Brandom, Wittgenstein and intersubjectivity

Intersubjectivity and egocentrism: Insights from the relational perspectives of Piaget, Mead, and Wittgenstein

Beginning with Piaget’s concept of egocentrism, we explicate a view of differentiating and coordination perspectives on which language and cognition are based by also drawing on insights from Mead and Wittgenstein. The concept of egocentrism is linked to Piaget’s view of knowledge and development. In overcoming egocentrism, infants differentiate the world from their action. We extend a Piagetia...

Focusing , Intersubjectivity , and “ Therapeutic Intersubjectivity ”

Dynamics, Brandom-Style

This paper discusses the semantic theory presented in Robert Brandom’s Making It Explicit. I argue that it is best understood as a special version of dynamic semantics, so that these semantics by themselves offer an interesting theoretical alternative to more standard truth-conditional theories. This reorientation also has implications for more foundational issues. I argue that it gives us the ...

Wittgenstein, medicine and neuropsychiatry.

A historical review is presented of the link between Ludwig Wittgenstein, considered the most important philosopher of the 20th century, and medicine, particularly neurology and psychiatry. Wittgenstein worked as a porter at Guy's Hospital in London, and then as a technician at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle. He wrote about his important insights into language, and neuroscience. It h...

Wittgenstein, Locality and Rules

This paper tries to give some substance to local holism, a picture that seems to fit Wittgenstein’s analysis of the working of language. In the first part I state the well-known paradox of semantic holism, as discussed in philosophy of language: if meaning is holistic there is no possibility to share any meaning. In the second part I present the different answers to this paradox, from atomism t...