[lit-ideas] Re: "the space of reasons" from Morc Huck Pump
- From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 16:14:45 -0230
Just two small comments on John's post --------------->
Quoting John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>:
> On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 9:08 AM, Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> >
> > 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.
> >
JM:
> This pragmatist finds himself in sympathy with Walter's objection that "a
> reason on its own can never provide an argument." His example and his words
> suggest to me that an argument requires the articulate use of language to
> identify and bring into shared awareness at least one connection between a
> reason and the action it purports to justify or the effect it purports to
> explain. Thus, while I agree with Robert Paul that most practical reasoning
> does, indeed, take place after the fact, the act itself being unconsidered
> before it happens, it is precisely that lack of consideration that indicates
> the lack of argument.
-------------> The lack of explicit consideration as to what to do given the
recognition of a conclusion made by oneself or an other does not necessarily
indicate the absence of argument. It may simply indicate the absence of an
explicit rehearsal of an argument made and acted upon many times in the past.
One's response to the conclusion constitutes a response that is embedded within
an entire pattern of responses making up one's disposition, or what Aristotle
called "habit." Humans are more rational than they recognize. Alas, the
validity of an argument is not equivalent to the soundness of an argument.
> One might go further and observe that philosophical argument (as opposed,
> for example, to bar room brawls) requires a modicum of agreement on what the
> language used means and what its use implies. In the absence of such
> agreement, one says A, the other says B, and, however elaborate the
> construction of either A or B, no true argument occurs. As Terry Eagleton
> wryly remarks about political debate, if we are discussing Patriarchy, by
> which you mean a system of social domination in which men are superior to
> women and I mean a small town in upstate New York, no debate [a.k.a.
> argument] is occurring.
--------------------> Here John expnads on what I referred to in an earlier post
as the "cultural content" making up the matter of reasons, in differentiation
from the form of reasons.
Walter O.
>
> John
>
>
> John McCreery
> The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
> Tel. +81-45-314-9324
> http://www.wordworks.jp/
>
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