Normativity, Inference, Communication, and World

Robert Brandom takes " normativity” as the unique feature of human’s practice, and explains the nature of normativity in the pragmatic way; then, based on normativity, he introduces inference as the solution to the meaning of language and derives the material inference as the fundamental layer; then, he clarifies the actual operative mechanism of inference in great detail which is realized in the the course of social communications, regarding the process of social-communication to be essentially the deontic scorekeeping among different individuals; finally, under the framework of inferentialism, he argues for the necessity of vocabulary such as " truth” and " representation” and makes an inferentialist explanation about the relation between language and world. His philosophical system is composed of these four dimensions: normativity, inference, communication and world. They form an integrated whole made of a fine structure. By doing so he unifies many originally different or even opposite viewpoints.