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

Walter of the big arrow wrote


-------------> 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.
Man in a theater queue to woman ditto: 'You're standing on my foot.' Is this just an interesting observation, an elliptical request, or a reason advanced for her moving her foot? One can say, 'Polite society demands, etc., and besides, 'Ceteris paribus, as we all know is of course assumed…,' but must books of etiquette and evidence be brought out to show that the statement is no mere observation but a reason for the woman to move her foot, if she could and if she would? Another example comes to mind: 'Your pants are on fire.'
It may be that Walter is stressing too much the sorts of reasons which lead to conclusions that are themselves other statements, as in 'arguments,' but often reasons support or lead to actions. There is some slight inductive evidence, slight because it's based on the experiences of a single person, moi, that although I can often give reasons, sometimes even good ones, why I acted in a certain way, these often, of necessity, come after the fact. I swerve the car to avoid hitting a squirrel in the roadway. Afterwards I can tell a story about a universal respect for living things; about not wanting to clean squirrel matter from the wheel well; or even that I mistook the squirrel for a rock. What I do not do is run through a little practical syllogism before I act, and thus I am not moved to action by its conclusion.
One way out would be to adopt Aristotle's (brief and unsatisfactory) account of practical reasoning in which the conclusion of a 'practical syllogism' just is an action, not a further propositon. 'Straightway, he acts.' 

Are there squirrels that far north? I know there are rocks.

Robert Paul







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