Politicizing Brandom's Pragmatism: Normativity and the Agonal Character of Social Practice

Abstract

Abstract:This article provides an agonistic interpretation of Robert Brandom's social-pragmatic account of normativity. I argue that social practice, on this approach, should be seen not just as cooperative, but also as contestatory. This aspect, which has so far remained implicit, helps to illuminate Brandom's claim that normative statuses are 'instituted' by social practices: normative statuses are brought into play in mutual engagement, and are only in play from an engaged social perspective among others. Moreover, in contrast to a positivist or conventionalist understanding of Brandom's work, it shows that the possibility of a critical stance toward existing practices is not only compatible with, but already implicit in this form of pragmatism. This can be made explicit with the notion of farcical practices: practices that are treated merely as if they institute genuine commitments and entitlements. Interpreting a practice as farcical is taking a critical stance toward it, and this possibility is inherent in Brandom's theoretical framework. This opens the way for a fruitful appropriation of Brandom's pragmatism for social and political philosophy.2

Hegel and the Ethics of Brandom’s Metaphysics

“…34 If Brandom's pragmatic inferentialism assumes a one-dimensional account of normative authority on the basis of ideal conditions of sociality, then, in order to adapt it for the real conditions of everyday discursive practices, Hegel's distinction between unjustifiable and justifiable appeals to normative validity needs to be accounted for within Brandom's model. To argue, as Fossen (2011) does, that real discursive practice is "contestatory" is to misunderstand or overlook Hegel's substantive point that the content of judgment cannot be considered independently from the question of the authority of the judgment. Even if it is the case that there is an essential and underappreciated "agonal" dimension to Brandom's conception of discursive practice, 25 one that allows him "to avoid the pitfalls of subjectivism and communal assessment" and to avoid "collapsing the distinction between normative statuses and practical attitudes at the individual or communal level" (Fossen, 2011: 385-6), such a dimension (on its own) cannot provide an account of how one might go about adjudicating on the justifiability of something that is taken to be normatively valid.…”

Language and legitimacy: Is pragmatist political theory fallacious?

“…It never quite leaves things as they were, but transforms what we are doing, enabling us to do it differently and better; to identify certain moves as apt or inapt, and to say why. (I defend the critical potential of Brandom's pragmatism in more detail elsewhere (Fossen, 2014a).) As Brandom (2009) contrasts his explicative project with the tradition of analytical philosophy:…”

Pragmatism, Realism and Moralism

“…The other version of this pragmatic turn that I want to focus on also takes its starting point from the idea that we incur non-discretionary commitments in our practices of believing, claiming, asserting and declaring things. In what Thomas Fossen (2011: 391) calls, a trifle inelegantly, ‘systematic agonistic social pragmatism’, he aims to develop an alternative to normativism – a version of moralism as outlined here (see Fossen, 2013: 431, 2014: 232). For normativism, the main task for political philosophy (concerning legitimacy) is to formulate and justify principles and criteria that specify the conditions of legitimacy.…”

“…Just as in the agon what counts as excellence is not fixed in advance but emerges through the contest, in discursive practice what is true, correct or meaningful is not determined in advance of the practice, or identified with any individual subject’s assessment of it or with that of the community as a whole. Rather, it is a function of the engagement, as assessed from each perspective (Fossen, 2011: 384).…”