[lit-ideas] Re: "the space of reasons" from Morc Huck Pump
- From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 16:04:52 -0230
Specific replies to RP below ---------------->
Quoting Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>:
> Walter wrote that 'a reason on its own can never provide an argument.'
> I'm not quite sure what this means, unless it's a remark about the form
> that arguments (typically) take, where something (a conclusion) is said
> to follow from several other things, usually called reasons or premises.
> So here I understand Walter to mean that no single 'reason' can
> constitute an argument; this might be true by definition, and therefore
> uninteresting, but if 'reason' simply means 'statement' or
> 'proposition,' it seems false, yet interesting. In my example, surely
> that she was standing on the fellow's foot was a reason for her to move
> her foot and moreover was an argument for her moving it. Granted, one
> could, given the possibility of telling different stories, some of which
> would make 'You're standing on my foot,' a pick-up line, or an
> explanation of why the woman felt unsteady on his/her feet; yet that
> these different possibilities exist do not show that in this case, his
> utterance does not give a reason, and a sufficient reason why she should
> move her foot.
-------------> (In my scenario, I am the one putatively standing on a foot
owned
by a woman. Epistemically, I can't cross genders very easily.) OK, the key idea
here is that if do interpret the woman's utterance to constitute a reason,
that's only because I understand the statement to be a reason she is offering
for wanting/obligating me to get off her foot. This is to say, I understand the
conclusion that she is expecting me to understand.
RP:
> But! you say, that presupposes all of the cultural expectations of
> Western, Eastern, and undecided civilizations, mores and morels, from
> which you've arbitrarily taken a small slice, as if the world were just
> one big theater queue. True, true, true as a Boy Scout compass. Yet
> selectivity does not entail that the selected is inapt or that the
> selector is inept. If it is prejudicial to select, it is equally
> prejudicial to assume that man whose toe is being trodden on has run
> through, has mentally rehearsed, something like, 'these are my brand new
> Evan Picard loafers; a woman's heel will mar them; that woman is
> pressing her heel into them; she surely doesn't realize this; if I point
> it out to her she will remove her foot; so I will; and the means I'll
> use is the utterance of the words, "You're standing on my foot." '
----------> Such mental rehearsals are not necessary for acting on a reason, as
the extended account I have provided of dispositions clearly demonstrates. But
the following perhaps should be emphasized: whether I take the woman's reason
to be a good reason for her to want me to move my fooot, or for me to decide I
should move my foot, may require explicit deliberation at times. Whether I
accede to the woman's request/demand may be a decision I need to explicitly
deliberate upon and arrive at a decision. Circumstances requiring such
deliberation are too numerous to bear identifying.
WO continues (he turkey being far from done)
I hasten to add that I imply no cultural relativity in the formal account I
give
here of a reason. That a reason can only be a reason given a conclusion claimed
to follow from it, and that a statement can only be understood as a reason with
reference to a conclusion for which it is a reason, are both transcendental
claims identifying the conditions of possibility for being a reason, and being
found to be a reason. This formal account I do not believe is
subject to variation by or across culture. (However, what the specific content
of a reason actually is, what the empirical conditions are that allow the
recognition of an utterance to be a reason, and what one does as a result,
surely ARE subject to cultural variation. An Italian girl once exclaimed:
"Walter, you're pulling my hair." Acting like a good Aristotelian, I stopped
straightaway. In response, she lamented: "Why did you stop?" Culture, go
figure!)
> (Straightway he is kicked in the shin by the woman's companion.)
-------> My Italian friend brought no companion.
RP:
> What I want to suggest is that all of these mental shenanigans occur
> after the deed is done, and that most practical reasoning, while
> perfectly agreeable when spelled out on the chalk board, is unfelt,
> unseen, and untasted before one acts. The addition of 'Therefore, I (or
> we) will do such-and-such,' is seldom present prior to action, and if it
> is it goes by so fast one seldom notices it.
------------> I agree, albeit with the provison that we are speaking of
"routine
actions." And, yes, oftentimes the move from recognizing what conclusion
follows
from an argument and deciding what to do about it is Concorde-quick. (There is,
of course, nothing necessarily "thoughtless" about such a move.)
RP:
>
> Enlistee: Why CAN'T I join?
>
> Sergeant: Y'er too short by half.
>
> The sergeant gives a reason. No argument had previously been adduced.
----------> The sgt. appeals to the argument, and expects the enlistee to
understand (and be convinced by) the argument: "You can't join because you're
too short." As it stands, the argument is mising a premise or two, but an
argument it remains nontheless, and the intelligibility of the sgt's utterance
is dependent upon the recognition of the argument he is making.
RP:
> I want to thank Walter for his reasoned reasonableness, and hope to say
> a bit more (anything would be more) about dispositions later.
>
> Robert Paul
-----------> My pleasure. I look forward to Robert's account of the nature of a
disposition. He will rely, no doubt, on some of the words written on this
matter by his old drinking buddy Gilbert Ryle. (The last time I made such an
attempt --- surely a number of years ago now -- I was charged with conflating
an account of the nature of a disposition with an account of how we come to
recognize dispositions in ourselves and others. I'm still not over that one.)
Walter O.
>
>
> > A reason, on its own, can never provide an argument. You
> >> need a
> >>> conclusion for an argument. Reasons are always reasons for some
> >> conclusion,
> >>> otherwise they ain't "reasons." The concept is a relational one,
> >> internally
> >>> connected to a conclusion. On its own a statement is neither a reason
> nor
> >> a
> >>> conclusion.
>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
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