Brandom's pragmatism

I examine Robert Brandom's reading of the classical pragmatists, as given in his new book Perspectives on Pragmatism: Classical, Recent, and Contemporary. I argue that his reading is deficient in certain fundamental respects, and that this deficiency illuminates important blind spots in Brandom's overall theoretical project. Specifically, I focus on Brandom's rationalist pragmatism and its rejection of the classical pragmatic concep- tion of experience. I argue that this rejec- tion is based on an overly instrumental reading of the classical figures, as well as on an incorrect interpretation of them as suc- cumbing to the Myth of the Given. My overall goal is to demonstrate that Brandom is lead astray in his encounter with the clas- sical pragmatists because of his unwilling- ness to integrate into his theoretical picture the essentially embodied nature of human cognitive and practical activity.