Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T02:18:55.533Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The conclusion of practical reasoning: the shadow between idea and act

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Sarah K. Paul*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 5185 Helen C. White Hall, 600 North Park Street, Madison, WI 53706, USA
*

Abstract

There is a puzzle about how to understand the conclusion of a successful instance of practical reasoning. Do the considerations adduced in reasoning rationalize the particular doing of an action, as Aristotle is sometimes interpreted as claiming? Or does reasoning conclude in the formation of an attitude – an intention, say – that has an action-type as its content? This paper attempts to clarify what is at stake in that debate and defends the latter view against some of its critics.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anscombe, G. E. M. 1963. Intention. 2nd Edition.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Anscombe, G. E. M. 1989. “Von Wright on Practical Inference.” Reprinted in Virtues and Reasons, edited by Hursthouse, R. Lawrence, G. and Quinn, W.. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Bishop, John. 2011. “Review of Michael Thompson, Life and Action.” Ethics 122 (1): 212220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blackburn, Simon. 1998. Ruling Passions. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Broome, John. 2013. Rationality Through Reasoning. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dancy, Jonathan. 2009. “Action, Content, and Inference.” In Wittgenstein and Analytic Philosophy: Essays for P.M.S. Hacker, edited by Hyman, John and Glock, Hans-Johann. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Davidson, Donald. 1978. “Intending.” Reprinted in Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Eliot, T. S. 1925. “The Hollow Men.” In Poems: 1909–1925. London, UK: Faber and Faber.Google Scholar
Enc, Berent. 2003. How We Act. Oxfor: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Falvey, Kevin. 2000. “Knowledge in Intention.” Philosophical Studies 99 (1): 2144.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferrero, Luca. 2013. “Can I Intend Only My Own Actions? Intentions and the Own Action Condition.” In Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility, Volume One, edited by Shoemaker, David. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goldman, Alvin. 2006. Simulating Minds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harman, Gilbert. 1976. “Practical Reasoning.” The Review of Metaphysics 29 (3): 431463.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine. 2009. Self-Constitution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marcus, Eric. 2012. Rational Causation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moran, Richard, and Stone, Martin. 2009. “Anscombe on the Expression of Intention.” In New Essays on the Explanation of Action, edited by Sandis, Constantine. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Paul, Sarah. Forthcoming. “Embarking on a Crime.” In Law and the Philosophy of Action, edited by Enrique, Villanueva. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Rodopi Press.Google Scholar
Paul, Sarah. 2011. “Deviant Formal Causation.” Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 5 (3): 123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shah, Nishi. 2008. “How Action Governs Intention.” Philosophers' Imprint 8 (5): 119.Google Scholar
Raz, Joseph. 1978. Practical Reasoning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ross, W. D. 1980. Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics. Translated with introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tenenbaum, Sergio. 2007. “The Conclusion of Practical Reason.” In Moral Psychology, edited by Tenenbaum, Sergio. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Rodopi Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Michael. 2008. Life and Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yaffe, Gideon. 2010. Attempts. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar