[lit-ideas] Re: Fwd: Re: Re: "the space of reasons" from Morc Huck Pump

Walter forwards some words from John McCreery that I hadn't seen before.


This raises an interesting question: Can an argument exist before it is
articulated? Walter says yes, asserting a world view in which arguments are
waiting to be discovered. I am inclined to say no, asserting a world view in
which arguments are constructed and it makes no sense to talk about their
existence until they have been articulated. Does anyone know a way to
reconcile these views?
I don't think Walter believes that arguments are waiting to be discovered, at least not in the way that mathematicians are waiting to see if there is a string twenty-seven 7's in the decimal expansion of π. Although I'm not quite sure what Walter's view is, it seems to me that he at least believes discursive reasons precede (although they MAY follow) actions. As intentional and voluntary actions are done for reasons that are the agent's reasons one or both of these possibilities must obtain.
I'm in that part of John's world which in which arguments are constructed, not discovered (i.e., discovered ready-made in their entirety, for some discovery surely goes on when one formulates an argument). However, I believe and Walter doesn't that some intentional and voluntary actions are not preceded by any step-by-step argument, such that by following it the agent sees what should be done and is thereby led to do it. I've argued for the implausibility of this elsewhere in this discussion. Nevertheless, I'm perfectly willing to accept that such actions can be rationally justified (arguments given for them) after they've been completed. It would be odd if they couldn't be.
One might say that the argument was 'there' before the agent acted, yet in the heat of the moment she was unaware of it; but this, I think, would be just an attempt to save the hypothesis.
Possibly the 'brain' sees a pattern, 'stores' it, and brings it out for the agent's subsequent use. This sounds suspiciously like the previous suggestion though. So far, I see a paradox: we act for reasons that fit into some standard patterns of reasoning, patterns that map onto the public patterns of reasoning that are open to view (by that I just mean 'argument forms,' I suppose) yet we do not prior to acting infer from 'their' reasons (or premises) what we should do or why. Afterwards, we can do this perfectly well. I do not see how we can avoid this paradox simply by maintaining that there MUST be prior arguments, even though we are not at the time aware of having formulated them, let alone of having acted on them. 

This is longer than I meant it to be. Sorry.

Robert Paul
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