与其他语用理论相比,布兰顿规范语用学的演成基于一种完全不同的理路。他继承和批判了康德、维特根斯坦、弗雷格、塞拉斯等哲学家的思想,从实用主义立场出发,主张概念的内容来自概念的使用、存在于概念与概念的推理联系即概念性活动中。概念性活动具有规范性。通过批判规则主义和规律主义这两种错误的规范理解模式,布兰顿指明了一条通向规范的实用主义路向,以这种方式,规范语用学能够为推理语义学提供奠基作用。
In comparison with the other pragmatic theories, the evolution and the formation of Brandom’s normative pragmatics is based on a completely different path. By inheriting and criticizing the philosophic thoughts of such philosophers as Kant, Wittgenstein, Frege and Sellars, Brandom, from the standpoint of pragmatism, advocates that the contents of concepts come from the usage of concepts and exist in their inferential articulation, namely conceptual activities, and that conceptional activities possess normativity. Brandom indicates the pragmatic way to normativity by criticizing two kinds of misconceptions of normativity, i.e. regulism and regularism. And in this way the normative pragmatics can provide a foundamental role to the inferential semantics.