• Korean Journal of Logic
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.347-375
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• 2012

In my article published in 2008, I offered an inferentialist account of indicative conditionals. In her recent paper, Professor Seawha Kim raises three objections. First, I misunderstand Sellars-Brandom in that I take only concept-constitutive inferences as materially valid inferences. Second, Sellars and Brandom talk about the common features of all kinds of conditionals including counterfactual conditionals, but I construe their view as the analysis of the indicative conditionals only. Third, either my analysis is incompatible with Sellars-Brandom inferentialism or my analysis is too general. In this paper I argue that Seawha Kim's objections are all based on insufficient understandings of Sellars's and Brandom's views. First, it is Sellars's view that materially valid inferences are restricted within concept-constitutive inferences. Second, neither Sellars nor Brandom proposes a specific theory about the indicative conditional. Instead, they argue for the expressive role of the conditional. What I accept from their views is this expressive role of the conditional. The detailed proposals about the indicative conditional in my aforementioned article are my own. Third, the differences among conditionals have no direct bearing on Sellars-Brandom inferentialism. In addition, the meaning and role of the conditional expression 'if-then' do not require more than what I have argued for it.