On Normative Pragmatics: A Comparison between Brandom and Habermas

In Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, LVII., 1977, it was included a discussion on the book by Robert Brandom Making It Explicit (1994) with papers by John McDowell, Gideon Rosen, Richard Rorty and Jay F. Rosenberg. Rorty's paper opened a very interesting debate between Jugen Habermas and Robert Brandom on the problem of the objectivity of our validity claims. This volume includes the English version of the text by Habermas. The two models are based on an analysis of social interaction and present a theory of meaning, from a Wittgensteinian point of view: the meaning of an expression corresponds to its linguistic use. At the same time, they are structured to overcome relativism. In this context, I'll discuss three topics: (1) the relationship between pragmatics and semantics; (2) the objectivity of our truth claims and (3) the status of facts and norms.