Communication, Language and Autonomy

Abstract

In my contribution I want to describe a notion of autonomy in social terms namely in discursive practices. I already presented autonomy as grounded on the Sellarsian “metaphor” of the game of giving and asking for reasons reinterpreted by Robert Brandom. The model was centered mostly on practices of justification starting from an inferentialist view of the propositional content. However, I think that together with speech acts in ordinary language we must provide a description of the role of prelinguistic practices for autonomy. This further step is implied by the fact that it is important to clarify the dimension of “readiness” to give or ask for reasons on which Swindler rightly insists in his Introduction to my book Autonomy. A Matter of Content. Autonomy develops in a language game that is connected with cooperation. The language game I want to point out is similar to the functional approach of Wittgenstein but starts from a Fregean perspective and takes into consideration neurobiological processes which bridge the gap between brain and world and represent the “motor” of our activity in the world.