Between Saying and Doing ─ Towards an Analytic Pragmatism

`Between Saying and Doing is an enriching book. This is the work of a generous philosopher at the height of his powers stretching readers to the height of thiers.' Maximilian de Gaynesford, Times Literary Supplement

Between Saying and Doing to reconcile pragmatism (in both its calssical 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 of 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 functionalsim are offered, as well as novel insights about the ideas of artificial intelligence, the nature of logic, and intentional reltions between subjects and objects.

Robert B. Brandom is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, a fellow of the Center of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the recipient of the A.W. Mellon Foundation Distinguished Achievement in the Humanities Award. His interests centre on philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of logic. He has published more than 50 articles on these and related areas and is the author of Making it Explicit and Tales of the Mighty Dead (Harvard University Press).