9/24/2012

Week 5 Questions

CCDP

I’m a bit confused by the distinction between commitment-preservinginferences and entitlement preserving inferences, as spelled out in CCDPpp. 12-13. It sounds like you are saying that commitment-preservinginferences from A to B are ones in which the inference from A to B isnon-defeasible, and entitlement preserving inferences from A to B are thosein which the inference is defeasible. Thus one is not committed to therebeing good weather upon seeing a red sky at night because the inferencecould be defeated by the observation of a barometer, for instance. Is theinference from X being a zebra to X having stripes commitment-preserving orentitlement-preserving? The inference seems defeasible, as in the casewhere X is albino, so I’m tempted to take it to be entitlement preserving.If that’s right, commitment-preserving inferences sound an awful lot likeformal deductive inferences, especially as your example on p. 13 seems torun:

(∀x)((x is a yacht . x is in the harbor) ⊃ (x is a sloop))John B is a yacht . John B is in the harbor

Therefore, John B is a sloop

I don’t see why we need to take this to be a *materially *good inference atall, rather than a formally good one. Furthermore, if the inference from Xbeing a zebra to X having stripes is simply entitlement-preserving, I failto see how we commit ourselves to anything we haven’t made explicit in ourreasoning process, except for, possibly, the purely analytic statementswhich follow from what we’ve stated. On the other hand, if the inferencefrom X being a zebra to X having stripes is consequence-preserving, itseems like it’s going to be quite difficult to draw a hard line betweencommitment-preserving and entitlement-preserving inferences.

*MIE*

In p. 185, you mention that linguistic scorekeeping practice is “doublyperspectival”, in that “What C is committed to according to A may be quitedifferent, not only from what D is committed to according to A, but alsofrom what C is committed to according to B.” I was wondering how essentialthis latter perspectival aspect is. If A and B were to “make explicit” whatthey attributed to C with the use of scare-quotes and de re ascriptions –thus enabling them to make distinctions between C’s doxastic commitmentsand substitutional commitments-- would they eventually always come intoagreement concerning C’s commitments? If the answer is no – is it possiblefor A and B to both be, in some sense, “right” about C here, or will therealways be a fact of the matter?

*BSD*

`I’m a bit confused about the second component on the argument on pg 82:

Only something that can *talk* can do that, since one cannot *ignore* whatone cannot attend to (a PP-necessity claim), and for many complexrelational properties, only those with access to the combinationalproductive resources of a *language* can pick them out and responddifferentially to them. No non-linguistic creature can be concerned withfridgeons and old-Provo eye colors.

I was thinking that the difficulty you had in mind was no the ability toignore certain complex relational properties when they were irrelevant, butthe ability to decide *what *to ignore. How does having the ability todeploy a discursive vocabulary aid us in this decision? Is it primarilynormative considerations?Billy Eck

*MIE**, Ch. 3*:

Imagine an objector who claims that your deontic scorekeeping story ofdiscursive practice is insufficient for conferring meanings on toassertions. She asks us to imagine two autonomous discursive practicesthat (currently) share the same exact set of possible assertions (thesentences *p*, *q*, *r*, etc.). In both ADPs, she stipulates, a speaker isentitled to assert a sentence in the same circumstances. Both ADPs warrantthe same set of material inferences from one sentence to another. Inshort, the scorekeeping is officiated in the same way in both.

In your story, she claims, the assertion of any sentence in either ADP mustbe thought of as expressing the same content as in the other. But shethinks that they don’t have to. For in ADP1, *p* means “There’s a rabbit!”and *q* means “That’s blue!”, while in ADP2, *p *means “There are someundetached rabbit parts!” and *q* means “That’s grue!” Your story, shetherefore thinks, is insufficient to confer meanings on assertions.

BB: Appendix II to MIE 6 on ‘gavagai’

Where has she gone wrong in her reasoning?

*BSD**, Ch. 3*:

This is more of a drawn out line of thought than a question, as (I think)I answered what was to be my initial question. I'd like to send it anyway,as I think bringing it up in class might shed light on the AI debate before*BSD*. I'm also interested in whether you think I made some error in thediscussion.

In the section on arguments against AI functionalism, you paraphrase alocus of Hubert Dreyfus’s criticisms of classical symbolic AI and translateit into MUR-talk to make it address an “algorithmic pragmatic elaboration”conception of AI (78, 75).

Dreyfus’s criticism is, roughly, that classical symbolic AI requires thatthe ordinary practical skills that are necessary for our understanding andgoing about in the world be codifiable in explicit rules within a program,and that that reveals an incoherent intellectualism lurking in thebackground that seeks to explain all knowing-how in terms of knowing-that. Youexplain that “the corresponding argument against the substantive practicalalgorithmic decomposability version of AI would have to offer reasons forpessimism about the possibility of algorithmically resolving essentialdiscursive knowing- (or believing-)*that* without remainder intonon-discursive forms of knowing-*how*” (78).

I’m interested in what such an argument could look like and whether or notit could count as having the form of argument that you later designate asconclusive against the “pragmatic” conception of AI, namely, that “someaspect exhibited by all autonomous discursive practices…is notalgorithmically decomposable into non-discursive practices-or-abilities”(79).

Here’s a familiar suggestion from Gilbert Ryle’s classic chapter “KnowingHow and Knowing That”:

The consideration of propositions is itself an operation the execution ofwhich can be more or less intelligent, less or more stupid. But if, for anyoperation to be intelligently executed, a prior theoretical operation hadfirst to be performed and performed intelligently, it would be a logicalimpossibility for anyone ever to break into the circle.

p.30

Ryle takes this line of thought as conclusive against what he sees as an

intellectualism. There is always a knowing-how behind a knowing-that, notvice versa. But does it have any bearing on AI? It says thatunderstanding a bit language will require some skill that is not itself theunderstanding some other bit of language. But is reacting to the syntax ofsome line of code understanding a bit of language? I’d presume no. SoRyle’s point doesn’t seem to have much bearing on the AI debate. Dreyfusseems to miss this when he takes his considerations to warrant pessimismabout AI.

But perhaps we can see why such a view is tempting, by appreciating yourclaim that computer languages are in principle pragmatic metavocabulary forsome ADP. Because they play this role, it is easy to treat computers aslistening to the coding language so as to grasp what to do. But that’s thewrong model. The computer language is not just a metavocabulary but alsoconstitutes the set of stimuli to which the computer, *qua* transducingautomaton, responds without having to understand what the syntax of thestimuli might be used to express.BB: Dennett on stupider and stupider homunculi.Chuck Goldhaber

*Between Saying and Doing #1*

On page 46 of BSD, Brandom falls into a dilemma concerning how tocharacterize his LX diagram. As Brandom has it, Vconditionals is VP-sufffor Pinferring. Either inferring is understood on the act-object model ornot. Assuming that inferring is understood on the act-object model, anycase of inferring contains an act of inferring something from something,and, independent from the act, what was inferred from what. On this model,conditionals seem to state a relation between the objects of the act, noton the acts themselves. As Brandom himself adds in a footnote to the LXdiagram, conditionals assert “explicitly that one thing that can be saidfollows from another thing that can be said”, not that “the act ofinferring is permissible”. This makes it seem as if conditionals targetexplication on relations among the objects of inference. Since the objectsof inference must be vocabulary expressing propositional contents,Vconditionals and Pinferrings stand in a VV-suff relation, and“Pinferrings” must then be written as “P*V*inferrings”. In the main text,Brandom also claims that “what the conditional says explicitly is what oneendorsed implicitly by doing what one did”. This characterization of whatthe conditionals explicate differs from the one in the footnote in that itseems to make essential reference to a *doing*. However, this is of nohelp to Brandom since the conditional makes explicit an *endorsement*, notthe ‘doing’ it was caught up in. On the current model, since endorsementsadmit of an act and an object, the conditional makes explicit the relationof the objects of the act, i.e., the relation holding between propositionalcontents.

I can imagine a response according to which Vconditionals explicate onlythose relationships between propositional contents that have been (in someway) involved in the act of inferring; for how else are conditionals toknow which propositional contents stand in the desired relationship. Thiswould be in effect to throw off the act-object model as a fictionalidealization. Propositional contents are unintelligible apart from theacts they are caught up in. But, this rejection requires that conditionalsthemselves can be made sense of only by asserting one. So, “Vconditional”must be written as “*P*Vconditional”. So, PVconditional now stand in aPVPV-suff relationship with PVinferrings. Either take the act-objectdistinction seriously with respect to inferrings, as Brandom seems to do,and be left with a VV-suff relation, or else treat it as a fiction, but beleft with a PVPV-suff relation.

*Between Saying and Doing #2*

Brandom draws a distinction between algorithmic elaboration and practicalelaboration by training. That is a fine distinction, but it leaves out themost intriguing aspect of most of our actions. We can act effectively andin the appropriate manner in the face of novel and unexpected circumstancesfor which we have not been trained. Brandom is perhaps right incharacterizing training as a sort of ‘feedback loop’ of perception,responsive performance, and perception of the results of the performance. But,a single run through Brandom’s loop would not adequately capture what isunique about the sort of case I have in mind. This is because there was notraining for the act in those circumstances, the particular act was notitself part of a training schedule, and that particular type of act maynever be performed again. Brandom’s loop would not show how such actsdiffer in kind from practically elaborated ones. When Rossi passes Lorenzoon turn 3 at Catalunyna (choose an example that works for you), he may havenot trained for the way he had to do it, nor was he training while hepassed Lorenzo, and indeed, he may never perform that way again. It isobvious that no addition of pragmatically elaborated sub-performancescaptures what is unique about such acts, since the question would be leftover of why the sub-performances were added up in *those* circumstances.

The apt characterization of such performance should, in the end, be givenin terms of the agent’s or performance’s* goodness *with respect to whatthe agent is trained to do or the performance’s kind. The appropriatecharacterization of Rossi’s action is the attribution of an *accolade* toRossi, “Wow, Rossi is great (as a GP racer)!”, or to the performanceitself, “What a close-off!” Because no training was involved in theperformance under those circumstances, we have nowhere else to look for anaccount of the act except the agent or performance itself. Similar pointsseem to hold for interpretation, the difference being that we are all goodat it, so no accolades are given.

*Making It Explicit*

Last time I asked about how malapropisms apply to a semantically backedpragmatics. I suggested it presented a counter-example to your view. Inyour response, you noted that one also must make pragmatic inferences inorder to understand someone, though no general theory could be given aboutmost pragmatic inferences we would have to make. In response, I want tosuggest that *no* inferring is required in understanding another person’swords. I can set it out in a double dilemma. The inference is either anact or not. If the inference is an act, it can be made explicitly orimplicitly. Of course, we do not need to explicitly infer when weinterpret a person’s words; if that were so, we would not need Brandom’sbook to tell us that is how we do it. I would know that is what I did inthe way I know other things about myself. So, perhaps, as Brandom seems tosuggest, we may infer implicitly in attributing commitments andentitlements to others. But how should we characterize implicitinference? Commitmentsand entitlements are already propositional contents. And, in order for meto infer one content from another, I must understand the propositionalcontents involved in the inference. But, “I understand *p* implicitly”makes no sense, at least when “understand” is considered an achievementverb, as we are currently considering it. This might suggest thatinference is not to be considered as an act that goes on in interpretingsomeone. Perhaps we are only *attributing *commitments and entitlementsthat *already* have some requisite pragmatic inferential structure. But inorder to make room for malapropisms, we cannot rely on a structure alreadyin place. Therefore, it seems that in interpreting another person we neednot infer at all. (Much here depends on how we cash out ‘explict’,‘implict’, and their adverbial counterparts.)

Another thing to tackle is whether we *attribute* and *take*: in what senseare they doings?, what does it mean to do one of them?, are they merelyinnocent philosophical idealizations?

*Conceptual Content and Discursive Practice*Brandom claims that the ‘six consequential relations among commitments andentitlements…confer inferentially articulated, and so genuinely conceptualcontent on the expressions, performances, and statuses that have the rightkind of scorekeeping significances in those practices.” What does ‘confer’mean? The Queen can confer knighthood onto someone, and in doing so theperson undergoes a shift in state from not being a knight to being a knight.An analogous shift in state cannot be found in Brandom’s system. Commitmentand entitlements are commitments and entitlements to propositionalcontents, but to be a propositional content essentially involves thepossibility of its expression in language. So, expressions are alreadypossessed with propositional content. The same can be shown to hold, Ithink, for ‘performances’ and ‘statuses’. If this is so, what does‘conferral’ mean exactly? This question is very similar to one I asked twoweeks ago.

Shivam Patel

BSD 3 introduces a novel kind of PP-sufficiency relation to be laidalongside the (by then familiar) one on which elements of one practice mustbe algorithmically re-arranged (in uniform and antecedently specifiableways of the kind an automaton can carry out) in order to yield anotherpractice. The new relation is called "practical elaboration by training".Its job in BSD 3 is to provide some relief to those who fear that ifsapience turns out not to be algorithmically decomposable into primitive(clearly non-linguistic) abilities, then it becomes wholly mysterious. Thisworry is unwarranted, BSD 3 says, because there is this other,naturalistically equally respectable, form of elaboration/decomposition.

My (probably simple) question concerns the relationship between these tworelations between practices. If two practices are related by thetraining-relation (to speak in-officially), is there not generally goodreason to think that the algorithm-relation also holds? Sure, we have noidea how it is properly spelled out. As BSD 3 affirms, the specifics "varywildly from case to case, and depend heavily on biological, sociological,historical, psychological and biographical contingencies" (BSD p. 85). Butthis does not show that there is not also a way of decomposing the targetpractice algorithmically into the base practice. And it also does not showanything about the a-prioiri knowability of _whether_ there is such a way.Often, in philosophy, this is all we need, isn't it?Matthias Kisselbach

MIE, chapter 3:

I would like to ask a clarifying question concerning the conceptual relation between the assertional/doxastic sort of commitment and the corresponding entitlement: Is the former concept of commitment can be understood solely in terms of the latter concept of entitlement?; In other words, is the former concept conceptually reducible to the latter?

On the one hand, Brandom explicitly denies a familiar way of achieving this conceptual reduction. He explicitly disapproves the traditional definition of the commitment (i.e., responsibility) in terms of the entitlement (i.e., authority) plus the formal negation, and vice versa (p. 160). (In his project, the commitment and the entitlement are rather used to define the material sort of negation, or incompatibility).

On the other hand, however, it appears (at least to me) that Brandom suggests another way to understand the commitment in terms of the entitlement all the way down. To begin with, according to his analysis (pp. 172-80), the pragmatic significance of assertion consists of two factors: (1) undertaking the commitment (i.e., responsibility) to show entitlement to it if challenged in an entitled way; (2) Unless this commitment is breached, entitling (i.e., authorizing) audience to the same assertion. Then, Brandom goes on to explain the commitment undertaken in (1) in terms of the entitlement that the audience can internally sanction the breaching subject by depriving her assertion of the power to entitling the audience to it. Certainly, the assertional/doxastic commitment essentially has its propositional content, and that

content is explained partly in terms of the commitment-preserving inferential role it plays, that is, in terms of the other commitments it entails and is entailed by. However, given the basic pragmatist analysis of assertion above, each of these other commitments can again be understood in terms of the relevant entitlement all the way down. Clearly this story does not have a form of straightforward definition like the traditional one, but it still seems to me to be a sort of reduction of commitment to entitlement.

A possible way out of this suspicion of reductionism is to claim that the entitlement should also be understood in terms of the commitment, and therefore that the understanding of these two concepts is interdependent. In my reading, however, Brandom is not inclined to claim this. He rather seems to stress that the normative status of the entitlement of the discursive sort is instituted by, and therefore should be understood in terms of, our practice of internal sanction in which an offender is treated as entitling others to sanctioning her by canceling some entitlement of hers.

Finally, I am not sure if it can be a problem for Brandom’s whole project that the concept of commitment is reducible to that of entitlement. The point of my question is to become clear concerning the seemingly complicated conceptual relation between commitment and entitlement.

Shuhei Shimamura

In chapter three of Making it Explicit, Brandom argues for a relational linguistictheory of intentionality where he aims to show what it is about the contents ofintentional states that can be explained only through appealing to the relationbetween intentional states and linguistic practice. He seems to adopt Davidson’s“outline” of an argument which he says would provide “ultimatejustification” for thinking of intentionality according to this relationallinguistic model. Brandom attempts to account for the two parts of Davidson’smodel [(1) differentiation between true and false beliefs and (2) acknowledgment ofthe objective representational dimension of content] with his notion ofinferentially articulated content. However, I do not see the essential role theinferential nature of content is serving. It seems possible that one could adopt arelational linguistic theory of intentionality and fulfill Davidson’s two partargument without inferentially articulated content. Further, it seems as though itwould be possible to do justice to Brandom’s commitment to pragmatism without thissemantic commitment. For example, we can differentiate between true and falsebeliefs by truth conditions as well as give a more direct account of objectiverepresentational content. Further, if we accept a representational account ofconceptual content we can begin our account of intentionality where the inferentialaccount begins, with what is done, with assertions. We can answer the question of“what one must do in order to count as saying something”. In making anassertion, regardless of the nature of the content, we are doing something,committing ourselves to something, making ourselves responsible to something. Itseems as though a representational semantics is compatible with the type ofpragmatics which is embraced in Making it Explicit. Although there does seem to besome independent support for thinking of conceptual content in inferentialist terms,

it seems possible to give an account of intentionality without this model. In lightof this possibility, must we accept that the assertion that the inferential modelprovides necessary conditions for the conferral of conceptual content? or the weakerclaim that it provides only a sufficient condition?

In chapter three of Between Saying and Doing, Brandom brings up the idea of a non-algorithmic practical elaboration of abilities which he calls practicalPP-sufficiency by training. I find this idea exciting, yet somewhat mysterious. Itseems clear that something like this does and must occur to explain many aspects oflanguage use. I was hoping you could say a little bit more about how the trainingprocess can lead to an extension or application of abilities, how something likethis would work. You seem to have in mind an ability which cannot be learned byfollowing an antecedently specifiable set of rules but which must be shown throughexample where the example can be seen as a sort of embodiment of a rule. There seemsto be an exciting parallel to the distinction you draw out in Making it Explicitbetween what is implicitly done in practice and what can be explicitly stated inlanguage (how what is in fact done can in a sense be codified into a rule where noantecedent rule could be provided).

Laura Davis

On page 80 in chapter three, you say:

"One need not be omniscient about the significance of a bit of vocabularyin order to deploy it meaningfully. But if one has /no/ idea whatpractical consequences for other commitments a claim using it would have,then one associates no meaning with it at all."

and later bring up your concerns of a pedagogical nature, namely regardingpreferential treatment to one-way of "step-by-step" training that seems tonaturally favor some candidates than others by predisposition.

Together these make me ask is if a word's meaning to you has simply becomea sort of compass in a network of relations, how to engage with the ideaof what makes 'proper' doxastic updating.

And so, on what basis are we now to evaluate the meanings betweendifferent individuals' words? If A's meaning of the same word as B'sbelongs to a more expansive set of commitments and entitlements, but inpractice, both individuals 'get the same out of it' -- i.e. for one, donot mistakenly use their set of commitments and entitlements, and two, useit for the same practical function -- is one group of inferences to bepreferred to the other? One question to ask then is "Is bigger alwaysbetter"? But rather than that -- what is there to be preferred?

Jacquet Kehm