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Ascriptivism and Inferentialism: Bridge between Epistemology and the Law�

Karlo Gardavski

University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

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Ascriptivism and Inferentialism: Bridge between Epistemology and the Law

  • Goals:
    • 1. Clarify H. L. A. Hart’s theory of ascriptive sentences: how they differ from descriptive sentences and how they attribute responsibility through defeasible concepts.
    • 2. Extend Hart’s insights beyond action theory into law, epistemology, and semantics.
    • 3. Connect with Michael Williams’ idea of the Accredited Subject: knowledge as epistemic authority.
    • 4. Show that law and epistemology share structures of entitlements, commitments, and normative roles.
    • 5. Propose a unified framework (Hart, Williams, Brandom) grounded in social practices.

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The Ascription of Responsibility and Rights

1. Hart distinguished ascriptive sentences from descriptive ones.

2. Ascriptive sentences (e.g., “He did it.”) attribute responsibility and function like speech acts.

3. They are defeasible: their authority depends on conditions being met (as in contracts, which require offer, acceptance, and parties).

4. Legal concepts are therefore not fixed but context-dependent.

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The Ascription of Responsibility and Rights

Example: Law of contract

i. One must be familiar with a legal vocabulary.

ii. There are positive conditions required for the existence of a valid contract (i.e., at least two parties, an offer by one, acceptance by the other.)

iii. Contract is a form of “defeasible concept.”

iv. There are consequences to decisions.

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- Defeasible character of legal concepts helps to explain how statements of fact support or refute legal conclusions.

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Williams on Knowledge and Ascriptivism

1. Objection: Hart should have spoken of ascriptive uses of sentences.

2. No sharp distinction between ascriptive and descriptive sentences.

3. Defeasible concepts can be descriptive.

4. Essential feature of defeasible concepts is their epistemic character.

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Williams’ Epistemological Contextualism

1. Williams’ epistemological project falls under what is called Neo-pragmatism.

2. Neo-pragmatism = Linguistic Priority + Anti-Representationalism + Epistemological Behaviourism + Normative Pragmatism

3. Goal: To understand the expressive function (local) of an epistemological vocabulary.

4. Knowledge is a complex, socially conferred, normative/deontic status.

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Bridge between Epistemology and the Law (Part I.)

1. Defeasible concepts have an epistemic character.

2. “Legal vocabulary” is also to be understood from an expressivist point (local).

3. Legal concepts must be explained in terms of use (same as epistemological concepts).

4. To make his point Williams uses inferentialism for meta-theoretical analysis (Robert Brandom).

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Bridge between Epistemology and the Law (Part I.)

Explanation of meaning in terms of use: EMU.

EMU involves four components (they condition each other):

a) Content-Determining Clauses

i. Material-inferential (intra-linguistic) role.

ii. Epistemic character of those inferential commitments.

b) Functional Clauses

i. Expressive/performative function.

ii. Practical significance/utility.

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Bridge between Epistemology and the Law (Part I.)

Applied to defeasible concepts:

  1. Content-Determining Clauses: Material-inferential relations reflect standing inferential entitlements, not normally requiring justification. Entitlements will be expandable and revisable in the light of our developing understanding of social interactions and considering the point of the practice of ascribing responsibility.
  2. Functional clauses: Any form of social life will depend on some system of incentives and sanctions and will therefore need some way of marking cases in which it is appropriate to apply them: ascribing responsibility.

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Bridge between Epistemology and the Law (Part II.)

1. Is this bridge sustainable? I think yes.

2. Defeasible concepts have an epistemic character, i.e., they must be justified.

For instance:

  • “In taking someone to be a knower, one attributes a commitment, attributes entitlement to that commitment, and acknowledges commitment to the same content oneself. Undertaking the commitment is part of what the asserter authorizes others to do-not only to attribute the commitment but also to undertake it, on the asserter's authority. That authority depends on the asserter's entitlement to the commitment. (…) For others to take those claims to be successful is for them to attribute the commitment undertaken, in addition to attribute entitlement to it, and finally to endorse the claim themselves. (…) Knowledge is a complex deontic status, in the sense that it involves both commitment and entitlement.” (Brandom, 202)

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Bridge between Epistemology and the Law (Part II.)

3. This example also reveals intentions that are made by ascriptivism.

4. Our interest: who has deserved the status of authority?

5. The conceptual “concrete” that holds the bridge is “Accredited Subject”:

a) Informant (information-source) of good information.

b) Good information is a sign of reliability and authority (biconditionals).

c) This specific status is given and needs to be recognized (social adjustment).

d) To be given such a status is to be an epistemic, legal, normative and semantic self-aware and self-conscious social species (or normative species).

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Bridge between Epistemology and the Law (Part II.)

  • A more general Rortyan note:

If such a communication context existed, it would be expressed in the form of secular liberal democracy, whose main motto would be:

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No reliability without responsibility and vice versa!

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THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!