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.
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." '
(Straightway he is kicked in the shin by the woman's companion.)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.
Enlistee: Why CAN'T I join? Sergeant: Y'er too short by half. The sergeant gives a reason. No argument had previously been adduced.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
A reason, on its own, can never provide an argument. Youneed aconclusion for an argument. Reasons are always reasons for someconclusion,otherwise they ain't "reasons." The concept is a relational one,internallyconnected to a conclusion. On its own a statement is neither a reason noraconclusion.
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