Brandom’s solution to the objectivity problem

The central challenge to Brandom’s theory of propositional content, as he himself acknowledges, is to meet the following two apparently conflicting conditions of adequacy he lays down for such a theory: It must do justice to the objectivity of conceptual norms and it should embody a phenomenalist approach to normativity, according to which normative statuses must be understood as being instituted by practical normative attitudes. The strategy Brandom employs for reconciling these requirements is intricate and somewhat elusive. This paper aims to make it more accessible by reconstructing its main outline. I hope to show thereby that an objection raised by Rödl against Brandom’s account of objectivity is based on a misconception of that strategy.