De Dicto and De Re: A Brandomian approach on Kierkegaard

Gabriel Ferreira

During the last decades, the historical turn within the tradition of the so-called Analytic tradition has been experiencing a growing enthusiasm concerning the procedure of rational reconstruction, whose validity or importance, despite its paradigmatic examples in Frege and Russell, was not always a consensus. Among the Analytic philosophers who are the frontrunners in such movement, Robert Brandom is one of a kind: his work on Hegel as well as on German Idealism has been increasing the interest, but also the awareness of Hegel ́s possible contributions to some current problems in that tradition, and connecting Hegel scholars to current questions. Thus, this work aims to explore Brandom ́s methodology of rational reconstruction, as well as of dialogue with his tory of Philosophy, mainly exposed in his Tales of the mighty dead (2002). As we will see, Brandom ́s distinction between a de dicto and a de re approach intends to present a way of identifying and analyze philosopher ́s theoretical (hidden) commitments that can be useful to improve the quality of the dialogue with past philosophers. From such methodological exposition, I would like to turn back to Kierkegaard in order to make explicit some of his commitments and evaluate some of his positions against a background of a set of problems from 19th century Philosophy.