Do Large Language Models Advocate for Inferentialism?

TL;DR

This paper investigates whether large language models like ChatGPT embody inferentialist principles, suggesting they process language in a way that aligns with inferential semantics rather than traditional representational views.

Contribution

It offers a novel philosophical analysis connecting LLMs with inferential semantics, highlighting their anti-representationalist features and normative, interactive aspects.

Findings

LLMs exhibit anti-representationalist properties in language processing

A consensus theory of truth for LLMs is proposed based on their normative interactions

Inferential semantics offers insights into LLMs' meaning generation without external references

Abstract

The emergence of large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT and Claude presents new challenges for philosophy of language, particularly regarding the nature of linguistic meaning and representation. While LLMs have traditionally been understood through distributional semantics, this paper explores Robert Brandom's inferential semantics as an alternative foundational framework for understanding these systems. We examine how key features of inferential semantics -- including its anti-representationalist stance, logical expressivism, and quasi-compositional approach -- align with the architectural and functional characteristics of Transformer-based LLMs. Through analysis of the ISA (Inference, Substitution, Anaphora) approach, we demonstrate that LLMs exhibit fundamentally anti-representationalist properties in their processing of language. We further develop a consensus theory of truth appropriate for LLMs, grounded in their interactive and normative dimensions through mechanisms like RLHF. While acknowledging significant tensions between inferentialism's philosophical commitments and LLMs' sub-symbolic processing, this paper argues that inferential semantics provides valuable insights into how LLMs generate meaning without reference to external world representations. Our analysis suggests that LLMs may challenge traditional assumptions in philosophy of language, including strict compositionality and semantic externalism, though further empirical investigation is needed to fully substantiate these theoretical claims.