De Dicto and De Re: A Brandomian experiment on Kierkegaard

Abstract

The recent historical turn within the analytic tradition has experienced growing enthusiasm concerning the procedure of rational reconstruction, whose validity or importance, despite its paradigmatic examples in Frege and Russell, has not always enjoyed a consensus. Among the analytic philosophers who are the frontrunners of such a movement, Robert Brandom is one of a kind: his work on Hegel as well as on German Idealism has been increasing interest in, as well as awareness of, Hegel’s contributions to some current problems in that tradition. Thus, this work aims to show Brandom’s methodology of rational reconstruction, based on the distinction between de dicto and de re inferences. Afterwards, I turn to Kierkegaard in order to make explicit some of his ontological commitments by applying Brandom’s approach as a valuable tool for doing history of philosophy.