@article{kibble-2020-discursive,
    title = "From Discursive Practice to Logic? Remarks on Logical Expressivism",
    author = "Kibble, Rodger",
    editor = "Poesio, Massimo  and
      Stede, Manfred  and
      Stent, Amanda  and
      Ginzburg, Jonathan  and
      Demberg, Vera  and
      Zeldes, Amir",
    journal = "Dialogue {\&} Discourse",
    volume = "11",
    month = aug,
    year = "2020",
    address = "Chicago, Illinois, USA",
    publisher = "University of Illinois Chicago",
    url = "https://preview.aclanthology.org/ingest-dnd/2020.dnd-11.4/",
    doi = "10.5087/dad.2020.202",
    pages = "34--73",
    abstract = "This paper proposes a novel account of the conditional locution as grounded in practices of goal- directed cooperative dialogue. It is argued that a conditional semantics can be obtained within a language fragment that lacks this locution, but supports assertive, inferential and directive prac- tices. We take Brandom{'}s logical expressivist programme as a point of departure, but argue that this programme is empirically flawed as it underestimates the pervasive context-dependence of linguistic items including logical vocabulary. We further take issue with his claim that a discursive practice involving only assertion and inference is sufficient for the conservative introduction and deployment of conditional vocabulary. A more promising route is provided by the introduction of directives, as in so-called ``pseudo-imperatives'' such as Get individuals to invest their time and the funding will follow: this has a conditional sense that if individuals invest their time, then funding will follow. We propose a semantic analysis for these forms which builds on Kukla and Lance{'}s account of prescriptives, and argue that our analysis more faithfully captures the ``irrealis'' nature of conditionals. The analysis is presented in terms of an information-state based dialogue model, with the information state comprising a partitioned commitment store. It is argued that our ``dialogical'' analysis of conditional reasoning is faithful to Brandom{'}s Sellarsian intuition of linguistic practice as a game of giving and asking for reasons. We conclude by contextualising and situating Brandom{'}s programme against the larger field of practice theory, by means of a comparison with the works of sociologist, anthropologist and philosopher Pierre Bourdieu, and suggest that this com- parison reveals further challenges to the expressivist programme. We also take note of Narasimhan et al{'}s recent proposals for agent-based modelling of social practice theory as a possible basis for future development."
}