[lit-ideas] Re: "the space of reasons" from Morc Huck Pump
- From: "William Ball" <ballnw@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 09:06:18 -0400
Maybe a successful argument needs reason plus a dash of rhetorical
flourish? Like the Gettysburg Address?
(But always in the simple style) Argue through logic, persuade through
rhetoric? Sort of a HillaryOboma Combo?
Should we reread Plato's "Protagoras''" and "Gorgias" before we proceed?
Or should we look today for an
unassuming Adlai Stevenson (Perhaps tjhe best president we never had?)?
I recall an advisor to Stevenson who begged him to make a mistake in
grammar occasionally.
Should we look for one of those? No, we already have a leader of the
free world who makes plenty of them.
Enuf.
William Ball, up here letting the squirrels live and pondering the
future for our kids in the nucular age
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Robert Paul
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2008 7:07 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [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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