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Robert Brandom is one of the most significant philosophers writing today, yet paradoxically philosophers have found it difficult to get to grips with the details and implications of his work. This book aims to facilitate critical engagement with Brandom’s ideas by providing an accessible overview of Brandom’s project and the context for an initial assessment. Jeremy Wanderer’s examination focuses on Brandom’s inferentialist conception of rationality, and the core part of this conception that aims to specify the structure that a set of performances within a social practice must have for the participants to count as sapient beings by virtue of their participation in the practice, and for the performances within the practice to have objective semantic content by virtue of their featuring within the practice. Wanderer’s exploration of these two goals forms the structure to the book. Part I provides a structural model of linguistic practice and considers various groups of potential participants in terms of their relationships to this practice. Part II examines the meaning of the performances that are caught up in this gameplaying practice. Brandom’s approach to semantics is outlined and the challenge such an approach has in allowing for a representational dimension of language and thought is explored. Wanderer offers readers a valuable framework for understanding the Brandomian system and helps situate Brandom’s systematic theorizing within contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. The book will be a sought after aid to reading Brandom for advanced students and philosophers engaging with his challenging body of work.

Semantics (Philosophy) --- Brandom, Robert.

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First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Meaning (Philosophy) --- Philosophy --- Semantics (Philosophy)

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The great question of the meaning of life breaks down into a number of different questions, some of which must be answered differently and uniquely. Baggini offers philosophy not as a direct answer to this age-old question, but a method of sorts that gives us the resources for answering these smaller questions.

Life. --- Meaning (Philosophy) --- Philosophy --- Semantics (Philosophy) --- Life

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Addressing the question of what makes life meaningful, Jerome Eckstein explores the ways in which we can heighten or diminish the quality of our life experience. He focuses on two contrasting attitudes toward life experiences: "interested" (goal-oriented) and "intraested" (non-goal-oriented, i.e., something directed only at itself) and shows that both attitudes are important and necessary in order to make life meaningful. Philosophy, psychology, religion, myth, poetry, and music are all brought to bear on such specific life-meaning issues as work, play, love, art, neurosis, and happiness, and in a touching epilogue, Eckstein discusses his own life meanings in terms of metaphysical loneliness, laughter, and dignity.

Meaning (Philosophy) --- Life. --- Life --- Philosophy --- Semantics (Philosophy)

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We have all wondered about the meaning of life. But is there an answer? And do we even really know what we're asking? Eagleton suggests that the problem of the meaning of life arose with modernity. He looks at the cultural and philosophical reasons for this.

Life. --- Meaning (Philosophy) --- Life --- Philosophy --- Semantics (Philosophy)