Inferentialism: Logic and Theory of Meaning

Whereas one tends to understand sentences and inferences by words and their combinations in a bottom-up approach, inferentialists from the top down explain the meaning of sentences and words in terms of some rules of inference, especially their roles as premises or conclusion (or parts of premise or conclusion) of correct inferences. As the theoretical applications of inferentialism in contemporary epistemology and philosophy of language are increasing and multiplying, it should not be forgotten that its main ideas come originally form logic. However, it can’t be suggested that inferentialism has promoted greatly the status of modern logic in philosophy. The point is that it gives us a chance to review the nature of modern logic and the relevance of logic to contemporary philosophy from a brand-new perspective. Semantic inferentialism as a global inferentialism, not only stretches beyond the reach of logical inferentialism, but also clarifies and rebuilds our conception of logic, thereby calling for a different solution to fundamental problems such as “what is logic?”, “the epistemology of logic”, and “the relation of logicality and rationality”. All these disputes motivated by inferentialism attest to the role of logic as an engine of philosophical investigations in the 21th century.