Morals, meaning and truth in Wittgenstein and Brandom

  • Jordi Fairhurst Universidad de las Islas Baleares, Spain
Keywords: Morals, Truth, Meaning, Pragmatics

Abstract

The aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it analyses the similarities that stem from Wittgenstein’s (Philosophical Investigations (1953)) and Brandom’s (Making it Explicit (1994)) commitment to pragmatics in the philosophy of language to account for moral utterances. That is, the study of the meaning of moral utterances is carried out resorting to the study of the acts being performed in producing or exhibiting these utterances. Both authors offer, therefore, a pragmatic solution in order to account for the meaning of our moral vocabulary and discursive practices. Secondly, it argues that both approaches lead to differing understandings of the role of “truth” and “falsity” in moral discourse. On the one hand, Wittgenstein’s remarks on ethics demonstrate a dismissive attitude towards the notions of truth and falsity in moral discourse. On the other hand, Brandom seems to be committed to a weak version of moral cognitivism: he takes assertions (which express beliefs, i.e. doxastic commitments) as the fundamental linguistic activity in the game of giving and asking for reasons and provides an anaphoric theory of truth to account for “truth” and “falsity” in our discourse. Additionally, it analyses how these differences bear on the Frege–Geach problem.

Author Biography

Jordi Fairhurst, Universidad de las Islas Baleares, Spain

Jordi Fairhurst is a PhD student at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB). His research centres on Wittgenstein’s ethics, with a special focus on his ethics in the Tractatus Logico–Philosophicus. He is also interested in various topics in the philosophy of language and meta–ethics (and their intersection).

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Published
2019-06-30
How to Cite
[1]
Fairhurst, J. 2019. Morals, meaning and truth in Wittgenstein and Brandom. Disputatio. 8, 9 (Jun. 2019), 347-374. DOI:https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3376637.