> To me, this seems to be putting the cart before the horse, as if the truth of a statement is dependent on its linguistic properties. In practice, it seems to me that usage and semantics are bent to a language-independent (but imperfectly perceived) reality rather than the other way around.
The review touches on this:
> This sounds quite as though it is going to descend into a coherence theory of truth, or even into the sort of linguistic idealism and relativism often associated with Rorty. Brandom is concerned to answer such criticisms, though not merely to reject them ...Brandom’s take on the relation of human intelligence to the real world is complex and cannot be fully captured in this space, and rarely has any philosopher given a more elaborate account of any matter than Brandom gives this one.
So Brandom has an answer for you - but you're going to have to buy the book to hear it haha.
Additionally, you quote:
> I am not convinced that my obligation to believe of a blue thing that it is not also chartreuse is, all things considered, much like my obligation not to hurt people for no good reason.
This is interesting! My guess is that this intuition will be common amongst people who have a non-skeptical view of morality. If you think that morality is part of the fabric of the universe, then it's more plausible that obligations will come in different varieties, and an obligation such as "don't hurt others for no reason" will have a special status.
On the other hand, if you are a moral skeptic and you believe that ethics is essentially about people-trying-to-get-what they-want, Brandom's view perfectly plausible.
The review touches on this:
> This sounds quite as though it is going to descend into a coherence theory of truth, or even into the sort of linguistic idealism and relativism often associated with Rorty. Brandom is concerned to answer such criticisms, though not merely to reject them ...Brandom’s take on the relation of human intelligence to the real world is complex and cannot be fully captured in this space, and rarely has any philosopher given a more elaborate account of any matter than Brandom gives this one.
So Brandom has an answer for you - but you're going to have to buy the book to hear it haha.
Additionally, you quote:
> I am not convinced that my obligation to believe of a blue thing that it is not also chartreuse is, all things considered, much like my obligation not to hurt people for no good reason.
This is interesting! My guess is that this intuition will be common amongst people who have a non-skeptical view of morality. If you think that morality is part of the fabric of the universe, then it's more plausible that obligations will come in different varieties, and an obligation such as "don't hurt others for no reason" will have a special status.
On the other hand, if you are a moral skeptic and you believe that ethics is essentially about people-trying-to-get-what they-want, Brandom's view perfectly plausible.