Formal truth and objective reference in an inferentialist setting

Abstract

The project of developing a pragmatic theory of meaning aims at an anti-metaphysical, therefore anti-repre­sen­ta­tio­nalist and anti-subjectivist, analysis of truth and reference. In order to understand this project we have to remember the turns or twists given to Frege’s and Witt­genstein’s original idea of inferential semantics (with Kant and Hegel as predecessors) in later developments like formal axiomatic theo­ries (Hilbert, Tarski, Carnap), regularist behaviorism (Quine), mental regulism and interpretationism (Chomsky, Davidson), social behaviorism (Sellars, Millikan), intentionalism (Grice), con­ventionalism (D. Lewis), justificational theories (Dummett, Lorenzen) and, finally, Brandom’s normative pragmatics.