUID: 980c21f8-639e-4097-8dcd-b7d1e11eaf03
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Date deposited: 30 Mar 2022 16:36
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 16:26
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Author:
Reiner Schaefer
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