Brandom's Theory of Expression

Abstract

The thesis investigates and elaborates the expressivist theory of language that is found in the works of Robert Brandom. Expressivism is the view that language makes explicit to us aspects of the world. So the meaning of "lightning", for example, consists in the fact that it expresses to us what lightning is (as opposed, for example, to the fact that it refers to lightning). An expressivist analysis of language is able to accommodate the historically and culturally contingent aspects of meaning while still providing a robust realist grounding for content. I investigate the role that expression plays in Brandom's work but also develop it in new directions. I try to disentangle it from other issues with which it is bound up in Brandom's presentation - most notably, his transcendental approach to meaning. Special attention is paid to the ontological status of content on an expressivist view.