Articulating Reasons: An Introduction to Inferentialism

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Summary: Brandom's Prolegomena
Review: This short book stands in relation to the author's "Making it Explicit" as Kant's "Prolegomena" stands to his "Critique of Pure Reason." It's a solid, relatively friendly introduction to his inferentialist semantics and expressivist conception of logic (and philosophy). It will probably best serve those already versed in analytic philosophy of language and epistemology. In contrast to "Making it Explicit," there's not a lot of history in here, and few points of contact with continental philosophy. The point of this book is to render the highlights of the bigger work in a much more digestible form. If you're killing yourself trying to figure out chapters 6-8 of "Making it Explicit," give this a shot. This reviewer, for one, found the summaries in the shorter work very helpful. In fact, "Articulating Reasons" might better be thought of as a companion rather than an introduction to "Making it Explicit." Reading the former alongside the latter would be a profitable endeavor. In sum, Brandom's ideas about meaning, intentionality, practical reason, normativity and justification are some of the most exciting around. "Articulating Reasons" is probably the best way to start trying to get a grip on them. (By the way: students of epistemology won't want to miss the chapter on Goldman's reliabilism.)