Reason and Rationality 9783110325867, 9783110325140

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Maria Cristina Amoretti | Nicla Vassallo (Eds.) Reason and Rationality

Philosophische Analyse Philosophical Analysis Herausgegeben von / Edited by Herbert Hochberg • Rafael Hüntelmann • Christian Kanzian Richard Schantz • Erwin Tegtmeier Band 48 / Volume 48

Maria Cristina Amoretti | Nicla Vassallo (Eds.)

Reason and Rationality

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

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CONTENTS

The Life According to Reason is Best and Pleasantest Maria Cristina Amoretti and Nicla Vassallo

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1. Reason and Science Stathis Psillos

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2. Reason and Knowledge Pascal Engel

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3. Reason and Woman Lorraine Code

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4. Reason and Politics Liz Sperling

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5. Reason and Ethics Carla Bagnoli

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6. Reason and Religion Lynne Rudder Baker

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7. Reason and Aesthetics Susan L. Feagin

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8. Reason and Language Manuel García-Carpintero

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9. Reason and Logic Carlo Cellucci

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10. Reason and Metaphysics Andrea Bottani

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Contributors

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Name Index

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THE LIFE ACCORDING TO REASON IS BEST AND PLEASANTEST1 Maria Cristina Amoretti2 Nicla Vassallo

And then a Plank in Reason, broke, And I dropped down, and down – And hit a World, at every plunge, And Finished knowing – then – (Emily Dickinson, 280)

1. Some Hints on the Nature of Reason and Rationality Reason and rationality have been among the most controversial and debated issues in Western philosophy, dating from ancient Greece, through the Middle Ages, and to the present day. This is not surprising, especially if we roughly agree with the suggestion that “Rationality … is a crucial component of the self-image of the human species, not simply a tool for gaining knowledge or improving our lives and society. Understanding our rationality brings deeper insight into our nature and into whatever special status we possess” (Nozick 1993: xii) or the classic Aristotelian definition, according to which human beings are “rational animals,” i.e., that reason and rationality, whatever they precisely may be, are what mainly distinguishes human beings from other animals (Aristotle 1957). Broadly speaking, reason may be considered the ensemble of our intellectual abilities: our general capacities for forming beliefs, comprehending, inferring, making judgments, thinking and choosing actions on principles and norms.3 In this sense, failing to employ reason implies exercising non1

Aristotle 2002: book X, chapter 7. M. Cristina Amoretti gratefully acknowledges financial support for her research from the European Grant POSDRU/89/1.5/S/63663. 3 L.J. Cohen recognizes at least nine “types of rationality, or roles for the faculty of reason” (Cohen 1993: 663-664), both theoretical and practical, connected with deduc2

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rational processes, including blind faith, wishful thinking, guessing, or careless obedience to some kind of authority. Rationality, without considering the many more or less specialized discussions about it, may thus be simply considered the everyday exercise of reason in exploring, investigating, understanding, controlling, and manipulating both the natural and social worlds. Such general characterizations of reason and rationality are not exceptionally controversial and may be widely accepted. However, problems arise when we try to investigate the nature and standards of reason and rationality (more precisely, what they could or ought to be and under what conditions something can be said to be rational) as well as their relationships to specific topics, i.e., science, knowledge, gender, politics, ethics, religion, aesthetics, language, logic, and metaphysics. It is difficult to deny that there is a normative dimension to reason and rationality (beliefs, inferences, judgments, preferences, choices, actions, and behaviours can be reasonable or unreasonable, good or bad; a set of beliefs or judgments can be coherent or incoherent, consistent or inconsistent).4 According to the standard picture of rationality (SPR), “to be rational is to reason in accordance with principles of reasoning that are based on rules of logic, probability theory and so forth. If the standard picture of tive reasoning, mathematical reasoning, semantical reasoning, inductive reasoning, probabilistic reasoning, reasoning linked to factual generalization, means-ends reasoning, reasoning linked to the choice of ends, and, finally, reasoning linked to linguistic communication. Alternatively, Keith Lehrer (1999) distinguishes eight kinds of rationality obtained by combining three basic distinctions about rationality: theoretical vs. practical, synchronic vs. diachronic, and personal vs. social. It is also interesting to mention that John Elster identifies seven kinds of objects to which the notion of rationality has been traditionally applied: “beliefs, preferences, choices or decisions, actions, behavioural patterns, persons, even collectivities and institutions” (Elster 1983: 1). 4 Also the widespread psychological studies, showing that human beings are prone to many systematic errors in their reasoning, in fact assume some normative theory of rationality in terms of which to evaluate the various errors of performance, or aim to build new normative theories (adaptive rationality, ecological rationality, etcetera) alternative to the traditional ones. See for instance Kahneman et al. 1982; Stein 1996; Wason and Johnson-Laird 1972. To put it generally, it is worth stressing that in those studies between philosophy and cognitive psychology, there has been a so-called “rationality debate”.

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reasoning is right, principles of reasoning that are based on such rules are normative principles of reasoning, namely they are the principles we ought to reason in accordance with” (Stein 1996: 4). One may thus question the status of the normative judgments concerning reason and rationality. Are reason and rationality the same for all people and possible fields of investigation, or do they mean one thing for somebody and another thing for someone else, and a certain thing in one particular area of investigation and something else in another one? What is the nature of facts that would make a particular normative judgment concerning rationality true? Might the norms of rationality be objective and authoritative for all subjects and in every domain of investigation? The different uses of the notions of reason and rationality as well as their norms may not be univocal and have nothing in common with each other. There may be domains, such as aesthetics, where many scholars consider it neither possible nor satisfactory to identify general principles or norms of rationality, while one normally does, or aims to, define such general principles or norms in other fields of investigation, such as science or epistemology (some interesting insights on these issues may be find in Bermúdez and Millar 2002; Biderman and Scharfstein 1989; Hollis 1998; Mele and Rawling 2004b; Oaksford and Chater 1998; Papineau 2003). Before examining some pivotal problems raised by the relation of reason and rationality to some specific domains of inquiry, however, let us try to sketch some basic features of the nature of these two notions as broadly understood. We may agree that one needs to know what reason and rationality mean and refer to, so that one may then be better aware of what to seek. The domain of reason and rationality is usually divided into the theoretical and practical (e.g., Anderson 1990; Audi 2001: chapters 2 and 3, 2004; Cooper 1989; Skyrms 1996). More specifically, theoretical reason may be understood as concerning matters of fact and their explanation or prediction (sciences are then the paradigmatic realm for this kind of reason), and practical reason as considering matters of value or what it would be desirable to do. Alternatively, they can both be seen as concerned with normative rather than factual questions (Wallace 2008). If one accepts the latter distinction, she agrees that: “theoretical or epistemic rationality is concerned with what it is rational to believe, and sometimes with rational degrees of belief, [and] practical rationality is concerned with what it is ra-

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tional to do, or intend or desire to do” (Mele and Rawling 2004a: 3).5 To put it another way, theoretical rationality should guide us to true beliefs,6 telling us what we ought to believe, while practical rationality should allow us to achieve intended or desired goals, showing us what we ought to do or what it would be best to do to realize our goals. We may think of theoretical reasons as reasons to believe and practical reasons as reasons to act.7 Considering reasons for action, it is also useful to distinguish between justificatory or normative reasons and explanatory or motivating reasons: the former are reasons we use to explain a subject’s attitudes and actions; the latter are reasons to which we appeal to justify those attitudes and actions. This distinction is important, as an agent could be motivated to act in a certain way without being justified to do so or an action could be successfully explained without making any good normative sense. Conversely, there could be some good justificatory reasons for actions that are not performed and thus justificatory reasons that play no explanatory role at all (Lenman 2009). Reason and rationality may be usefully specified in other ways. Daniel Kahneman (2000) advances a classification that is transversal to the di5

This distinction may be traced back to the ancient Greeks: Plato, for example, theorized the prominent role of the faculty of reason both in the cognitive and theoretical task of discovering the explanation of how things are and the justification of how they ought to be, as well as in the practical task of correctly managing an individual’s life and behaviour. Moving to the Moderns, this difference had been also made explicit by Immanuel Kant’s distinction between “pure reason” (Kant 1781 and 1787) and “practical reason” (Kant 1788), where reason is considered to supply the human mind with regulative ideals, both from a theoretical and a practical perspective. 6 Some scholars prefer not to accept truth as the primary end of theoretical rationality and thus substitute it with other relevant notions such as explanatory power and informative content. Others go further, denying both the intrinsic and the extrinsic value of truth and arguing that, at least in some cases, having a false belief is more rational than having a truth belief (see Stich 1990). 7 Of course this distinction is quite blurred because theoretical and practical rationality are deeply related. For instance, establishing what are the norms of choice of practical rationality is ultimately a theoretical matter (Dreier 2004), while in contrast, beliefs and theoretical reasoning are often influenced by practical considerations (Harman 2004), sometimes in ways that contrast epistemic norms (Samuels and Stich 2004; Samuels et al. 2004).

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chotomy between theoretical and practical rationality: he distinguishes coherence-rationality, which may concern the coherence of both a belief set and a preference set, and process-rationality, which may refer to both a belief-forming process and a decision process. Another important distinction occurs between normative rationality, when a creature properly or responsibly exercises its reason, and deontological rationality, when she fulfils certain epistemic duties or obligations related to what she actually believes or does, such as the duty or obligation to base one’s own beliefs on evidence (BonJour 1980). Alternatively, deontological rationality may be opposed to consequentialist rationality: according to the former, one must systematically conform to some given normative principles
to be rational; according to the latter, a rational creature must reason to have good probabilities of efficaciously reaching a goal or series of goals (Samuels et al. 2004). Moreover, rationality might also be considered always goal-related or goal-oriented: in this case, rationality would simply be identical to instrumental rationality, basically consisting of detecting the best means for achieving particular ends (Aristotle 2002; Foley 1987). Otherwise, some scholars suggest considering a further kind of rationality, which we may refer to as axiological rationality (Weber 1949), to denote what one should consider or judge valuable, preferable, or desirable. If one admits the rationality of ends, an agent’s goals should be also under rational scrutiny: if a creature’s ends are inappropriate, it would be difficult to consider such a creature a fully rational one. Finally, the distinction between perfect and bounded rationality, which is particularly relevant in economics and theory choice, should be examined: the former refers to the ideal standards of rationality, while the latter considers some contingent and empirical restriction, including the information an agent has, her cognitive limitations, and the amount of time she has to make her decision (Simon 1957). Another interesting question, which is deeply related to the nature of reason and rationality, is what creatures may legitimately be judged as rational or what a particular subject would have to have or be able to do for it to be rational. On the one hand, even if it is difficult to ignore the great collection of studies about non-human animals that has emphasized that their behaviour is not merely blind, mechanical, and blundering (Bekoff et al. 2002), some philosophers are still inclined to attribute rationality just to cognitive mature human beings. In this vein, a paradigmatic example is

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Donald Davidson, who explicitly states that “neither an infant one week old nor a snail is a rational creature … Whichever way we talk, there remains the difference, with respect to rationality, between the infant and the snail on one hand, and the normal adult person on the other. The difference consists in having propositional attitudes such as belief, desire, intents, and shame” (1982: 95). More precisely, given the inextricable link Davidson sees between having propositional attitudes (i.e., having thought) and speaking a language (Davidson 1990, 1992, 1997), only a creature that possesses a language as rich and complex as one mastered by cognitive mature human beings would legitimately be a true rational creature. Similarly, according to Robert Brandom (1994, 2000) being able to give and ask for reasons is what distinguishes human beings from other animals and artefacts. On the other hand, it is also possible to have a more liberal conception of rationality, according to which not only infants, apes, and mammals may be acceptably regarded as rational creatures, but also insects, monocellular organisms like amoebas or paramecia, and eventually even robots or other artificial agents. In this case, one must evaluate the extent to which (at least some) non-human animals may be judged as rational agents (Bermúdez 2003; Brittan 1999; Dennett 1996; Hurley 2003; McFarland and Bosser 1993; Tomasello 1999). If any behaviour describable from an intentional stance were treated as rational, then, without other conditions, all non-human animals and inanimate objects, including thermostats or missiles, would be regarded as rational. Alternatively, if one argues that rationality is simply identical to means-end rationality, she will be inclined to believe that this is not a prerogative of cognitive mature human beings, as many non-human animals can clearly discover the best means for achieving a particular goal. Being more charitable, we may also be eager to say that all creatures, if they survive, can choose appropriate means for general survival and must therefore be considered rational agents. If one takes logical reasoning (e.g., deductive reasoning) as the mark of rationality, she would be ready to include at least some highly sophisticated artificial agents among rational creatures. Moreover, if one admits that there is a so-called natural logic, which is the product of biological evolution

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and does not require language,8 along with an artificial logic, which is the product of cultural evolution, it is possible to say that rationality extends to all creatures. Many different positions remain possible depending on how one conceives the notions of reason and rationality. These various options generally depend on which cognitive mechanism and/or external behaviour would be considered essential for rationality itself: language, logical reasoning, means-ends reasoning, tools use, intentional behaviour, or simulation. At least some of these solutions are not incompatible, but they represent different yet slightly continuous levels of rationality that are possible to specify and eventually integrate (Amoretti 2007, 2009). Despite the disputes about the nature of reason and rationality, avoiding any apologetic approach, many philosophers, writers, and scientists have largely celebrated them for a long time as the best human tools for attaining truth, liberty, egalitarianism, and emancipation. These are the universal ideals of reason and rationality central to the Enlightenment (whose descent may be found in René Descartes, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant), according to which they would have been able to fight religious dogmas, social inequalities, and the unfair political status quo. Nevertheless, at least from the Nineteenth Century,9 reason and rationality have been variously accused to be defective, futile, synonyms of oppression and domination, or even the roots of all dilemmas of modernity. Among the critics, we may find some literary and philosophical trends, including existentialism, intuitionism, romanticism, neo-romanticism, post-modernism, vitalism (or “life philosophy”), voluntarism and many kinds of irrationalistic philosophies. Broadly speaking, authors such as Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Jacoby, Friedrich Schelling, Henri Bergson, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Søren Kierkegaard differently stressed the dimensions of feeling, faith, instinct, passion, and will over and against reason and ration8

According to evolutionary psychologists, human rationality depends on the fact that our brain, as any other organ of our body, has been forged by natural selection as the best instrument to guarantee the survival and the reproductive success of our Pleistocene ancestors (see for instance Tooby and Cosmides 2005). 9 It is worth noting that some tides of irrationalism were already present in works of ancient Greek (e.g., Dionysus) and early modern philosophies (e.g., Blaise Pascal).

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ality, which were seen as mainly useless or negative characteristics, being unable to promote or obstructing the full realization of humans’ potentialities and authentic nature. Leaving aside these quite radical critiques, many feminist and postcolonial theorists have more recently questioned the ideals of reason and rationality characteristic to the Enlightenment.10 However, they mostly object not to the general value of reason and rationality but their unrealistic pretences of purity, abstractness, autonomy, detachment, dispassionateness, transcendence, and universality that, despite any good intention held by their defenders, would inevitably create conditions of exclusion, marginalization, and subordination.11 As Deborah Heikes puts it, “the traditional modern or Enlightenment conception of rationality is no longer a live philosophical option. Yet we cannot take the death of this particular rational ideal as the end of rationality itself without jeopardizing our ability to understand much of what makes us human and our ability to do philosophy” (2010: 4). A new understanding of reason and rationality has thus been pursued: these notions should be considered constitutively embodied (they arise from the nature of our brains and bodies), situated (they develop within and in response to the external environment, both natural and social), emotionally engaged, anti-individualistic, and intersubjective (Garavaso and Vassallo 2007; Heikes 2012; Lakoff and Johnson 1999). As it would be difficult to fully understand what reason and rationality are without examining some of their concrete instantiations in different pivotal fields (e.g., science, knowledge, gender, politics, ethics, religion, aesthetics, language, logic, and metaphysics), let us start with a brief analysis of the contributions to this book. We wish to stress that these contributions are widely heterogeneous and do not assume a univocal definition of reason and rationality; they instead reveal a plurality (which in our opin10

Also some mainstream analytic philosophers – such as, among others, Willard Von Orman Quine, Hilary Putnam, Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, Alasdair MacIntyre – have variously criticized the Enlightenment conception of reason and rationality. 11 It is possible to identify at least three different feminist approaches to reason and rationality: the strong critical project, the different voice project, and the classical feminist project (Jones 2004); just the first one aims to completely renounce the general ideal of rationality.

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ion surely represents a richness, not a liability) of different characterizations and uses of the notions of reason and rationality. 2. Reason and Rationality in Debate (Again, some Hints) In Western culture, sciences, both natural and social, have been elected as the paradigmatic realm of reason, i.e., what can provide an efficient test case for any account of rationality. Sciences may be seen as the best product of reason, its highest apex. As the relationships between reason, rationality, and sciences are particularly strong, many problems may eventually arise (Trigg 1993). One may ask whether there is a rationally grounded scientific method; what the conditions are for rejecting, revising, or accepting and holding on to a theory or hypothesis; how the rational standards for theory-choice, theory-acceptance, and theory-change might be formulated; or how scientific progress might be explained. In his “Reason and Science” (chapter 1), Stathis Psillos examines (i) whether induction may be truly justified and (ii) how theory change may be legitimately judged as rational. The basic problem with the scientific method is accommodating two compelling constraints: first, the scientific method should be ampliative and informative, and, second, it should be an epistemically probative process. We are faced with the traditional induction problem. According to Psillos, it is possible to rationally ground the inductive method through a metainduction or second-order induction, where the premises are successful inductive inference occurrences, which together lead to the conclusion that induction is truly reliable. This strategy may be accused of circularity; nevertheless, it does not exemplify a “premise-circular” argument (which would be viciously circular) but only a “rule-circular” argument, as it is itself an instance of the same inference rule that it aims to justify or warrant. Unless inferential scepticism is not taken as the default rational position and epistemology paralyzed, rule-circular arguments should not be considered vicious but as basic strategies for justifying or warranting, even if non-absolutely, scientific methods and cognitive processes that we already value and have no reason to doubt. Moving to conceptual and theoretical change, Thomas Kuhn has notably rejected the empiricist conception of theory and hypothesis evaluation according to which experience and logic are sufficient to choose a theory or hypothesis over their rivals. Even if

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Kuhn (1977) identifies five important traits that may provide a rational basis for theory choice (e.g., accuracy, consistency, scope, simplicity, and fruitfulness), they are imprecise, disputable, and may be differently weighted relative to one another. It may thus seem that conceptual and theoretical change come from blind faith, subjective preferences, and other irrational motives. According to Psillos, however, we can accept the idea that experience and logic are not sufficient to choose, abandon, or modify a theory or hypothesis and that there is no algorithmic and value-free account of scientific method, while denying the irrationality of such a judgment. He claims that we must accept that the traditional empiricist conception of the scientific method is broadened with an account of shared (epistemic) values and virtues, i.e., values and virtues for which a scientist would strive in his theories and hypotheses. It would thus be possible to create a further space for rational judgment, where mere algorithmic approaches are not longer available. Similar reflections may arise if we analyze knowledge not in sciences but in our everyday life. We may wonder what the conditions are for accepting and holding onto a particular belief or rejecting or revising it; what the standards of rationality are for belief-choice and belief-acceptance; in what sense can there be good reasons to believe; and when holding those reasons amounts to knowledge. Pascal Engel, in his “Reason and Knowledge” (chapter 2), points out that considering the traditional definition of knowledge as justified true belief (i.e., the JTB definition), we may be prone to say that the concept of reason conflates into, or is coextensive with, that of justification. The notions of reason and rationality may thus be analyzed by investigating the justification requirement. Contemporary epistemologists generally understand justification into two opposite ways. On the one hand, internalist theories claim that the justification for a belief is completely determined by some elements “internal” to the subject’s mind: reasons are typically propositional contents that a subject may reflectively access, be aware of, and can articulate – at least potentially. On the other hand, externalist theories admit that the justification for a belief may be also determined by some elements “external” to the subject’s mind: reasons are basically facts that there are (i.e., the belief that a reliable process has actually caused p) and do not need to be reflectively accessible. A different externalist proposal emerges from the critique to the JTB defini-

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tion of knowledge. Some epistemologists deny that knowledge can be defined using other concepts and argue that it is a primitive, un-analyzable, and factive mental state that is not reason-sensitive. However, the epistemological enterprise would be deprived of the concepts of reason and justification, as well as the possibility of accounting for our intuitions about the relationship between knowledge and rationality. Both internalism and externalism have their pros and cons. According to Engel, it is possible to defend a compatibilist (but dominantly externalist) view on knowledge that adopts the conception of justification, according to which a weaker epistemic status than knowledge is available to us, i.e., entitlement, a kind of prima facie immediate justification by default. If one is entitled to a particular belief, then she has cognitive support and, in this sense, a reason for that belief, even if such a support or reason can be defeated. Like internal reason, entitlement gives us a warrant to believe p and also implies a form of epistemic evaluation; like external reason, it is not necessary that one can access the source of its entitlement nor second-order reflective beliefs about her reasons and their groundedness. The resultant, according to Engel, is a unitary perspective on knowledge that combines externalist elements with internalist ones (even if it remains externalist at the end): if knowledge does not require access (externalism), it is still sensitive to reasons and epistemic norms (internalism). Both scientific and ordinary knowledge have been analyzed from a long-established perspective, rooted in Plato, Descartes, Kant, and others, which describes them as neutral, impersonal, universal, and objective. Feminist and post-colonial epistemologists have recently questioned this characterization of knowledge, examining the ways in which gender and other relevant variables do or ought to affect the concept of knowledge and those of justification, epistemic inquiry, and knowing subject. In her “Reason and Women” (chapter 3), Lorraine Code points out that the traditional ideal of Enlightenment reason, which, as we have anticipated, displays the features of purity, abstractness, autonomy, detachment, dispassionateness, transcendence, and universality, tacitly privileges traits and values generally associated with maleness/masculinity and thus obstructs and indeed suppresses typically imagined female/feminine characteristics and possibilities. In contrast with this traditional, androcentric, and exclusionary approach to epistemology, Code emphasizes how much it is important that

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any analysis of, or any question about, knowledge would take into account who the knowing subject is. It is thus pivotal to answer the following question: what is the subject’s sex, gender, “race,” ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation, religion, age, or any other subjective characteristics that may have played some relevant role in shaping his/her ability to perform rational inquiry or be fully perceived as a rational being? According to this perspective, it is a serious mistake to schematize knowledge as traditional epistemology does, i.e., using the general scheme “S knows that p,” as S, the subject, cannot be considered a mere place-holder or a solitary and monologic knower-as-spectator. More significantly, if determining the particular subject of knowledge is a central matter for epistemology, then the ideals of purity, abstractness, and autonomy can no longer be considered authentic and intrinsic marks of reason and rationality. Similar reflections have many significant consequences for epistemology. They bring a strong repudiation of epistemic and ethical individualism, a novel way to argue that knowledge is produced by a communal, intersubjective, and dialogical activity, a re-evaluation of testimony as a source of knowledge, a critique of the fact/value dichotomy, and a consideration of the central role of empathy, affect, and emotion in characterizing knowledge, reason, and rationality. In the light of these and similar considerations, Code proposes embracing an ecologically reconfigured epistemology, naturalist, environmentalist, and democratic, to offer an innovative frame for responsively and responsibly reshaping the theories of knowledge, rationality, sociality, and subjectivity, and producing new habitats where people can live well together. According to her, similar social, political, and ecological epistemological projects may point the way towards renewed justicepromoting modes of thinking and enacting rationality. These interesting considerations show how difficult it is to separate the epistemic enterprise and, thus, theoretical reason and rationality from the political and ethical one and, thus, from practical reason and rationality. Despite such a strong relationship, there are some important questions specific to practical reason. Let us start examining political reason. As Liz Sperling explains in her “Reason and Politics” (chapter 4), there are at least two entrenched kinds of political reason: the first is the market model of individual politico-economic reason, according to which self-reliant economic agents use reason and rationality to maximize their personal inter-

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ests; the second is the concept of public reason, according to which reasonable agents place their personal interests in a context of co-operation with other individuals, bringing their own reasons into accord with others’. In John Rawls’ perspective, public reason is not merely a political value among others, but rather what makes up the ideal of an inclusive and just liberal democracy. Public reason governs all various political relations among citizens in diverse and crowded democracies and allows free and equal citizens who behave reciprocally to legitimate and accept any state of coercion produced to create and preserve co-operative socio-political interactions. Public reason does not reject individual self-interest but places it in a broader context that applies equally to all citizens. The concept of public reason is thus central to current debates on political reason, as it is considered a potential means of appropriately redefining political relationships. According to Sperling, after a period in which political reason has arguably been undermined by market-led consumerism, resulting in the loss of social cohesion and trust in citizen-to-citizen, citizen-to-politician, and service provider relationships, it is important to consider how public reason might be favoured and enhanced. The central issue, however, is not to develop the basic mechanisms and fora to advance public reason (as many are already present in most liberal democracies) but rather to find new effective ways to embed public reason in the national and global psyche. For Sperling, one major challenge in public reason is encouraging all citizens, representatives, and officials (not only the more educated and politically motivated ones) to engage with it, proving it to be accessible, practicable, and desirable. Such an engagement determines the extent of inclusivity to public reason, which then would justify and assure the legitimacy even of those decisions that may limit some individual freedoms or contradict someone’s personal perspective. In Sperling’s opinion, making public reason inclusive and enhancing the feasibility of a general will are educative tasks that involve improving public trust in the political systems and political actors in both the public and private sectors. Moving to the role of reason and rationality in ethics, Carla Bagnoli analyzes the notion of practical reason, our capacity to act on principles, in her "Reason and Ethics" (chapter 5). She notes that there is disagreement about the possibility of practical reason: some sceptics argue, explicitly or implicitly, that the concept of practical reason is empty or has no interest-

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ing use. Sentimentalism claims that reason is ancillary to passions and sentiments, and dogmatic rationalism maintains that there is nothing specific to the practical function of reason in ethics. Contrary to these theses, Bagnoli wishes to defend the legitimacy of the concept of practical reason and believes that Kantian constructivism is the view of normativity that best vindicates such a notion. Broadly speaking, constructivism in ethics claims that insofar as there are normative truths, i.e., truths about what we ought to do or what it would be best to do, they are not prior and independent of practical reason (as moral realists argue) but are determined by the activity of reason itself. Practical reason is thus an active, not passive, faculty governed by specific normative criteria that are internal and constitutive of that activity itself. Moreover, practical reason is autonomous
for Kantian constructivism: its activity is a form of selflegislation that makes moral claims normative. Facts become normative truths and acquire authority in our own minds only through self-legislation. It seems easy to object that such a position destroys any possibility of genuine moral knowledge because facts do not become normatively relevant unless they are self-legislated. However, as Bagnoli points out, selflegislation is more demanding than this critique assumes, as autonomy amounts to universal authority. There is thus a clear distinction between personal and principled decisions. Even accepting this claim, critics may still object that reducing reasons to (personal or principled) decisions, constructivism cannot account for the key role that reasons play in gaining moral knowledge: constructivism must either renounce the possibility of having moral knowledge or admit that reasons have some evidential role committing itself with realism. To answer this critique, Bagnoli proposes defending Kantian constructivism as a form of irrealist cognitivism that conceives moral judgments as true or false statements the purpose of which are not to represent a normative reality: normative truths can be established (contrary to what non-cognitivists believe), but they can be non-arbitrarily constructed by practical reasoning (not found in the world as realists maintain).Other fields, including religion and aesthetics, have particularly interesting relationships with reason and rationality. Let us start analyzing the former. An interesting debate found in examining the relationships between religion, reason, and rationality is the so-called evidentialist challenge, which may be traced back at least to the Enlightenment (Forrest

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2009). Broadly speaking, this challenge claims that it is right to accept any religious belief only if it is rational to do so and that it is rational to do so only if and to the extent that there is adequate evidential support in favour of this belief. Different sorts of evidence are allowed, e.g., “evident to the senses,” “self-evident”; if none of them can support the religious belief in question, it would be wrong to accept it, according to evidentialists. In her contribution “Reason and Religion” (chapter 6), Lynne Rudder Baker focuses her attention on a single argument against the existence of God, the Evidentialist Master Argument (EMA), which can be summarized thus: (1) if one is entitled to believe that God exists, then there is sufficient evidence for God’s existence; (2) there is not sufficient evidence for God’s existence; and therefore, (3) no one is entitled to believe that God exists. Even if the argument is clearly valid, it is still worth asking whether it is also sound. Even if Baker believes that EMA is unsound, she does not try to explicitly attack it and show that the belief in God is rational; rather, she chooses to criticize and rebut two different arguments that aim to defend the soundness of EMA. The first seeks to show that there is no possibility of rational disagreement among epistemic peers. More precisely, it claims that if epistemic peers who fully share and discuss their evidence cannot agree on proposition p, then neither is rationally justified in believing p, and thus, the only rational position for each is to suspend judgment about p. In Baker’s view, this argument depends on the Uniqueness Thesis, according to which, given a body of evidence, there is only one rationally justified attitude toward a proposition p. Such a thesis, however, mistakenly conflates holding a belief to be true/false with holding a belief to be reasonable/unreasonable. If S believes p and Q disagrees, believing not-p, S must think that Q is wrong and her belief is false, but she does not need to think that Q is unreasonable in holding that belief. The second argument attempts to use science against the existence of God: (1) if there is sufficient evidence to believe that God exists, then science provides it; (2) science does not provide sufficient evidence for it; therefore, (3) there is not sufficient evidence to believe that God exists. However, as Baker points out, because sciences can make no reference to any supernatural agents or immaterial entities, they – by their own nature – cannot provide any evidence for God’s existence.

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Moving to aesthetics, we may say that rationalism about beauty, according to which beauty judgments are reason judgments, which therefore involve applying concepts and inferences from general principles, was the dominant view
until the Eighteenth Century. In this period, however, many philosophers (e.g., David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Thomas Reid) started to develop alternative theories, maintaining that beauty judgments are not (or at least not mainly) judgments of reason but of taste, which are immediate sensory ones. In the contemporary debate, a contentious issue still concerns whether reasons may provide some measure of rational or logical support for evaluative judgments of works of art. In her “Reason and Aesthetics” (chapter 7), Susan L. Feagin tries to defend the view that reasons can do that. To begin, she concentrates on whether there is a logical role for reasons in arguments supporting the judgment that a given quality is a good- or bad-making feature of an art work. Central to this issue is whether there are general criticism principles that link the properties of a work to value judgments about that work being good or bad. According to Feagin, admitting that the properties of a work are good- or badmaking features, depending on how they act within that particular work, implies that it is not necessary to have general criticism principles, but does not cast doubt on the logical status of reasons nor their connection with evaluative judgments. She also analyses the value contributions of socalled aesthetic qualities and whether they may have an inherent polarity, i.e., they may be good- or bad-making features of a work in themselves, independent of their relationship to other properties of the work or the work as a whole. Feagin also appeals to the notion of prima facie justification: that one perceives a work as having a certain aesthetic quality allegedly with an inherent polarity might be taken to prima face justify the beliefs that the work has such an aesthetic quality and is good or bad. Prima facie justifications do not imply that the aesthetic quality that one is justified to attribute to a work is a property of that work nor that the value of the property is inherent to it. Finally, Feagin looks at the perception or experience of a work’s value and whether there is a way to justify or warrant the perception or apprehension of qualities in a work as good- or badmaking. She argues that a perception or experience of a work as having certain valuable properties or flaws can be justified or warranted: evaluative conclusions about a work can be justified, and perceptual experiences

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of a work can be warranted by appealing to how relevant ideas and background experiences inform the experience one has when appreciating a work. However, even if reasons can be given, they are not conclusive, and disputes over what perceptions or experiences are appropriate often remain unresolved. Reason and rationality are also deeply intertwined with language. We have seen that several contemporary philosophers consider the capability of speaking a language as the principal or essential manifestation of reason and rationality. According to Manuel García-Carpintero, as in his “Reason and Language” (chapter 8), it is possible to find at least four different approaches on the relationships between language and reasons in recent literature, each of which assumes contrasting views on the nature of language. The first argues that there is no significant relation between language and reasons. It is a Platonist view, whose anti-psychologism is common to the conception of language of many founders of analytic philosophy, including Gottlob Frege, according to which languages are abstract objects whose properties are independent of the psychology of rational beings.12 The second position contends the same view about the relations between language and reasons, but on radically different grounds. Following Noam Chomsky’s successful linguistics research programs, it sees languages as a feature of the non-conscious deep psychology of human beings, a genetically determined sub-personal part of the mind/brain, which has nothing to do with any rational constraint. The third view maintains that linguistic features can only be clarified by relating them to motivating reasons, i.e., reasons to which we appeal to explain actions. It may be articulated along two different guises: the Davidsonian interpretationist perspective or Gricean proposals. The fourth approach, that preferred by García-Carpintero himself, argues that linguistic features can only be clarified by relating them to normative reasons, that is, reasons to which we appeal to justify actions. Assuming that speech acts are to be understood basically using constitutive rules, i.e., providing speakers with normative reasons, it holds that languages constitute speech act potentials because the semantics of a language cannot identify the concrete speech acts that can be made with its sentences but can merely constrain it. According 12

For a different interpretation of Frege’s philosophy, see Vassallo 1997, 2000, 2008.

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to García-Carpintero, even if we agree that, a priori, normative judgments cannot be reduced to non-normative elements, this leaves open whether, a posteriori, they must supervene on a sub-personal system of linguistic competence or tacit knowledge, which is compulsory for providing an explanatorily satisfactory compositionality account. If it is true, then there is no reason to give up normativity to accommodate the compositionalityrelated explanatory concerns that any adequate view of natural languages should consider. Having seen how much reason and rationality are deeply related to language, let us now turn to logic. As Carlo Cellucci notes in his “Reason and Logic” (chapter 9), the relations between reason, rationality, and logic are various and have been widely discussed. Limited to recent literature, he starts analyzing the positions of Gottlob Frege, Thomas Nagel, Robert Hanna, and William S. Cooper. According to Frege, logic is constitutive of rationality: human beings are rational provided they obey the laws of logic, which are laws of evolution and truth that are prescriptive, objective, independent of our thinking and the world. Nagel shares a similar antievolutionistic view, as he believes that the laws of logic are independent of humans’ minds, conceptual capacities, and even existence. For Hanna, rationality coincides with our cognitive capacity for logic, and the principles of logic are taken to be innate, a priori, unrevisable, and knowable by intuition. Even if Cooper agrees that reason and rationality are based on the laws of logic, he claims that these laws depend on biology and are implicit in the evolutionary process that enforces them, implying that logic is reducible to evolutionary theory. As Cellucci tries to show, these approaches are flawed. Frege and Nagel’s views refute that logic is the result of biological evolution and do not appreciate that logic is objective in that it depends on what the world – including us – is. Conversely, Hanna’s idea that there is a non-empirical faculty of logic, with principles that are innate, unrevisable, and a priori, contradicts that, if logical principles are innate, they must be the result of biological evolution. Finally, Cooper’s claim that logic is reducible to evolutionary theory is based on the unwarranted assumption that inductive logic is identifiable with probability theory. To avoid these limits, Cellucci argues that the concept of reason coincides with that of instrumental reason: it concerns choosing the appropriate means to achieve some given ends. There is a strong relation between logic

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and reason (which are both products of evolution), as logic is the cognitive faculty that allows us – and, given the distinction between natural and artificial logic, all other creatures – to choose appropriate means for some given ends. Even if similar theses may lead one to think that logic is identical to reason, Cellucci believes that cognitive sciences provide sufficient evidence to prove that logic is merely a proper part of reason, which includes other elements like emotions and feelings. Finally, it is crucial to consider and discuss the various relationships between reason, rationality, and metaphysics, relationships that, as Andrea Bottani in his “Reason and Metaphysics” (chapter 10) correctly points out, are strong but problematic in more than one respect. It is possible to raise several questions both about the methods of metaphysics (e.g., to what extent and in what ways is metaphysics rational?) and its subject matter (e.g., to what extent is metaphysics about the structure of our rational knowledge of reality rather than reality itself?). To try to answer these and similar questions, Bottani analyzes what kind of discourse metaphysics actually is. He criticizes the largely widespread idea according to which metaphysics, broadly conceived, must be divided into two distinct parts: an account of what there is (an sit), often called “ontology,” and an account of what it is (quid sit), often called “metaphysics” in a narrow sense. However popular and important such a distinction may be, he believes that it is susceptible to different interpretations and highly questionable. He points out that establishing the members of some category F amounts to specifying what it is for members of F to be the same: any systematic classification must satisfy certain formal constraints (e.g., completeness, disjointness, uniformity), implying that any commitment to the existence of entities of some category cannot fail to say a lot about their identity conditions and what they actually are. Bottani thinks that metaphysics begins with systematization: when one wonders how to bring unity, order, and coherence to a chaotic congeries of existential commitments from both common sense and sciences (thus being pre-metaphysical). This mission is accomplished when one establishes (prescriptively, not descriptively) what these entities to which we are pre-metaphysically committed necessarily are, which classifies them into a limited number of highest ontological categories. Metaphysics can deny the existence of such categories only if they could not exist or coexist with other categories (which explains the rather limited role that experience

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plays in metaphysics). Metaphysics so conceived has much to do with systematization, where the epistemic dynamic of systematization is much more coherentist than foundationalist.13 References Amoretti M.C. 2007. Fino a che punto il linguaggio è necessario al pensiero? Filosofia, 58 (3): 57-76. Amoretti M.C. 2009. Comunicazione preverbale e razionalità. In D. Gambarara and A. Givigliano (eds.), Origine e sviluppo del linguaggio, tra teoria e storia, 291-301. Roma: Aracne Editrice. Anderson J.R. 1990. The Adaptive Character of Thought. Hillsdale: Erlbaum. Aristotle 1957. Metafisica. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Aristotle 2002. Nicomachean Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1908. Audi R. 2001. The Architecture of Reason. The Structure and Substance of Rationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Audi R. 2004. Theoretical Rationality. In A.R. Mele and P. Rawling (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Rationality, 15-44. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bekoff M., C. Allen, et al. (eds.) 2002. The Cognitive Animal. Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bermúdez J.L. 2003. Thinking without Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bermúdez J.L. and A. Millar (eds.) 2002. Reason and Nature: Essays in the Theory of Rationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Biderman S. and B.-A. Scharfstein (eds.) 1989. Rationality in Question: On Eastern and Western Views of Rationality. Leiden: E.J. Brill. BonJour L. 1980. Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 5: 53-74. Brandom R.B. 1994. Making It Explicit. Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commitment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Brandom R.B. 2000. Articulating Reasons. An Introduction to Inferentialism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 13

We gratefully thank Paolo Labinaz, and Elisa Paganini, for their helpful and valuable comments on an earlier draft of this survey essay.

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Brittan G.G. 1999. The Secrets of Antelope. Erkenntnis, 51: 59-77. Cohen L.J. 1993. Rationality. In J. Dancy and E. Sosa (eds.), A Companion to Epistemology. Oxford: Blackwell. Cooper W.S. 1989. How Evolutionary Biology Challenges the Classical Theory of Rational Choice. Biology and Philosophy, 4, 457-481. Davidson D. 1982. Rational Animals. In Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective, 95-106. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Davidson D. 1990. Turing’s Test. In Problems of Rationality, 77-86. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Davidson D. 1992. The Second Person. In Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective, 107-122. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Davidson D. 1997. The Emergence of Thought. In Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective, 123-134. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Dennett D.C. 1996. Kinds of Minds: Toward an Understanding of Consciousness. New York: Basic Books. Dreier J. 2004. Decision Theory and Morality. In A.R. Mele and P. Rawling (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Rationality, 157-181. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Elster J. 1983. Sour Grapes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Foley R. 1987. The Theory of Epistemic Rationality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Forrest P. 2009. The Epistemology of Religion. In E.N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1st ed. 1997), . Garavaso P. and N. Vassallo 2007. Filosofia delle donne. Roma-Bari: Laterza. Harman G. 2004. Practical Aspects of Theorethical Reasoning. In A.R. Mele and P. Rawling (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Rationality, 45-56. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Heikes D.K. 2010. Rationality and Feminist Philosophy. London: Continuum. Heikes D.K. 2012. The Virtue of Feminist Rationality. New York: Continuum. Hollis M. 1998. Trust within Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hurley S. 2003. Animal Action in the Space of Reason. Mind and Language, 18 (3): 231-257.

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Jones K. 2004. Gender and Rationality. In A.R. Mele and P. Rawling (eds.), The Handbook of Rationality, 301-319. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kahneman D. 2000. A Psychological Point of View: Violations of Rational Rules as a Diagnostic of Mental Processes. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23: 681-683. Kahneman D., P. Slovic, et al. (eds.) 1982. Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. New York: Cambridge University Press. Kant I. 1781 and 1787. Critique of Pure Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Kant I. 1788. Critique of Practical Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Kuhn T. 1977. The Essential Tension. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff G. and M. Johnson 1999. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books. Lehrer K. 1999. Rationality. In J. Greco and E. Sosa (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, 206-219. Malden: Blackwell. Lenman J. 2009. Reasons for Action: Justification vs. Explanation. In E.N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, . McFarland D. and T. Bosser 1993. Intelligent Behaviour in Animals and Robots. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Mele A.R. and P. Rawling 2004a. Introduction: Aspects of Rationality. In A.R. Mele and P. Rawling (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Rationality, 3-13. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mele A.R. and P. Rawling (eds.) 2004b. The Oxford Handbook of Rationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nozick R. 1993. The Nature of Rationality. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Oaksford M. and N. Chater 1998. Rationality in an Uncertain World. Essays on the Cognitive Science of Human Reasoning. Hove: Psychology Press. Papineau D. 2003. The Roots of Reason. Philosophical Essays on Rationality, Evolution, and Probability. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Samuels R. and S.P. Stich 2004. Rationality and Psychology. In A.R. Mele and P. Rawling (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Rationality, 279-300. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Samuels R., S.P. Stich, et al. 2004. Reason and Rationality. In I. Niiniluoto, M. Sintonen, et al. (eds.), Handbook of Epistemology, 131-179. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Simon H.A. 1957. Models of Man: Social and Rational – Mathematical Essays on Rational Human Behavior in a Social Setting. New York: John Wiley. Skyrms B. 1996. The Evolution of the Social Contract. New York: Cambridge University Press. Stein E. 1996. Without Good Reason: The Rationality Debate in Philosophy and Cognitive Science. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Stich S.P. 1990. The Fragmentation of Reason: Preface to a Pragmatic Theory of Cognitive Evaluation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Tomasello M. 1999. The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tooby J. and L. Cosmides 2005. Conceptual Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology. In D. Buss (ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, 5-67. Hoboken: Wiley. Trigg R. 1993. Rationality and Science: Can Science Explain Everything? Oxford: Blackwell. Vassallo N. 1997. On Dummett’s Early Frege and Analytical Philosophy. Dialectica, 51 (3): 171-187. Vassallo N. 2000. Psychologism in Logic: Some Similarities between Boole and Frege. In J. Gasser (ed.), A Boole Anthology. Recent and Classical Studies in the Logic of George Boole, 311-325. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Vassallo N. 2008. Linee di una storia bizzarra della filosofia analitica: da Gottlob Frege a Michael Dummett. Iride, Filosofia e discussione pubblica, 21 (54): 307-320. Wallace R.J. 2008. Practical Reason. In E.N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1st ed. 2003), . Wason P. and P.N. Johnson-Laird 1972. The Psychology of Reasoning: Structure and Content. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univeristy Press.

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Weber M. 1949. The Methodology of the Social Sciences. Glencoe: Free Press.

REASON AND SCIENCE Stathis Psillos

Abstract. Among the many issues that relate to the role of Reason in science, I will focus my attention on two. The first concerns the problem of the justification of scientific method – and of induction in particular, which is the most basic and indispensable ampliative method of science. The second is related to the problem of theory-change in science: how can it be that theory-change is rational? In addressing these two issues (highlighting both their conceptual development and their present status), I will try to stress the need for a conception of method and rationality that leaves room for values.

1. Reason and Method The rationality of science is typically associated with the scientific method and its justification. The very idea that the scientific method needs justification emerges from the fact that, whatever its detailed structure, it should satisfy two general and intuitively compelling desiderata: it should be ampliative and epistemically probative. Ampliation is necessary if the method is to deliver informative hypotheses and theories, viz., hypotheses and theories whose content exceeds the observations and data that prompted them. Yet, this ampliation would be illusory, if the method was not epistemically probative; if, that is, the method did not convey epistemic warrant to the excess content thus produced (viz., hypotheses and theories). The philosophical problem of scientific method is that there are prima facie good reasons to think that these two plausible desiderata are not jointly satisfiable. The tension between them arises from the fact that ampliation does not carry its epistemically probative character on its sleeves. The following question then arises: what makes it the case that the method conveys epistemic warrant to its intended output? This is known as the problem of induction. Hume’s far-reaching point was that the alleged necessity and generality of causal claims cannot be proved either by means of demonstrative reasoning or by reason aided by experience. There can be no a priori demonstration of any general claim, since the cause can be conceived without

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its usual effect and conversely. Besides, any attempt to show, based on experience, that a regular pattern that has held in the past will or must continue to hold in the future, and hence any attempt to move from the particular to the general based on experience, will be circular and questionbegging. It will presuppose a principle of uniformity of nature. But this principle is not a priori true. Nor can it be proved empirically without circularity. Any attempt to prove it empirically will have to assume what needs to be proved, viz., that since nature has been uniform in the past it will or must continue to be uniform in the future. This Humean challenge to any attempt to establish the necessity and generality of causal connections on either a priori or empirical grounds has become known as his scepticism about induction. Faced with the dilemma “ampliation or justification,” Hume opted for jettisoning justification; better: he opted for a rejection of the traditional call for justification as a requirement for rationality. Hume should then be conceived as a proto-naturalist who took it that being natural and irresistible, inductive inferences are not under the legislative control of Reason and its quest for independent justification. They are governed by “custom,” which Hume took it to be “the great guide of human life.” The price, of course, is that generality (ampliation) can never be associated with necessity and certainty. This kind of attitude was an anathema for rationalists – even an enlightened rationalist such as Kant. His distinctive attempt to ground Newtonian mechanics in a set of principles that were universal, necessary and certain was motivated by the thought that the very possibility of scientific knowledge required placing synthetic a priori restrictions on the set of models of the world that are consistent with experience. This distinctively epistemological a priori justification of (at least some) general principles came with a severe penalty: there cannot possibly be knowledge of the world as it is in itself. Hence, the special non-inductive method that can nonetheless yield unconditional generality and certainty can only apply to the phenomena, and this because its products (the general principles of pure science) are constitutive of them. More importantly, there is no guarantee that the world will co-operate with the synthetic a priori principles that make experience possible. Far from being unique, indispensable and unreviseable, the Kantian framework for science came to grief by devel-

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opments in the formal and empirical sciences – notably the development of non-Euclidean geometries and the General Theory of Relativity. The other major reaction to Hume was much friendlier, coming as it was from a fellow empiricist: John Stuart Mill. He was a thoroughgoing inductivist, who took all knowledge – even mathematical knowledge – to arise from experience through induction. Hence, Mill denied that there could be any certain and necessary knowledge. But, unlike Kant, Mill never thought there was a problem of induction. He took it that, being irresistible, induction did not need any justification: any attempt to rationally doubt it will end up in failure because we will keep on using it. What then is the scope of the scientific method? It should be such that it leads to secure – but not certain – knowledge of the world, where security is a function of the steps taken to eliminate error. The well-known Methods of Agreement and Difference where precisely meant to reduce the possibility of error, in light of certain substantive metaphysical assumptions, such that (a) events have a limited number of possible causes; and (b) same causes have same effects, and conversely. Given the divergence between Kant and Mill, it might be an irony that the Kantian and the Millian approaches to method came together in the mature work of logical empiricists, especially Carnap. In a sense, Carnap borrows from Mill the claim that all substantive general knowledge of the world should be based on induction (while, of course, disagreeing with Mill’s generalised inductivism – arithmetic and geometry are not inductive sciences). But he also borrows from Kant the thought that the justification of scientific method should be a priori (while, of course, disagreeing with Kant’s view that this justification should be synthetic a priori). Carnap, like many of his contemporaries, operated within a generally Fregean, anti-psychologist and anti-naturalist, intellectual milieu. What came to be known as logic of science was an attempt to capture the logical form of scientific method and to raise the issue of its justification within a logical context, where all that really matter are logical relations among propositions – those that express the evidence and those that express the theory. Given this, induction could be seen as a formal method with a definite logical form such that when certain evidence-statements are plugged in, a certain degree of probability is assigned to a general statement.

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Despite the fact that probability was appealed to by Venn and Russell, it was John Maynard Keynes’s (1921) employment of it in the characterisation of induction that set the stage for what was to follow. His key thought was that induction should be seen as a kind of logic: the logic of partial entailment of a hypothesis by relevant observational evidence. It should be developed into a formal system based on the probability calculus that aims to capture in a logical and quantitative way the notion of inductive support that evidence accrues to a hypothesis or theory. If this programme were successful, there would be an end to seeing induction as “a scandal of philosophy,” as C.D. Broad put it. Its justification would be broadly logical, and hence unproblematic, because inductive logic was meant (a) to rely on logical principles, and (b) to mimic the contentinsensitive structure of deductive logic. The traditional problem of induction was thereby supposed to give way to the well-defined task of devising confirmation functions, that is probability-functions which capture the logical relations between statements: those that express the evidence and those that express the hypothesis. The traditional dilemma “ampliation or justification” was meant to be dealt with swiftly: ampliation comes from induction, as traditionally understood, and justification comes from confirmation, seen as the logic of partial entailment. This needs to be stressed: the traditional problem of induction – the problem of whether there can be reasonable acceptance of general truths either on the basis of reason or of experience – is split into two problems. The first – which, by and large, was taken to be beyond the ken of reason – has to do with the formation of general hypotheses; the second – which is amenable to reason-based treatment – has to do with the degree to which it is reasonable to accept a given general hypothesis in the light of given evidence. Thus seen, it is one thing to generate ampliative hypotheses, and quite another to confirm them, on the basis of experience. Traditionally induction was taken to be a method by means of which general propositions were generated and accepted. With probability coming into the picture, induction can no longer serve as a rule of acceptance. Instead, the rules of inductive logic were meant to specify the degree of credibility of an already given general hypothesis on the basis of already given evidence. The thought, however, was that being the logic of partial entailment, inductive logic would capture the “rational degree of belief” that an agent

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should have in a hypothesis, given the evidence. Accordingly, given the evidence and given that different agents know it, they will attribute exactly the same probability to the relevant hypothesis. So inductive logic might not provide rules of acceptance, but – the thought was – it will provide rational degrees of belief. All this required what Keynes took it to be “logical intuition,” which is such that anyone who possesses it can “see” the logical relation between the evidence and the hypothesis. This remnant of the Kantian intuition was as problematic as Kant’s original and was criticised severely by Frank Ramsey. As he graphically put it: “I do not perceive them [the logical relations] and if I am to be persuaded that they exist it must be by argument” (Ramsey 1926: 63). It was left to Carnap (1950) to resuscitate Keynes’s programme while excising intuition from scientific method. In his own system of inductive logic, Carnap claimed, sentences expressing relations of partial entailment between the evidence and the hypothesis are analytic truths. And if inductive logic is analytic, it is also a priori – without the mystery of intuition. Carnap went as far as to claim that the contentious principle of uniformity of nature was also analytic within his system of inductive logic: it is a statement of logical probability asserting that “on the basis of the available evidence it is very probable that the degree of uniformity of the world is high” (Carnap 1950: 180-1). Carnap was certainly right in noting that, expressed as above, the principle of uniformity of nature could neither be proved nor refuted by experience. But of course, if anything, this principle is synthetic a priori and not analytic. It follows that if “inductive logic” had to rely on substantive synthetic principles, it was no longer logic. Carnap hoped to devise certain quantitative functions that captured statements of the form: the degree of confirmation of H by e is r, where r is a real number between 0 and 1. He hoped he could thereby determine uniquely and quantitatively which of two competing hypotheses was more confirmed by some piece of evidence. To do this, he relied on a quasilogical Principle of Indifference, which dictated that all equally possible outcomes should be given equal prior probabilities of happening. But different applications of this Principle lead to inconsistent results. For instance, one could start with the admission that all ways the world might be (what came to be called state-descriptions) are equally probable. But then it turns out that no evidence could raise the (posterior) probability of a

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state-description to more than what it was before the evidence rolled in. Alternatively, one could start with a different application of the Principle of Indifference (on so-called structure descriptions), which in effect gives bonus (higher) prior probability to some ways the world might be (in particular those ways in which certain universal regularities are present in the world). Then, it was shown that the evidence does raise the posterior probability of them, but now it was no longer the case that this relation of confirmation was independent of substantive assumptions as to how the world is likely to be. Indeed, as was pointed out by Keynes long before Carnap, the very possibility of inductive inference requires that some hypotheses are given non-zero prior probability, for otherwise fresh evidence cannot raise their probability. And, if some hypotheses must be given finite non-zero prior probability, an infinite number of their rivals will have to be given zero prior probability – a priori! In the end, when Carnap (1952) devised the continuum of inductive methods, he drew the conclusion that there can be a variety of actual inductive methods whose results and effectiveness vary in accordance to how one picks out the value of a certain parameter, where this parameter depends on formal features of the language used. But obviously, there is no a priori reason to select a particular value of the relevant parameter, and hence there is no explication of inductive inference in a unique way. Carnap suggested that it is left to the scientists to choose among different inductive methods, in view of their specific purposes. Where an a priori justification of induction was sought, the end product was based on a pragmatic decision. The demise of the “logic” of induction left things where we started: the “scandal to philosophy” was there to stay. Already in his critique of Keynes, Ramsey took it that probabilities are not rational degrees of belief but subjective degrees of belief. Hence, there is no such thing as the rational degree of belief in the truth of a proposition; instead each individual is taken to (or allowed to) have her own subjective degree of belief in the truth of a certain proposition. Given that the probability calculus does not establish any non-trivial probability values, Ramsey argued that it was up to the agent to supply the initial probabilities. Then, the probability calculus, and Bayes’s theorem in particular, can be used to compute values of other probabilities based on the prior probability distribution that the agent

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has chosen. The only requirement imposed on a set of degrees of beliefs is that they are probabilistically coherent, that is that they satisfy the axioms of probability. The rationale for this claim is the so-called Dutch-book theorem. It is based on the significant mathematical result – proved by Ramsey (1926) and Bruno de Finetti (1937) – that subjective degrees of beliefs (expressed as fair betting quotients) satisfy Kolmogorov’s axioms for probability functions. The key idea is that unless the degrees of beliefs that an agent possesses, at any given time, satisfy the axioms of the probability calculus, she is subject to a Dutch-book, that is, to a set of synchronic bets such that they are all fair by her own lights, and yet, taken together, make her suffer a net loss come what may. The thrust of the Dutch-book theorem is that there is a structural incoherence in a system of degrees of belief that violate the axioms of the probability calculus. (For more on this see Skyrms 1984 and Howson 2000.) The general thought here is that the axioms of the probability calculus are an extension of deductive logic: the “logic of partial belief and inconclusive argument” as Ramsey put it. The demand for probabilistic coherence among one’s degrees of belief is a logical demand: a demand for logical consistency. So it might be argued that the Dutch-Book theorem explains why we should strive for synchronic probabilistic coherence, if we are to be rational. This is certainly partly right, but as many Bayesians note, logic is about consistency and not about rational belief. In any case, the view that synchronic probabilistic coherence is a canon of rationality would require a non-question-begging demonstration that any violation of the axioms of the probability calculus is positively irrational. But no such proof is forthcoming. Be that as it may, the demand for synchronic probabilistic coherence does not have anything to do (at least prima facie) with induction and confirmation. To accommodate the idea of learning from experience, Bayesians have tried to extend Bayesianism to belief-revision and beliefupdate by the technique of conditionalisation. It is supposed to be a canon of rationality (certainly a necessary condition for it) that agents should update their degrees of belief by conditionalising on the evidence: Probnew(--)=Probold(--/e),

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where e is the total evidence. (Conditionalisation can be either strict, where the probability of the learned evidence is unity, or Jeffrey – due to Richard Jeffrey – where the evidence one updates on can have probability less than 1.) The penalty for not conditionalising on the evidence is liability to a Dutch-book strategy: the agent can be offered a set of bets over time such that (a) each of them taken individually will seem fair to her at the time when it is offered; but (b) taken collectively, they lead her to suffer a net loss, come what may. (This is the Lewis-Teller argument, see Teller 1973.) But critics of Bayesianism point out that there is no general proof of the conditionalisation rule (see Earman 1992: 46-51). In fact, there are circumstances under which conditionalisation is an inconsistent strategy. When an agent is in a situation in which she contemplates about her Probnew(--), she is in a new and different (betting) situation in which the previous constraints of Probold need not apply. A case like this is when the learning of the evidence e does upset the conditional probability Prob(--/e). Bayesianism has a point. Under certain circumstances, an agent should update her degrees of belief by conditionalising on the evidence. But it does not follow from this that Bayesian conditionalisation is a canon of rationality. In so far as Bayesianism offers a theory of rationality (and as we have just noted this is by no means obvious), it offers a structural conception of rationality: rationality pertains to the structure of a belief system and not to its content. Hence, all that matters is how what you believe hangs together (at a certain time, or over time). According to the Bayesian structural conception of rationality, it is not irrational to maintain unjustified opinion. For subjective Bayesians, prior opinion can come from anywhere. And so can the prior probabilities. The standard (subjective) diachronic Bayesian picture is that people start with some prior opinion and then update it by conditionalising on the evidence. This is purely logical updating. It’s not ampliative. It does not introduce new content; nor does it modify the old one. It just assigns a new probability to the old opinion. In any case, it can be argued against the Bayesian view of rationality that the content of a belief matters to its rationality. For, to put it crudely, one could be a perfectly consistent Bayesian agent, even if one believed that the earth was flat. There seems to be nothing in Bayesianism that would render irrational an agent who neglected evidence which pointed to the roundness of earth in order to safeguard her belief that the earth is flat. In fact, a Bayesian agent

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could rationalise her attitude by giving zero prior probability to the hypothesis that the earth is round. More generally, it is entirely open to Bayesians to argue that some (perhaps all?) evidence against a certain belief can be neglected. (For more on this see Psillos 2007.) The Bayesians’ reliance on subjective prior probabilities has been a constant source of dissatisfaction among their critics. It is claimed that purely subjective prior probabilities fail to capture the all-important notion of rational or reasonable degrees of belief. In all fairness, it’s been extremely difficult to articulate the notion of rational degree of belief. It may be argued that prior probabilities are informed by plausibility considerations, but this notion of “plausibility” resists further articulation. This has led Bayesians to insist on the indispensability of subjective priors in inductive reasoning. In fact, it can be proved that, in the long run, the prior probabilities wash out: even widely different prior probabilities will converge, in the limit, to the same posterior probability, if agents conditionalise on the same evidence. But this is little consolation because, apart from the fact that, as Keynes famously put it, in the long-run we are all dead, the convergence theorem holds only under limited and very welldefined circumstances that can hardly be met in ordinary scientific cases. Despite all its merits (and its well-known successes), subjective Bayesianism cannot serve as a substitute for induction. There is still need for rules of acceptance – that is rules which entitle us to accept a general hypothesis on the basis of the evidence. After all, scientific theories tell us what statements to accept as expressing laws of nature and not what their degree of confirmation is. If this is recognised, the problem of the justification of these rules of acceptance seems to be alive and well. We enter here a very controversial territory. But what I take it to be the right attitude to this problem is broadly pragmatic. Where it differs from standard pragmatism is that it is taken to amount to a conception of justification (of induction). In “Truth and Probability,” Ramsey summed up the attitude we already saw Mill advocating. Ramsey says: “We are all convinced by inductive arguments, and our conviction is reasonable because the world is so constituted that inductive arguments lead on the whole to true opinions. We are not, therefore, able to help trusting induction, nor if we could help it do we see any reason why we should, because we believe it to be a reliable pro-

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cess” (1926: 197). This, Ramsey adds, is a pragmatic attitude, since induction is judged, ultimately, on the basis of its own success: that it leads to true beliefs more often than not and that it leads to true conclusions more often than other non-inductive methods do. What’s important, and what Ramsey suggests but does not develop, is that induction can be employed in its own justification without this circularity being vicious. Indeed, a kind of straightforward way to vindicate induction is by the following inductive argument: (I) Induction has worked in the past; therefore induction is likely to work in the future – and hence to be reliable. A more exact formulation of this argument would use as premises lots of successful individual instances of induction and would conclude (by a meta-induction or a second-order induction) to the reliability of induction simpliciter. Arguments such as this have been employed by many philosophers, such as Braithwaite (1953), van Cleve (1984), Papineau (1992), Psillos (1999) and others. To see their force, we must distinguish between two types of circularity. Let’s call “premise-circular” an argument such that its conclusion is among its premises. This is a viciously circular argument. The charge of vicious circularity is an epistemic charge – a viciously circular argument has no epistemic force: it cannot offer reasons to believe its conclusion, since it presupposes it; hence, it cannot be persuasive. If the charge of circularity were logical and not epistemic, (if that is, a circular argument lacked validity altogether and not just epistemic force), all deductive arguments would be viciously circular. There is an obvious sense in which all deductive arguments are such that the conclusion is “contained” in the premises – this grounds/explains their logical validity. Hence, deductive arguments can be circular without being viciously circular. And similarly, some deductive arguments are viciously circular, (without thereby being invalid). Premise-circularity is vicious! But (I) above (even in the rough formulation offered) is not premise-circular. There is, however, another kind of circularity. This, as Braithwaite put it “is the circularity involved in the use of a principle of inference being justified by the truth of a proposition which can only be established by the

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use of the same principle of inference” (1953: 276). It can be called rulecircularity. In general, an argument has a number of premises P1,...,Pn. Qua argument, it rests on (employs/uses) a rule of inference R, by virtue of which a certain conclusion Q follows. It may be that Q has a certain content: it asserts or implies something about the rule of inference R used in the argument; in particular that R is reliable. So: rule-circular arguments are such that the argument itself is an instance, or involves essentially an application, of the rule of inference whose reliability is asserted in the conclusion. If anything, (I) is rule-circular. Is rule-circularity vicious? Obviously, rule circularity is not premise-circularity. But, one may wonder, is it still vicious in not having any epistemic force? To address this question, let us note that if one is not an inductive sceptic (that is, if one does not think that induction is not – or cannot be – justified), there are two options available when it comes to the issue of its justification: non-inferential justification and inferential justification. A non-inferential justification of induction, if possible at all, would have to rely on some a priori rational insight. An inferential justification of induction would have to rely on some rule of inference. But the very idea of a non-inferential justification presupposes something whose existence is dubious (rational insight). What about an inferential justification? If the rule is distinct, there is the issue of how the two rules are inferentially connected. If the rule is the self-same, we end up in rule-circularity. The good news is that this is not a conceptual tangle that arises only in the case of induction. It arises already when it comes to the justification of deductive logic. In the case of the justification of modus ponens (or any other genuinely fundamental rule of logic), if logical scepticism is to be forfeited, there are two options available: either non-inferential justification or inferential (rule-circular) justification. There is no non-inferential justification of modus ponens. Therefore, there is only rule-circular justification. Indeed, any attempt to justify modus ponens by means of an argument has to employ modus ponens itself (see Dummett 1974). Why is there no non-inferential justification of modus ponens? There are many routes to this conclusion but a prominent one has to do with Quine’s (1936) argument against basing logic on conventions.

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But, one may wonder, couldn’t any mode of reasoning (no matter how crazy or invalid) be justified by rule-circular arguments? A standard worry is that a rule-circular argument could be offered in defence of “counterinduction.” This is supposed to move from the premise that “Most observed As are B” to the conclusion “The next A will be not-B.” A “counter-inductivist” might support this rule by the following rule-circular argument: since most counter-inductions so far have failed, conclude, by counter-induction, that the next counter-induction will succeed. The right reply here is that the employment of rule-circular arguments rests on or requires the absence of specific reasons to doubt the reliability of a rule of inference. We can call this, the Fair-Treatment Principle: a doxastic/inferential practice is innocent until proven guilty. This puts the onus on those who want to show guilt. The rationale for this principle is that justification has to start from somewhere and there is no other point to start apart from where we currently are, that is from our current beliefs and inferential practices. Accordingly, unless there are specific reasons to doubt the reliability of induction, there is no reason to forego its uses in justificatory arguments. Nor is there reason to search for an active justification of it. Things are obviously different with counter-induction, since there are plenty of reasons to doubt its reliability, the chief being that typically counter-induction have led to false conclusions. It may be objected that we have no reasons to rely on certain inferential rules. But this is not quite so. Our basic inferential rules (including induction, of course) are rules we value. And we value them because they are our rules, that is rules we employ and reply upon to form beliefs. Part of the reason why we value these rules is that they have tended to generate true beliefs – hence we have some reason to think they are reliable, or at least more reliable than competing rules (say counter-induction). Rule-circularity is endemic in any kind of attempt to justify basic method of inference and basic cognitive processes, such as perception and memory. In fact, as Ramsey noted, it is only via memory that we can examine the reliability of memory. Even if we were to carry out experiments to examine it, we would still have to rely on memory: we would have to remember their outcomes. But there is nothing vicious in using memory to determine and enhance the degree of accuracy of memory. For

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there is no reason to doubt its general reliability and have some reasons to trust it. If epistemology is not to be paralysed, if inferential scepticism is not to be taken as the default reasonable position, we have to rely on rule-circular arguments for the justification of basic methods and cognitive processes. There cannot be an absolute justification of induction – and of scientific method more generally. But unless we thought that the very idea of offering a justification of induction was meant to persuade the inductive sceptic, we can certainly live with this lack. 2. Reason and Judgement A major challenge to the rationality of science has come from the process of theory-change and more particularly from scientific revolutions. In its most severe form, this challenge has been associated with Kuhn’s claim that competing paradigms are incommensurable and that the ordinary canons of theory-appraisal break down during revolutionary transitions. In what follows, I will not discuss this matter in any detail, since I think the challenge can be raised even if we leave aside – as we should – the typically extravagant claims associated with incommensurability. The fact is that conceptual and theoretical change cannot be fully captured by standard approaches to scientific method. At stake here is the very idea of rational ways by means of which rival theories can be assessed and on the basis of which theory-choice can acquire rational force. Note that Bayesian conceptions of scientific method face a rather acute problem, here: they cannot accommodate radical theory change, unless they allow violations of the mechanism of belief-updating by conditionalisation. This is what Marc Lange has aptly called “the problem of incorrigibility” (1999: 300). Bayesian agents are enslaved to their prior probability distribution: degree-of-belief updating merely alters the probability agents assign to the propositions that express their initial beliefs. This feature of Bayesianism is in conflict with the fact that during radical theory-change scientists revise or abandon some of their prior beliefs. My own favourite, Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE), does not fair a lot better. The crux of IBE, no matter how exactly it is formulated, is that explanatory considerations should inform (perhaps, determine) what is

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reasonable to believe. An explanation should be such that it incorporates the explanandum into the rest of the reasoner’s background belief-corpus by providing some link between the explanandum and other hypotheses that are part of the reasoner’s background beliefs. Accordingly, explanation has a coherence-enhancing role. Explanatory coherence is a cognitive virtue because it is a prime way to confer justification on a belief or a corpus of beliefs. The warrant IBE confers on the chosen explanation is related to the fact that it fares better than its competitors in an explanatoryquality test and, as a result of this, it enhances the explanatory coherence of the belief corpus. All this might of course be contested (for its fuller defence see Psillos 2009). But the relevant point here is that, even if we were to grant all this, IBE cannot straightforwardly be applied to cases of revolutionary changes precisely because explanatory considerations are related to the relevant background beliefs, and it is these that are in doubt in a revolutionary episode. All is not lost, however, and this because the very idea of a good explanation is subject to some structural standards, which, at least partly, fix explanatory merit and mark the explanatory power of a hypothesis. These standards operate crucially when the substantive information contained in the relevant background knowledge cannot forcefully discriminate between competing potential explanations of the evidence. They also operate when background beliefs are themselves at stake. Kuhn himself argued that there are some important traits that characterise a “good scientific theory”: accuracy, consistency, broad scope, simplicity and fruitfulness (see Kuhn 1977: 321-322). But he also thought that though these values are trans-paradigm, they cannot be the basis of a rational adjudication between competing paradigms, because how they are applied and interpreted differs in different paradigms. No doubt, Kuhn was right in stressing that there could not be an algorithmic and value-free account of scientific method. In so far as the previous rational reconstructions of science had aimed to equate rational judgement in science with the application of an algorithmic method, Kuhn was right in his criticism of them. But why should one accept this equation in the first place? And certainly, it does not follow from Kuhn’s own criticism that the only alternative is to accept that scientific judgement is an irrational and unconstrained-by-evidence-and-reason activity. The

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Kuhnian values, after all, should be seen as part and parcel of sound and rational scientific judgement. In support of this claim, let us take a leaf from Duhem’s Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (1906). Perhaps more than anyone else, Duhem felt the fundamental tension between the strict conception of scientific method that he himself had advocated and the need for a broader conception of rational judgement in science. Despite that at first blush, he equated scientific method with experience+logic, he went on to argue that there is space for rational judgements in science which is not captured by the slogan: scientific method=experience+logic. What’s important here is that experience plus logic are not enough even to decide when a theory should be abandoned (or modified). This problem relates to the well-known Duhem(-Quine) thesis and doubly so. On the one hand, Duhem himself recognised what Poincaré made famous by saying that though experience does not, strictly speaking, contradict a theory, yet it can condemn it. On the other hand, experience and logic cannot dictate how to revise theories in the face of recalcitrant evidence. Duhem is well-known for his view that crucial experiments are “impossible in physics” (Duhem 1906: 188). Take a crucial experiment to be an experiment that would prove one theory wrong – one that would strictly contradict the theory. If a situation such as this is not possible, how do theories get abandoned? Obviously, any answer would have to go beyond the strict limits of experience and logic. And Duhem’s own answer does. He employed other criteria of assessment. Here are some that he suggests: the scope of the theory, the number of hypotheses, the nature of hypotheses, novel predictions (1906: 28, 195), compatibility with other theories (1906: 221, 255), unification into a single system of hypotheses (1906: 293). These are, of course, the usual suspects. They are values or virtues of a theory that transcend logic (or, at least, they defy a rigorous logical formulation). What Duhem saw clearly was that the employment of such criteria is (a) indispensable, and (b) not algorithmic. Their employment requires the exercise of judgement. Though Duhem was pessimistic (and rightly so) about the prospects of a fully articulated theory of rational judgement in science, he was clear that (a) there is space for rational judgements; and (b) this judgement exceeds the (perhaps artificial) limits posed on scientific method by a pure and

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strict adherence to experience plus logic (including probability theory, I would add). He classified this judgemental character of scientific method under the rubric “good sense.” This is something that scientists acquire in their training and practice. It is something that can be cultivated and sharpened. It is also something that is akin to common sense. But no matter what the details are, good sense permits scientists to “decide” among competing hypotheses. And though “the reasons of good sense do not impose themselves with the same implacable rigour as the prescriptions of logic do” (Duhem 1906: 217), they are still reasons. Duhem was a great admirer of Pascal. So, for him these reasons are “reasons which reason does not know” (1906: 217). But who said that judgement should not be part of the scientific method? An extreme positivistic understanding of scientific method, encapsulated in the fiction of Carnap’s robot, as a fully-determined-byexact-rules algorithmic process which delivers yes-no answers (or exact degrees of confirmation) for each hypothesis formulated in a formal language, is not just a chimera. It is, in addition, a model that does not bear any resemblance to whatever happens in science. Does it follow from the judgemental character of the method that the criteria that guide these judgements are unreasonable? Unworkable? Subjective? Opaque? None of the above follows. I think we should take to heart Duhem’s lesson. Scientific method is not algorithmic. It requires the exercise of judgement. This judgement is constrained by several virtues that theories should possess. It can be rational even if it is not dictated by experience plus logic. Its rationality depends, ultimately, on taking account of the reasons that favour a certain option and condemn another. But we should also go beyond Duhem. A theory of rational judgement is not doomed from the start. It cannot be reduced just to an ineffable “good sense.” A good starting point for such a theory is to focus on the role that explanatory considerations and the virtues of theories play in rational judgement – a point that Duhem himself made available. This need for an account of rational judgement which goes beyond logic plus experience has been articulated recently by Ernan McMullin. As he aptly notes: “Values do not function in assessment as rules do” (1996: 19). It’s not just that different scientists may weigh different values (or vir-

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tues) differently. This, as Kuhn has already noted, is true enough. But it is also true that even if they are weighed similarly, they may be in conflict with each other (say, simplicity vs. informativeness). Hence, judgement is required in balancing them out. Values are unlike rules in that they cannot be followed algorithmically. No recipe is there for choosing among competing theories. It would be too quick, however, to conclude from this that these values have no rational force. This would amount to intellectual paralysis. For take the prime empiricist virtue (and don’t forget that it is a virtue too): empirical fit. Of course, theories should be consistent with the evidence (or entail it). But judging empirical fit is no (much) less valueladen than judging, say, explanatory fit. It’s not just that many competing theories can be consistent with the same observations. It’s also that the very empirical fit of a theory to facts requires judgement: Which are the relevant data? Which measurements are reliable? What error-margins are allowed? Etcetera. 3. Concluding Thoughts The prospects of offering a unified theory of the role of reason in science are tied to the prospects of telling a story that brings under a single chapter the role of method in theory-appraisal and the role of method in theorychange. As we have seen, the very idea of a rational way to deal with theory-change in science – especially with revolutionary theory change – requires that the traditional conception of method be broadened with an account of values and virtues. These can create a space for rational judgement where algorithmic approaches break down. But these have to be shared values and virtues; traits of theories that scientists – qua cognitive agents – value and strive for their theories to have them. We also saw, however, that values enter into the very idea of offering a justification to induction – the very basic scientific method. In the absence of a way to persuade the inductive sceptic, looking for a justification of induction amounts to looking for warrants for a rule (or a method) that we already value; a method that we already use successfully and have no specific reasons to doubt. There is need to take seriously the task of developing an account of method and rational judgement in science which places values in centre-stage.

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References Braithwaite R.B. 1953. Scientific Explanation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carnap R. 1950. Logical Foundations of Probability. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Carnap R. 1952. The Continuum of Inductive Methods. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. De Finetti B. 1937. Foresight: Its Logical Laws, Its Subjective Sources. In H.E. Kyburg Jr. and H.E. Smokler (eds.), Studies in Subjective Probability, 53118. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1964. Duhem P. 1906. The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, 2nd ed. 1914, P. Wiener transl. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954. Dummett M. 1974. The Justification of Deduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Earman J. 1992, Bayes or Bust? Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Howson C. 2000. Hume’s Problem. New York: Oxford University Press. Keynes J.M. 1921. A Treatise on Probability. Cambridge: The Royal Economic Society. Kuhn T.S. 1977. Objectivity, Value Judgment, and Theory Choice. In The Essential Tension. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Lange M. 1999. Calibration and the Epistemological Role of Bayesian Conditionalisation. Journal of Philosophy, 96: 294-324. McMullin E. 1996. Epistemic Virtue and Theory Appraisal. In I. Douven and L. Horsten (eds.), Realism in the Sciences, 13-34. Louven: Louven University Press. Papineau D. 1992. Reliabilism, Induction and Scepticism. Philosophical Quarterly, 42: 1-19. Psillos S. 1999. Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth. London and New York: Routledge. Psillos S. 2007. Putting a Bridle on Irrationality: An Appraisal of Van Fraassen’s New Epistemology. In B. Monton (ed.), Images of Empiricism, 134-164. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Psillos S. 2009. Knowing the Structure of Nature. London: MacMillan-Palgrave.

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Quine W.V.O. 1936. Truth by Convention. In O.H. Lee (ed.) Philosophical Essays for A.N. Whitehead, 90-124. New York: Longmans. Ramsey F. 1926. Truth and Probability. In R.B. Braithwaite (ed.), The Foundations of Mathematics and Other Essays. London: Routledge, 1931. Skyrms B. 1984. Pragmatics and Empiricism. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Teller P. 1973. Conditionalisation and Observation. Synthese, 26: 218-58. Van Cleve J. 1984. Reliability, Justification and the Problem of Induction. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 9: 555-567.

KNOWLEDGE AND REASON Pascal Engel

Abstract. The view that the two perspectives on knowledge – internalist and externalist – are compatible is defended. If, in particular, one adopts the conception of justification according to which a weaker epistemic status than knowledge is available to us – entitlement – the internalist and the externalist conceptions can be combined. The resultant view remains externalist.

1. Internalist and Externalist Conceptions of Knowledge and Reason As Laurence BonJour says, “Perhaps the most pervasive conviction within the Western epistemological tradition is that in order for a person’s belief to constitute knowledge it is necessary (though not sufficient) that it be justified or warranted or rationally grounded, that the person have an adequate reason for accepting it” (1998: 1). Traditionally the question of the role of reason within our knowledge has been taken to be the question whether knowledge is based upon rational principles which are independent of experience and which are grounded in the faculty of Reason. Another traditional issue is whether rational belief can be independent of knowledge, understood as entailing certainty and truth. Contemporary philosophers have, however, tended to concentrate upon an apparently less ambitious question. They are concerned with the role of our concept of reason when we ask such questions as: what are our reasons for believing this or that? In what sense can there be good reasons to believe, and when does having a good reason for believing amount to knowledge? Does knowledge need rest on reasons at all? In this chapter I shall be myself concerned with this more limited question. If one accepts the traditional definition of knowledge as justified true belief (JTB), there is an obvious link between having (propositional) knowledge and having reasons: one knows that P if and only if one has good, conclusive reasons, for believing truly that P. The concept of reason seems to be coextensive with the concept of justification. Isn’t knowledge,

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as Sellars (1963) famously put it, in “the space of reasons”? There are, however, two opposite ways of understanding this requirement. On the one hand, reasons are such that the subject is able to have access to them, and to articulate them in order to justify his beliefs. Reasons in this sense are typically propositional contents which are available, at least potentially, to a subject. Indeed they seem to be essentially reflective and accessible to consciousness: how could one have a reason and be unable to figure out what it is? Reasons account in this sense for the normative dimension which is often associated with the concept of knowledge: one is justified in one’s beliefs if one has the beliefs which one ought to have or if one obeys the relevant epistemic norms. On this internalist reading of the notion of reason, one has a justified belief only if one attempts to base it upon adequate reasons. This seems to be a requirement for being responsible for one’s beliefs. On the other hand, the reasons and justifications of one’s beliefs need not be accessible to the subject who has them. Perceptual beliefs, in particular, need not be based on propositional contents to which a subject has access. If for instance at a crossroad there is a large truck coming from your left, that is a reason for you to slow down, although you may have not seen it. In such cases, it is the fact that P which gives one a reason to believe that P. In this externalist sense of “reason” the facts relevant for the truth of the belief constitute the reason for it. But it is not a reason which the subject possesses or to which he has access. It is the reason that there is, and the subject need not be aware of it. The same sort of duality affects the notion of evidence. A belief is rational if it is based upon epistemic reasons (otherwise it is held for practical or prudential reasons, it is either irrational or merely practically rational). Epistemic reasons consist typically in the evidence that one has for one’s beliefs and a belief is correct if it is true and based upon appropriate evidence. But like the notion of reason, the notion of evidence can be construed in an internalist sense, as the evidence that one has, and in an externalist sense, as the evidence that there is, independently from one’s awareness of it. The internalist/externalist opposition about reason and evidence is analogous to the familiar opposition between the internalist and externalist justification, and one main strand in the contemporary epistemological debate consists in determining which concept of justification is the correct one. One of the main arguments in favour of internalism about justification is that it would not

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make sense to attribute knowledge if the knower could not possibility to have access to his reasons and justification and to articulate them. The externalist, however, denies this, and argues that it makes perfect sense to ascribe knowledge to creatures which, like infants and animals, do not have access to their reasons, justifications, or evidence (BonJour and Sosa 2003). This debate over internalist and externalist justification is, however, predicated on the basis of the traditional JTB definition of knowledge. But this definition has been serious challenged since Gettier-type counterexamples (Gettier 1963) have shown that it is possible to have justified true beliefs which do not amount to knowledge. The common feature of Gettier-type counterexamples are that there can be, by way of epistemic luck, a complete lack of coordination between the truth of a belief and the reasons that justify a subject in holding it (Pritchard 2005). The failure of the JTB analysis of knowledge constitutes a strong argument in favour of the view that knowledge cannot be defined as true belief plus some justification property. On this view it is a primitive, unanalysable mental state, which is not necessarily attached to what Sellars called “the game of asking and giving of reasons.” Indeed it seems odd to ask: “What are your reasons for knowing that P?,” although it makes sense to ask: “On what grounds can you claim to know that P?,” in which case the implicit question is: “What are your reasons for believing that P?” When one believes that P, one can have more or less reasons, but when one knows, asking for reasons seems irrelevant. Why is the concept of belief reason-sensitive whereas the concept of knowledge is not? The answer seems simple: “know” is factive (if one knows that P it is the case that P) whereas “believe” is not. When one knows that P, there is no need to evaluate further reasons for believing that P. On the view that knowledge is the most general factive mental state among the class of factive states such as seeing, remembering, noticing or hearing, knowledge has nothing to do with internal reasons. Knowledge is not based on reasons, but it is the other way round: one has reason or a justification to believe that P only if one knows that P. The same holds for evidence: one has evidence that P only if one knows that P (Williamson 2000; Sutton 2007). Internalists about knowledge and justification will disagree. For them renouncing altogether the very concept of reason and of justification deprives epistemology from the possibility of accounting for our most en-

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trenched intuitions about knowledge and rationality: how can our beliefs be rational and how can we be held to be responsible for them if we do not make any room for such concepts? Can, for instance, one know that the President is in Washington on the basis of one’s clairvoyant powers without having the slightest idea about why one holds such a belief, and can one know something on the basis of a reliable external process while having conscious beliefs which undermine one’s present beliefs (BonJour 1980)? If someone had implanted in his brain, unbeknownst to him, a device to appreciate accurately the room’s temperature would he thereby know the temperature (Lehrer 1990)? How can one assess the conflict of intuition between the two views? Many philosophers have felt here that an intermediate position has more chances to be correct. Some epistemologists have held a dual view of knowledge and justification, combining an externalist conception of the one with an internalist conception of the other: knowledge answers externalist requirements which are independent from a subject’s introspective access, while justification answers internalist requirements (Alston 1988; Audi 2001). Others have held that externalist requirements bear on specific kinds of knowledge, such as perceptual knowledge, whereas internalist requirements bear on other kinds of knowledge such as inferential knowledge or knowledge of one’s own mental states. Yet others have attempted a “marriage of externalism and internalism” (Goldman 1988) by arguing that one must distinguish two concepts of justification: a belief is “strongly” (externally) justified if and only if it is produced by a reliable process and the belief is not undermined by the agent’s current cognitive state, and belief is “weakly” (internally) justified if and only if it is produced by an unreliable process which the agent does not believe to be unreliable. Yet again one can accept a contextualist conception of knowledge ascriptions (DeRose 2009) and argue that although knowledge itself obeys externalist criteria which are not variable, ascriptions of knowledge obey internalist requirements and vary from context to context. Finally, one can attempt to combine internalism and externalism by distinguishing two levels of knowledge: first-order or “animal” knowledge obtained on the basis of reliable beliefs and apt disposition on the one hand, and “reflective” second order knowledge obtained, in a reliable way, on the basis of one’s first-order knowledge and including a “perspective” on it (Sosa 2007). But all these compatibilist views are prima

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facie unconvincing. For what internalists and externalists views alike are supposed to give us, are unified accounts of knowledge and justification: claiming that they diverge or that the meaning of these terms is ambiguous does not help. Similarly if one accepts the idea that there is perceptual knowledge as well as inferential knowledge, one would like to understand in what sense these count both as knowledge, hence obey the same criteria. The distinctions between weak and strong justification will not solve the dispute either, since internalists will deny that their criteria of justification are weak whereas the externalist ones are strong. The contextualist move will not help either, for the issue which divides externalists and internalists bears on the nature of knowledge, and not the way it is linguistically ascribed. The animal/reflective knowledge distinction will not be satisfactory for either party, unless the relations between the two kinds or knowledge are not made more precise. I shall nevertheless propose a kind of compatibilist answer here, but one which is dominantly externalist. 2. Knowledge without Reasons Some reasons for beliefs are merely prima facie or pro tanto, while others are meant to be conclusive or all things considered (there are indeed interesting parallels here with reasons for action). Reasons for belief, even when they are taken to be conclusive, are never considered to be infallible. In this respect the contemporary conception of knowledge is fallibilist and differs strongly from the traditional one, which was meant to imply the infallibility of knowledge. Thus the Stoics took knowledge to bear infallible marks of truth which could be fully discriminated by a secure criterion. Descartes’ clear and distinct ideas were supposed to be marks of infallible knowledge leading to vera scientia. Infallibilist conceptions of knowledge do not need reasons and justifications in the pro tanto sense. They need reasons which are absolutely grounded. On this foundationalist view, Gettier examples cannot arise, for the justified true beliefs cannot be inferred from false beliefs (in the spirit of Clark’s early “no false lemmas” proposal – Clark 1963). Classical foundationalism does not use the notion of reason or of justification in the contemporary sense. It is basically a modal conception of

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knowledge, which defines it as the impossibility of error or as the state of someone who could not have been wrong (Sosa 2002; Dutant 2010). Something of this modal condition remains present, albeit in an externalist setting, in Nozick’s (1981) counterfactual definition of knowledge, according to which one knows that P if and only if: (i) (ii)

If P were true, one would believe that P (receptivity); If P were not true one would not believe that P (sensitivity).

There is no trace of the notion of reason or of justification in this purely modal definition. The only requirement is that the subject’s belief “tracks” the truth, independently of the perspective or internal point of view that he might have on his beliefs. But Nozick’s conditions are notoriously insufficient. In the first place, they do not validate the very intuitive principle of epistemic closure (if one knows that P, and knows that P entails Q, then one knows that Q). In the second place sensitivity faces clear counterexamples such as the following. A grandmother believes that her grandson is well because she sees him and finds him well, but if the grandson had been ill, her family would have convinced her that he is not, to save her the anxiety. Her belief is insensitive: if the son had not been well, she would have still believed that he is, even though she can see that he is so. This seems to show that knowledge cannot be mere tracking of the truth of a belief: it has to be relativised to a way of knowing, to a method, or to a basis for one’s belief. But this threatens to reintroduce the notion of a perspective, or of a point of view from which the belief is apprehended by an agent knows, which would constitute his reason for the belief. Let us call “radical” an account of knowledge which would try to dispense with any independent account of justification and of reasons. Nozick’s tracking account (i)-(ii), Goldman’s (1967) or Armstrong’s (1973) purely causal and reliabilist accounts of knowing, Williamson (2000) and Sutton (2007) “knowledge first” views are radical in this sense. Sosa’s (2007) account of knowledge in terms of a weaker condition that receptivity and sensitivity, namely safety from error, is radical in so far as his basic definition is concerned. Sosa defines safety as the main condition on knowledge: If one believed P, P would be true

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but a more common formulation is that a belief P is safe if the subject S could not easily have been wrong in similar cases (Williamson 2000: 124). Alternatively one can put as a necessary condition for knowledge the absence of luck or of “Gettierised” belief (Pritchard 2005). The notions of safety and of easiness of error, however, are vague, and subject to counterexamples. For instance if a benevolent demon manages to make true everything that you believe, in close counterfactual situations, you would still believe P, although you would hardly count as knowing it. So safety can hardly serve as a necessary and sufficient condition for a non circular definition knowledge. At most it can only be a necessary requirement of a non reductive account of knowledge, which means that it is not independent of our prior understanding of the notion of knowledge (Williamson 2000: 100). This is why most safety analyses use further notions to characterise knowledge, such as those of reliability, of intellectual virtue, of success from ability, or of perspective (Sosa 2007; Greco 2010). It turns out, then, that even a radical account of knowledge cannot dispense with notions which, like those of reliability or virtue, are meant to explain on what knowledge is based, on what sources it depends, and what way or method is used to acquire it. Not only beliefs must be safe, or reliable, or immune to error, to be knowledge, but they must be based on the “right” kind of basis, in order to count as knowledge. It is not enough that there are reasons, evidence or justifications for a belief; there must be an appropriate relation holding between the belief and the reasons for which it is held by the believer, the basing relation (Korcz 1997; Alston 2005). That a certain proposition P, logically entails another, Q, is an objective fact and it is a reason for inferring Q from P. But unless someone actually believes that this logical relation holds, and does not base his belief that Q upon this reason, he cannot be said to be justified in believing that Q. If for instance he believes that P, but believes that Q on the basis of a guess or if his belief that Q results from a stroke, he cannot be said to base his belief that Q upon his belief that P. Or, in a similar terminology, the subject in this case has propositional justification for Q, but he does not have doxastic justification. The basing, or well-groundedness, relation requires that one has both a propositional justification and a doxastic justification. Thus understood, the basing relation seems to be an internalist requirement: it holds between a belief and the reasons upon which

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the subjects bases it, and it seems to presuppose that the subject has access to his reasons for believing P on the basis of Q. Could he take these as reasons unless he would be able to regard them as his reasons? But the basing requirement can also be read in an externalist sense. A causal theory of justification requires that a belief be caused by the appropriate cognitive processes. If the belief is not the product of the right causal chain, it is not properly based (this is the epistemological analogue of the problem of “deviant causal chains” in the philosophy of action). Or, if one operates with the externalist notion of safety, for a given belief, if a belief is it obtained on the basis of various dispositions or aptitudes, these must be of the right kind or such that they are able to base the belief in question. The need for a basing relation holding between beliefs and the reasons upon which they are based shows that a radical theory of knowledge, which would altogether dispense itself with the notion of reason, is doomed to fail. A less radical, and more plausible, version of “knowledge first” epistemology should hold that although we cannot have an understanding of the notions of reason, of justification and of evidence independently from the notion of knowledge, the latter notion is itself hard to understand independently of the former (Williamson 2009: 306). The very fact that a number of externalist theories of knowledge (e.g. Plantinga 1993) have been formulated in terms of the notion of warrant, rather than in terms of the notion of justification, shows that a notion sufficiently close to the latter is still needed, even when its internalist clothing is removed. 3. Internal Reasons It is not the place to settle the dispute between internalism and externalism about epistemic reasons and justification. I shall only grant that the internalist requirements on reasons are well motivated, and that an externalist theory of knowledge has to take them into account anyway. The main motivation for the internalist requirements comes from the fact that the basing relation is naturally construed as a requirement upon the availability of a reason to the person who holds the belief: in order for one to have a reason or a justification in virtue of believing P on the basis of a reason R, one must believe that R supports P – because otherwise, one wouldn’t count as basing one’s belief that P upon R. This requirement suggests that, in order

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to be justified in believing that P, one must infer one’s justification for P from one’s reason R, and have justified believe that R supports P, is often called inferential internalism (Leite 2008). Internalism is also motivated by an asymmetry between epistemic and practical reasons. Our practical reasons do not in general depend upon what we know about a situation. For instance that the glass in front of you contains petrol is a reason for you not to drink it, although you may well ignore that fact. In contrast, epistemic reasons are not independent of the knowledge that you may have of them. The facts that can give me a reason to believe that a certain fact obtains must be restricted in some way. For otherwise the only reason that one would have to believe that P could be only the fact that P. This may hold for some beliefs – in particular egocentric beliefs such as “I think,” which is made true by the very fact that I think it and have a reason to think that it is true – but it cannot be the case for most other beliefs, in particular empirical ones. In other words, to use the language of evidence instead of the language of reasons, there must be a difference between the evidence that one has for believing P and P itself, so that one is evidence for the other. If we accept this very general internalist requirement, what form should take internalist accounts of reason? One can conceive various levels from the weakest to the strongest. At the very least it seems that they must include an awareness of our reasons and an access to them. The access can be only potential, and it need not be conscious. We can require in this sense a mere sensitivity to reasons (in the sense in which Scanlon talks of “judgment sensitive attitudes” – Scanlon 1998). At a second level, we may require that the reasons be actually accessed, through reflective secondorder beliefs. Still, some internalists about reasons think that mere accessibility, actual or potential is not enough. They require not only that the agent has reasons and has access to them, but also that he can be capable of treating them as reasons, by being able to argue in favour of them, to deliberate about them, and to defend them against opposing view. As Leite puts it, “in order for one to be proceeding acceptably in basing one’s belief upon ... reasons, one must believe that those reasons are good, and this latter belief must be responsibly held” (Leite 2008: 425). It is only if agents can consider themselves as being active in finding, defending and responding to reasons can they be held responsible for them as persons. This responsibilist conception of reasons is often formulated in individualist

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terms, but others, such as Brandom (2000) formulate them in explicitly social terms, holding that the “game of asking and giving reasons” is essentially a matter of “keeping score” of normative reasons involved in social practices. These views, however, which put a strong normative weight on the notions of reason and justification, do not imply that this normative weight carries epistemic obligations or duties which an agent would have to obey categorically in order to be justified. The “deontological conception of justification” (Alston 1988) takes this further step and consists in accepting the idea that there are categorical and prescriptive epistemic duties, such as the duty to base one’s belief on evidence. But the traditional doctrine of evidentialism, which is often presented as entailing the existence of such duties and of our being compelled to obey them, need not be formulated in such strong terms (Conee and Feldman 2005). Whether one adopts a weaker or a stronger conception of internalist reasons, the main objection to this family of conceptions is that they all presuppose inferential internalism, and that this view gives rise to a regress, familiar from the traditional Agrippean trilemma, which one can formulate thus: Suppose that premise P is justified for subject S, that P entails Q, and that S infers Q from P. Shall we say that Q is not justified for S unless he is also justified in believing that P does entail Q? But if so, shall we not also have to add the requirement that S be justified in believing that if P is true and P entails Q, Q is true, too? A regress impends, and to avoid it we must say that in some cases the mere existence of an appropriate relation between premise and conclusion, whether the subject has a justified belief about it or not, enables justification to be transmitted from one to the other (Van Cleve 1984: 560).

There are various versions of this objection, which is of course reminiscent of Carroll’s paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise (Carroll 1895). The objection is that one does not have a justification for believing Q if one has a justified belief P which supports Q; one must also have a justified belief that P supports Q. If this were correct, for every justified belief Q that one has on the basis of P, one would have to have an additional belief that Q is justified on the basis of P (see also Boghossian 2008). But why, if one has a reason (is justified) to believe Q on the basis of P, and recognise that P

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supports Q, should one have this belief Q on the basis of one’s belief that P and of one’s belief that P supports Q? The Carroll regress is engendered because the Tortoise writes down the rule of inference of modus ponens as a propositional premise in the inference leading to the conclusion. But as soon as one realises that the internal reason need not be a further proposition from which one infers the justified belief, the regress is stopped (Leite 2008). The regress objection rests upon a wrong construal of the relation between one’s beliefs being justified and the reasons which justify it: to have a reason to believe P on the basis of Q, one needs not have an access, even potential, to the conjunctive proposition expressing this reason P and P supports Q. It is enough that one infers, justifiably, Q from P. But from where does the justification come if it does not come from one’s awareness that P supports Q? Some justifications are immediate, and not lead to the characteristic regress (Pryor 2005). 4. Entitlement and Epistemic Norms When one infers a conclusion from a set of premises in a simple inference, or when one perceives an ordinary visual scene, one’s justification for the proposition inferred or for the perceptual belief does not rest upon any independent reason to which one has to attend. It is direct and immediate, although it can be defeated, if, for instance, ones realises that the lighting conditions are not optimal. In the logical case, our inferring the conclusion is not simply “blind” (Wright 2003). Both in the perceptual and in the logical case, one can be aware of the content of one’s cognitive activity without reflecting upon it, and one can be justified in inferring and perceiving without this justification being conclusive. In this case the justification is merely prima facie. A number of philosophers (Burge 1993; Peacocke 2004; Wright 2004) have accepted the idea that there can be a kind of prima facie, immediate, justification by default, which they call entitlement. There are a number of notions of entitlement, and they differ relative to the various kinds of cognitive achievements such as perception, testimony, inference or self-knowledge. But they all purport to capture the idea that there is a positive epistemic status which is intermediate between internal and external justification, but which shares features of both. To be entitled to a perceptual belief or to inferring a conclusion is to have cogni-

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tive support, and in this sense a reason, for the belief, although this support can be defeated. But it need not mean that one is justified in having the belief, nor that one can access to the content of one’s reason (in the perceptual a case we typically do not). When one is entitled to a conclusion, one can be compelled to it, but one need not be certain of it, in the sense in which a number of philosophers have accepted the idea of “primitive certainties” which resist any doubt and undermining (Mulligan 2006). Neither does one need to have access to the source of the entitlement, which, for most cognitive processes, comes from our natural endowments. Entitlement has some of the characters of internalist reasons, but not all (Casullo 2007). It gives, like internalist reason, a warrant to the subject to believe something. It implies, like internalist reasons, a form of epistemic evaluation. But unlike internalist reasons, it is merely prima facie not meant to give full and complete justification for a belief, especially in the perceptual case where it can be overridden. And it is not associated with access, nor with any second-order reflective belief about one’s reasons and their groundedness. Hence it is not committed to the potentially regressive view of inferential internalism. In general one is entitled to believe something because of the existence of epistemic norms governing belief in general and various kinds of belief in particular, such as these (Pollock and Cruz 1999; Boghossian 2008): (i) A belief that p is correct if and only if p is true; (ii) A belief that p is correct if and only if it is based on sufficient evidence; (iii) If it perceptually seems to you that p, then you are prima facie rationally permitted to believe that p (perception); (iv) If you are permitted to believe that p and that if p then q, then you are prima facie rationally permitted to believe q (deduction); (v) If you have observed n As which are Gs, then you are prima facie rationally permitted to believe q (induction). It would be a mistake to consider that these norms give one reasons to believe something in particular circumstances, although they obviously specify the kind of reasons that one might have for believing. It would be wrong also to consider that in order to obey these norms, or simply to be

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sensitive to them, one has to have a conscious access to them and that one needs to infer from them justifications for one’s beliefs. This would commit us to an implausible deontological conception of justification and to a kind of inferential internalism leading to the familiar regress. Such normative principles need not be explicitly before the mind of believers, nor do they need to figure in their doxastic deliberations as explicit prescriptions which they would have to follow consciously. Their cognitive status can remain largely implicit. They can nevertheless figure among our reasons to believe in a broad sense. As Pollock and Cruz suggest: Epistemic norms must be able to appeal directly to our being in perceptual states and need not appeal to our having beliefs to that effect. In other words, there can be “half-doxastic” epistemic connections between beliefs and nondoxastic states that are analogous to the “fully doxastic” connections between beliefs and beliefs that we call “reasons.” We propose to call the half-doxastic connections “reasons” as well, but it must be acknowledged that this is stretching our ordinary use of the term “reason.” ... Reasons are always reasons for beliefs, but reasons themselves need not be beliefs (Pollock and Cruz 1999: 194-195).

Even the most general norm for belief, the truth-norm (i) need not imply more than an implicit guidance. A familiar feature of belief is that it is transparent to truth – if one tries to figure out whether to believe that P, the best way to answer this question is to ask oneself whether P. This feature is enough to explain why we are sensitive to the truth norm (Shah 2003; Engel 2010). Although these epistemic norms have been most of the time invoked by internalist, we can understand them in a quasi-externalist sense. 5. Epistemic Compatibilism The view suggested here is a form of epistemic compatibilism about knowledge. It combines externalist elements – since it allows a definition of knowledge as ungettierised safe belief, and does not require access – with internalist elements – since beliefs have to be sensitive to reasons and to epistemic norms. It thus seems open to the kind of objections that have often been raised against such views (Bernecker 2006). In particular if knowledge is defined, in externalist fashion, as the product of a reliable, safe or

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virtuous process, and if it is in addition required that the subject has at least a sensitivity to epistemic norms, how can this sensitivity play a genuine role in the possession of knowledge by the subject? Isn’t in purely epiphenomenal? Moreover, to be entitled, in whatever sense we can give to the notion, is to have a prima facie epistemic right or be in position to know, but it does not amount to knowing. One can argue that entitlement is truth conducive, but it is not factive, and is by definition is a weaker epistemic status than knowledge. Indeed the notion of entitlement, or that of warrant, are in general invoked in the context of discussions of scepticism, as the kind of epistemic status which could allow us to rebut the pretensions of the sceptic without falling into his doubts and trapping by adopting a dogmatic conception of knowledge (Wright 2004). The fact that one kind of notion of justification can be more appropriate in answering one kind of epistemological challenge – e.g. scepticism – but not another – e.g. gettierisation – has led some epistemologist to propose the idea that there is a set of “epistemic desiderata” each of which can be considered as necessary, but non of which can be said to be sufficient in evaluating claims of knowledge (Alston 2005). But this kind of pluralistic view, although it reflects the present state of epistemology, cannot be satisfactory. Knowledge is knowledge, and cannot be divided. I have, however, suggested that one can, accept an externalist conception of knowledge, although a non radical one, which is both based on the notion of safety and which accepts a quasi externalist notion of reason and of epistemic normativity (Engel 2007). One feature, however, of the traditional notion of reason, is resistant to a strong externalist conception: the epistemology of the relation of being a reason for and the kind of knowledge that we can have of epistemic reasons and norms seem to be purely a priori. Entitlement itself is also, on most views, an a priori status. It is inconsistent with the notion of normativity to suppose that normative relations are ultimately purely factual. It is at this point that the classical concerns of the philosophers whom the philosophical tradition has called “rationalists” come back into the picture. Indeed Reason wouldn’t be Reason if it were not, in some sense, “pure” (BonJour 1998; Peacocke 2004). But we should not assume, here too, that the notion of a prioricity is too be understood in purely internalist terms. If there is room for a (quasi) externalist conception of reason and of norma-

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tivity, then there should also be room for a (quasi) externalist conception of normativity. It is at this at this point that the philosophy of reasons to believe can meet the concerns of classical philosophers for the unity of Reason. References Alston W. 1988. An Internalist Externalism. Synthese, 74: 265-283. Alston W. 2005. Beyond Justification. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Armstrong D. 1973. Belief, Truth and Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Audi R. 2001. The Architecture of Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bernecker S. 2006. Prospects for Epistemic Compatibilism. Philosophical Studies, 130: 81-104. Boghossian P. 2008. Content and Justification. Oxford: Oxford University Press. BonJour L. 1980. Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 5: 53-74. BonJour L. 1998. In Defense of Pure Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. BonJour L. and Sosa E. 2003. Epistemic Justification. Oxford: Blackwell. Brandom R. 2000. Articulating Reasons. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Burge T. 1993. Content Preservation. Philosophical Review, 102 (4): 457- 488. Carroll L. 1895 What the Tortoise Said to Achilles. Mind, 4: 278-80. Casullo A. 2007. What is Entitlement? Acta Analytica, 22: 267-279. Clark M. 1963. Knowledge and Grounds: A Reply to Gettier. Analysis, 24: 4648. Conee E. and Feldman R. 2005. Evidentialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. De Rose K. 2009. The Case for Contextualism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dutant J. 2010. Knowledge, Methods and the Impossibility of Error. Doctoral dissertation, University of Geneva.

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Engel P. 2007. Va Savoir! De la connaissance en général. Paris: Hermann Engel P. 2010. Epistemic Norms. In S. Bernecker and D. Prichard (eds.), The Routedge Companion to Epistemology. London: Routeldge. Gettier E. 1963. Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? Analysis, 23: 21-23. Goldman A.I. 1967. A Causal Theory of Knowing. Journal of Philosophy, 64: 357-372. Goldman A.I. 1988. Strong and Weak Justification. Repr. in his Liaisons: Philosophy Meets the Cognitive and Social Sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991. Greco J. 2010. Achieving Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Korcz K.A. 1997. Recent Work on the Basing Relation. American Philosophical Quarterly, 34: 171-191; see also . Lehrer K. 1990. Theory of Knowledge. Westview: Boulder. Leite. A. 2008. Believing One’s Reasons are Good. Synthese, 161 (3): 419-441. Mulligan K. 2006. Soil, Sediment and Certainty. In M. Textor (ed.), The Austrian Contribution to Analaytic Philosophy, 89-129. London: Routledge. Nozick R. 1981. Philosophical Explorations. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Peacocke C. 2004. The Realm of Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Plantinga A. 1993. Warrant and Proper Function. New York: Oxford University Press. Pollock J. and Cruz J. 1999. Contemporary Theories of Knowledge. Lahnam: Rowman & Littlefireld. Pritchard D. 2005. Epistemic Luck. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pritchard D. 2010. Knowledge and Understanding. In A. Haddock, A. Millar and D. Pritchard (eds.), The Nature and Value of Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pryor J. 2005. There is immediate Justification. In M. Steup and E. Sosa (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Epistemology. Oxford: Blackwell. Scanlon T. 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. Harvard: Harvard University Press.

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Shah N. 2003. How Truth Regulates Belief. The Philosophical Review, 112: 447-482. Sellars W. 1963. Science, Perception and Reality. London: Routledge. Skorupski J. 2010. The Domain of Reasons. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa E. 2002. Tracking, Competence and Knowledge. In P.K. Moser (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa E. 2007. A Virtue Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sutton J. 2007. Without Justification. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Van Cleve J. 1984. Reliability, Justification, and the Problem of Induction. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 9: 555-567. Williamson T. 2000. Knowledge and Its Limits. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Williamson T. 2009. Replies to Commentators. In P. Greenough and D. Pritchard (eds.), Williamson on Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wright C. 2003. On Basic Logical Knowledge. In J. Bermúdez and A. Millar 2003 (eds.), Reason and Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wright C. 2004. Warrant for Nothing, and Foundations for Free? Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 78 (1): 167-212.

REASON AND WOMAN Lorraine Code

Abstract. In this essay I examine the exclusionary effects of theories of reason/rationality for which reason’s purity and autonomy are its preeminent characteristics. I show how such a conception of reason with its Cartesian and Kantian roots tacitly privileges traits and values associated with maleness/masculinity, and in so doing occludes and indeed suppresses traditionally imagined female/feminine characteristics and possibilities. I maintain that feminist and other post-colonial theories of knowledge, subjectivity, and ethics have exposed the political implications of reason’s alleged neutrality, and I propose that new social, political, and ecological epistemological projects point the way toward renewed justice-promoting ways of thinking and enacting rationality. The exclusions of reason ... are ... multiple and not reducible to the exclusion of women. Nevertheless ... [the] supposedly universal ideals of reason invoke not only a male identity but the elite male identity of the master. ... The linkage between women and nature as the sphere of exclusion from reason has been strongly and persistently made in Western frameworks (Plumwood 2002: 21).

The Exclusions of Reason In the Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant observes: All the interests of my reason, speculative as well as practical, combine in the three following questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope? The first question is merely speculative. We have, as I flatter myself, exhausted all the possible answers to it, and at last have found the answer with which reason must perforce content itself, and with which, so long as it takes no account of the practical, it has also good cause to be satisfied (Kant 1781 and 1787: 635, A805, B833).

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I cite this passage as the epigraph to my book What Can She Know? (1991), as a way of signalling respect for the Critique and disquiet at the effects of the Kantian legacy in sustaining exclusionary conceptions of rationality, knowledge, morality, subjectivity, and agency. The ideal of a universal reason epitomizes Enlightenment faith in the powers of the human intellect, with Descartes commonly cited as the principal articulator and defender of reason’s purity: an advocate par excellence for the project of pure inquiry.1 Yet it is in Kant’s creative synthesis of the imagination that space opens for conceiving of knowledge construction as an active process of making sense of reality, insofar as it is amenable to human cognitive structurings. His claim that the principles of right action are available to every rational person, furthermore, presupposes an egalitarianism that has functioned as a touchstone for affirming the autonomy of reason liberated from pre-Enlightenment heteronomy. The Kantian knowing subject inhabits a world in which human reason is naturally adapted to the rationality of nature, and vice versa. Only if such an equilibrium can be presupposed is knowledge possible. “Purity” is a Leitmotiv in the Critique: Kant confers overriding authority to the enhanced powers of formal reason, purified of particularity, contingency, or happenstance, to establish its scope across “the universal conditions of a possible experience” (Kant 1781 and 1787: 264, A245, B303). While pure understanding must cooperate with the senses to make knowledge possible, practical reason seems not to be analogously constrained. The a priori moral law is universally valid, without regard for such singular contingencies as inclination, passion, or interest. It is formal, universal, and abstract. The power of practical reason to give itself the universal law of moral conduct owes its plausibility to the purity Kant attributes to the categories of the understanding as they participate in the formal structures of reason. This attribution sustains the formalism of Kant’s legacy: its principled egalitarianism underwrites the emancipatory hopes of an Enlightenment reason “common to all,” that can transcend “the contingent historical circumstances which differentiate minds from one another” (Lloyd 1984: xviii). 1

I allude to the title of Bernard Williams’s book Descartes: The Project of Pure Inquiry (1978).

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Kant’s Critique, then, is a culmination of Enlightenment hopes for reason’s emancipatory powers, modified from the austerity of the Cartesian thinking substance by Kant’s insistence on connecting understanding and experience, and continuous with Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s belief in a capacity for rational self-improvement as integral to human nature. No longer in thrall to religious dogma or the hierarchies of arbitrary civil power, the free thinkers of the Enlightenment envisioned an ever-increasing progress with each rational member of a kingdom of ends standing as his own authority in knowledge and moral-political governance. According to Michel Foucault, the Enlightenment “has determined, at least in part, what we are, what we think, and what we do today” (1984: 32): he reads Kant’s essay “Was ist Aufklärung?” as a story of “mankind” (Menschheit) reaching maturity; affirming its freedom from authority and from dwelling in tutelage. In his own essay of the same title, Foucault invokes the Enlightenment motto sapere aude: dare to know; have the courage to rely on your rational powers (Foucault 1984). The symmetry between reason and nature will ensure that the ensuing knowledge is limitless (hence also “dare,” for knowledge can be frightening in the power it unleashes, as in Nietzsche’s “will to power” and Foucault’s writings on power and knowledge). It is in the Enlightenment that the self as an autonomous subject is produced. Yet this autonomy, this power to know, also prompts the critiques I will address. Foucault asks: “Are we to understand that the entire human race is caught up in the process of Enlightenment? In that case, we must imagine Enlightenment as a historical change that affects the political and social existence of all people on the face of the earth” (1984: 35). Calling upon Kantian reason to show how universal this putative universality is, he suggests: “Criticism ... consists of analyzing and reflecting upon limits. But ... criticism is ... going to be practiced ... as a historical investigation into the events that have led us to constitute ourselves and to recognize ourselves as subjects of what we are doing, thinking, saying ... it is genealogical in its design and archaeological in its method” (Foucault 1984: 45-46). Assessments of a theory’s scope and limits cannot, pace Kant, refrain from taking “account of the practical,” for they are grounded in local analyses of practices. Here, I will engage with the critiques of reason Kant set in motion at the historical moment when his first question fragments in second wave

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feminism and in feminist alliances with such other critiques of pure reason as “naturalistic projects” in epistemology, the “interpretive turn” in the social sciences and elsewhere, and recent work in social epistemology. Confirming the emancipatory promise of reason, also in its pre-Kantian Enlightenment articulations, I will address some troubling consequences formal purity generates, especially when it is read to imply that freedom from particularity gives reason its emancipatory edge. Feminist and other post-colonial critiques of reason have shown that the universal claims of rational autonomy extend only to a small group of people: white, educated, propertied, able-bodied, European, usually Christian, adult (but not old) men. Ideals of reason that underwrite conceptions of knowledge, objectivity, formal validity, and moral authority have been modelled on and generate models for white male achievement in the propertied, professional classes of western/northern affluent societies. Thus feminist and other post-colonial theorists have critiqued the exclusionary consequences that derive, ironically, from reason’s claims to formal purity and universality. While Enlightenment reason promised emancipation to all, possibilities of realizing it derived from the lives and situations of propertied white men and required access to intellectual and material resources like theirs. In practice, then, Enlightenment reason offered emancipation only to a few. These critiques do not contest the sincerity of its high-minded humanitarianism, nor would I gainsay it. But its purity was only an illusion, derived from idealizing the circumstances of its advocates and excluding others who, in the diverse practicalities of their lives and situations, failed to qualify as participants, or as rational. Women aspired early to a place in the new emancipatory reason. Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), for example, applauds reason’s egalitarian promise as articulated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, while arguing that it cannot fulfil that promise unless it provides equal space for women in the new-found autonomous maturity of “mankind.” Certain women of the Enlightenment sought to establish such a place: Olympe de Gouges and Madame de Stael are salient examples (see Nye 1988: especially 5-12; and Lopez McAlister 1996). But marginal figures they remain: foils or complements to the “great” men of the philosophical canon. Reason remained presumptively male conceptually and demographically, throughout the history of modernity. Hence present-day

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feminists must ask what part of the “entire human race” is caught up in the Enlightenment? Did women have an Enlightenment too?2 Initially, they addressed these issues genealogically-archaeologically, with Genevieve Lloyd’s “historical investigation” of the “maleness” of reason as a founding text. Lloyd traces ideals of Reason through the history of western philosophy, to expose a pattern of defining them by exclusion of traits and values marked “feminine.” Here, “feminine” is characterized not by the qualities that infuse stereotypes of “woman” as delicate, seductive, empty-headed, or frivolous: the embodiment of unreason. In its ancient Greek origins it invokes a metaphysical principle that separates certain traits into positive masculine and negative feminine ones. In the Pythagorean table of opposites, maleness, limit, light, good, and square are aligned with determinate form; femaleness, unlimited, dark, bad, and oblong, with formlessness. Reason is constructed as an object of descriptive and normative analysis, then, in discourses whose symbols and metaphors shape and are shaped by ideals of dominant white western masculinity as these too evolve through the history of western thought. This reason-masculinity alignment is not about neutral, transparent symbolisms separated from the real-world entities they represent. Reason is symbolically, metaphorically constituted all the way down: its constitution in concert with ideal masculinity stakes out a rational domain that is inaccessible, or accessible only uneasily, to those whose “conditions of possible experience” have not fostered the traits by which ideal masculinity defines itself. Lloyd traces a historical division that unifies femininity and masculinity in ways other post-colonial thinkers would contest. This homogeneity is a consequence of her chosen domain of analysis: texts that comprise the white western eurocentered philosophical canon. Hence her analysis attests, also, to the local character of hegemonic Reason; to its constitution through local (if historically variant) metaphors, and its connections with specific, practical circumstances. Hers is an exemplary instance of local inquiry, specific to the symbolic events that have shaped western philosophy and to their effects in sustaining dominant social2

I borrow from the title of Joan Kelly’s essay “Did Women Have a Renaissance?” (1984).

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political arrangements. Philosophy-makers whose texts have stood the test of time have, in the western tradition, been male and prosperous, educated according to the best standards of their day, exemplary citizens of their society. They have defined their intellectual practices around regulative ideals of reason to the extent that philosophy has, in effect, presented itself as the best of rational inquiry: itself rational, and emblematic in establishing the scope and limits of reason. From the domain of the rational it has excluded women and other contemporary and latter-day “barbarians” whose rationality it deems at best deficient, at worst nonexistent. Presentday counterparts of the Aristotelian child, woman, and slave – excluded from the natural kind “rational animal” – are easily named. Other marginal hitherto “colonised” thinkers are thus equally vocal in arguing that hegemonic conceptions of reason are not merely male but derive from a narrow, parochially imagined maleness. Hence feminist critiques make common cause with the critiques of other Others variously excluded from the promise of rational autonomy. Nor is feminism internally univocal. While early second-wave feminists assumed a unified femininity as exclusionary as the universal “human-ness” around which Enlightenment reason defined itself, feminists in the early twenty-first century are committed to exposing and addressing differences among and within women; to engaging with multiple, intersecting modalities of “Otherness.” For early twenty-first-century feminists, the aim is less to claim a place for women within the structures of a “masculine” reason than to determine how there could/should be such a place within ideals defined through the exclusion of practices and attributes traditionally imagined as “feminine.” Women who eschew the gender-based heteronomy of western patriarchy are still too often constrained to pass through authoritative spaces where pure reason and its analogues hold sway: to demonstrate their “reasonableness” according to those criteria, even in attempting to resist the dictates of pure reason. The domain of reason remains contested territory for marginalised Others, whose underclass status is not automatically annulled once they are “allowed” entry. They have to conform to the standards of the privileged occupants, to settle for inclusion on their terms. Even establishing a position from which to challenge those terms requires mastering them. Hence, as Linda Alcoff observes, according to feminism’s detractors, “philosophical reason must be kept prior to and primary over femi-

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nism, or else feminism itself will be doomed to irrationality” (Alcoff 1995: 2). The conceptual and practical issues are daunting. In many respects, Phyllis Rooney’s analysis of “Recent Work in Feminist Discussions of Reason” (1994) remains a definitive study of the field as it was in the 1990s and still is, to a considerable extent, in the early 21st century. Rooney wonders early in her discussion whether it is possible to consider “reason” as such, abstracted from the institutional, theoretical, symbolic and other discursive forms through which people discuss and claim to know about it. Her question is apt. Students, I have noted, are often startled to be asked where reason is, what it is like, how they would recognize it: startled to realize it is not some “thing” people simply come across in the world, to identify and analyse it there. We know reason by its effects or by its absence; we categorize actions or utterances as attesting to reason, or not, in a range of social-political circumstances and situations across a spectrum of intellectual, practical, deliberative life. We know it symbolically, in its discursive and metaphorical representations: we learn how to talk and think about it, but not “what” it is. Hence in her Preface to the Second Edition of The Man of Reason, Lloyd’s emphasis shifts to the “concepts and principles” – “the operations of symbols” – implicated in “the ‘symbolic’ maleness of reason” (Lloyd 1984: ix). This shift is no mere afterthought or addendum; it is a reminder of reason’s embeddedness in a social imaginary, a systemic metaphorics through which it is constituted and known as gendered, if variously, throughout philosophical history and the practices it informs. Casting its realm as symbolic neither trivializes its claims nor brushes them off as mere surface embellishments of something otherwise gender-neutral. On the contrary, it shows how deeply they are ingrained in a social imaginary where “the symbolic sexlessness of the soul ... co-exists in the play of symbols with the maleness of its principal trait, rationality” (Lloyd 1984: xiii). Non-philosophers do not often refer to “reason,” nor are they likely to ask “what is reason?” Yet in everyday life as in philosophy, if such questions are posed, people gesture toward its traces, its functions, in utterances, arguments, analyses. Tacitly or explicitly, such traces align with masculine ways of thinking and being to the exclusion of those labelled or presumed to be feminine. In consequence of this dominant symbolic, Rooney notes, women “have been physically, literally, and metaphorically excluded from the ex-

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cellence of reason” (1994: 4) throughout western history, in ways that are easily documented and are by now well known to feminist philosophers. Persuasively, Rooney asks: “Could the ‘man of reason’ have been compellingly projected as the universal, objective, and generic subject if philosophers did not have such ready assess to ‘woman’ as a persistent cultural and linguistic category upon which/whom to displace the particularity and subjectivity of bodily interest and location?” (1994: 6-7). Her question demands an emphatic “no,” as it captures the fundamental issue feminist critiques of reason must address. My own work on reason and woman begins in a 1981 essay, where with some temerity I ask: “Is the Sex of the Knower Epistemologically Significant?” (Code 1981). Overlooked in the process of compiling the 1983 landmark collection Discovering Reality (Harding and Hintikka 1983), the essay has reclaimed its place, now, as a founding text in feminist critiques of reason. I repeat its title, if not its substance, as the title of the first chapter of What Can She Know?, to pose the question still more searchingly, setting the stage for my subsequent work in which critiques of the hegemony of pure patriarchal reason are a central if not always the dominant theme. Questions about who the knowing subject is or was are traditionally absent and deemed inconsequential, through the Cartesian and Kantian traditions for which detachment and autonomy are definitive markers of reason/rationality, and (albeit with interruptions and variations) into the Anglo-American epistemology of the twentieth century, on which I now focus (if not exclusively). Thus posing a question about the sex of the knower – or about her/his race, ethnicity, sexuality, class, or any other specific situation or characteristic – was at best unusual, at worst outrageous in the early 1980s, when the “S knows that p” rubric dominated formal epistemology, and both S and p were mere place-holders in an inquiry devoted to determining a priori necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of knowledge “in general.” Their specificity in any of its aspects was irrelevant to twentieth-century versions of the project of pure inquiry. Reason figures in such analyses as the taken-for-granted if unarticulated, unanalysed pre-condition for the very possibility of inquiry that would issue in knowledge. Its neutrality, universality, and replicability from knower to knower were, and should be, hors de question. Moreover, since knowing

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was descriptively and normatively a practice of the intellect alone, questions that referred to embodiment, as questions about the sex of the knower inevitably do, had no place in analyses committed to objective impartiality as an overarching epistemic value. Nor were questions posed about her or his race, class, history, ethnicity, sexuality, emotionality, physicality, or any other subjective characteristics that might have played a constitutive part in her or his capacity to engage in rational inquiry, or to be perceived, judged, and acknowledged as a bona fide man – or woman? – of reason. In view of the specific historical-cultural factors that contributed to the creation of autonomous man, the man of reason, it is indeed curious that such contingent factors should be assumed to give way to a “natural,” necessarily disembodied rationality that could be everyone’s and no one’s. In What Can She Know? I discuss salient aspects of woman’s place within a tacitly masculine reason to evaluate the social-political effects of her positioning. In considering the contested status of reason for women, however, it is vital to note that questions about the sex of the knower do not proceed from any assumption that what is true and rational for men will be untrue and irrational for women, or vice versa. Rather, the intent is to expose the tacit yet persistent constitutive and exclusionary effects, in western metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, of uncontested assumptions about the maleness of reason: effects that have filtered through into popular conceptions of what knowledge is, who knowers properly are, and whose knowledge claims claim authority. Thus, the metaphysical implications of the autonomy-of-reason ideal derive from and are upheld by a starkly individualist ontology for which knowers are and should be self-sufficient, disengaged, and maximally autonomous in themselves and in what they say and do. Epistemologically, they neither need to nor should rely on other people for their knowledge, whether they achieve it by reason alone (for rationalists) or by reason aided by the senses (for empiricists). Ethically, they are autonomous in their moral reasoning and the actions it informs; dispassionate and impartial in their judgements, and singly answerable for/to the principles that guide and the consequences that follow their actions. Both ethically and epistemologically, reliance on other people is conceived as an unacceptable compromise of self-sufficiency; an abdication of epistemic and moral responsibility.

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Working from diverse conceptions of self, subjectivity, and agency, feminists have sought to unsettle these effects of abstract rationality, especially with regard to the uneasy place women and other Others from the “man-of-reason” norm have been allocated in and in relation to them. Yet it is not easy to applaud female/feminist efforts to resist these hegemonic, putatively “rational” modes without seeming to advise women to settle for unreason, irrationality. Sally Haslanger summarizes the dilemma: “in spite of efforts to cast rationality as a ‘human’ ideal, it is in fact a masculine one” (2002: 216), she observes. The assumption that rationality is masculine “forms a background to common Western conceptions of gender difference that have a deep influence on everyday life” (2002: 216). Still more profoundly, “The reification of masculine ideals as human ideals ensures that one’s efforts to be feminine will consistently undermine one’s efforts to realize the ideal for persons (and similarly the ideals for morality and knowledge)” (2002: 216). What, then, is a woman to do? Women who seek to dissociate themselves from the practices and ways of being ideal Reason/masculinity underwrites, among which adversarial, impartially instrumental epistemic practice is a salient example, are caught between recognizing the productive, emancipatory worth of cognitive – i.e. rational – processes commonly devalued as “feminine” and recognizing that such processes have their source in oppressive and exploitative positions reserved for women in the reasoning of the masters, and in the social structures it legitimates. These are just some of the dilemmas those of us working within and against this legacy must face. Along with other feminist philosophers, in my writing over the past three decades I have been developing proposals and critical analyses intended to “denaturalize,” and hence to dislodge these entrenched presuppositions of rational inquiry. There is evidence in the current AngloAmerican philosophical climate that certain larger shifts are taking place, if gradually. I will cite some of those to which I have contributed and which are integral to my position with respect to “reason and woman.” In What Can She Know? I cite Annette Baier’s observation: “A person, perhaps, is best seen as one who was long enough dependent upon other persons to acquire the essential arts of personhood. Persons essentially are second persons” (1985: 84). Implications of this claim point to a repudiation of individualism in its ethical and epistemological manifestations that

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aligns well with feminist reasons for rejecting abstract individualism. Furthermore, in my view, such interdependence extends, variously, throughout human lives and across their positive and negative aspects. From such dependence we learn to reason, to know, to judge, to behave: such autonomy as we might achieve will have been achieved in interdependence. Yet the claim does not entail renouncing individuality, for uniqueness, creativity, and moral-political-epistemic accountability grow out of that interdependence, and continually turn to it for affirmation or contestation. In both moral and epistemic activity, “personal” knowledge depends upon and contributes to common knowledge. Moreover, for Baier, there can be no purely intellectual morality, for educating the emotions and passions is central to acquiring the essential arts of personhood. An ingrained and earnestly maintained fact/value and reason/emotion dichotomy, inherited from the starkest aspects of logical positivism, feeds into an implausible yet widespread conviction that affect has no place in rational judgement for it is bound to sully reason’s purity and clarity. It derives, if perhaps not explicitly, from what amounts to a caricature of emotion and affect as unruly forces, beyond control, and thus quintessentially irrational. By contrast, and I think wisely, writing of methods that will enable inquirers “to form true beliefs and avoid forming false beliefs” (Jones 2002: 155), Karen Jones argues that even though “rules” can offer guidance in such projects, “some of the capacities needed to apply them correctly will be affective and perhaps even moral capacities, such as the capacity for empathy” (2002: 155) which, she contends, appears to be “important for achieving the ... selftrust and trust in others ... essential for wise judgment” (2002: 155). In consequence, she urges investigating “the connection between affective and cognitive capacities and between epistemic virtues and moral virtues” (2002: 155). If analyses of affect were to focus on appropriately directed interest, curiosity, concern, love, affection, fear, dismay, wariness, pride, humility, to name just a few affective modalities that play into human cognitive, moral, and existential issues, it would be increasingly difficult to condemn emotion, tout court, as irrational. Indeed, in numerous situations, failure to manifest “appropriate” affect would signal a failure of rationality. Baier’s conception of “second persons” is continuous with the view of “epistemic responsibility” I develop in my book by that title (Code 1987), whose central insight, albeit with refinements and variations, continues to

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inform my current thinking about reason, rationality, and the politics of knowledge. Departing radically from the conception of the abstract, infinitely replicable individual as the paradigmatic knower, the very idea of responsible knowing implies that knowers can exercise choice in how, and how well, to know the world, to know other people, and to “use” their knowledge responsibly, or not. Such choices do not emerge from introspection alone, which is notoriously unreliable and indeed often unreasonable. Instead they are derived from and enacted in communal epistemicethical activity, where knowing is more than a matter of merely recording “data” presenting themselves to a mind prepared. They require a responsiveness to the intersubjective and physical detail of situation, which cannot be realized in the abstract. Knowing is about making rational sense of the world – this world – in its multiplicity and confusion, its mixed messages and diverse meanings. In these respects, too, it is a product of both affect and reason. In short, this reconception of epistemic life contests a dichotomy integral how the man of reason is characterized, whose “dispassionate” knowing excludes, repudiates any emotional influence in his moral and cognitive demeanour. Maintaining that emotions compromise, sully the purity of knowledge, compromise autonomy, cloud the impartial judgement which is imagined to be the sine qua non for rational knowing and doing requires philosophers to work with a mere caricature of human reason, affect, and action which leaves no place for recognizing the wisdom – the practical wisdom (phronesis) – that seems, for Aristotle and numerous others since, to have counted as rational, reasonable in its capacity to animate judicious, wisely engaged thought and action. Linda Alcoff, for example (following Charles Taylor), endorses such a reading of phronesis, conceived as “an embedded reason” framed by and dependent on, specific culturally and historically produced concepts and assumptions for which, she persuasively affirms, “reasons are no less reasons because the conditions of their intelligibility involve a cultural locatedness” (Alcoff 2006: 50). She contrasts proceduralist approaches to reason, for which procedures “transcend their location” and have no need to consider questions about knowers’ identity or cultural differences with Taylor’s hermeneutic account for which rationality is manifested in comparative judgements “made from within a given substantive horizon” (2006: 56-57) where criteria of judgement itself are

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crafted. Drawing these thoughts together with a reading of a Hegelian conception of “identity as dependent on recognition,” she develops a sensitive reading for which “epistemic and moral ... agency require a certain structure of possible intersubjective relationships” (2006: 56-57). In many respects, this analysis is continuous with my readings of Baier’s “second person” analyses, and productively so. Moving away from “S knows that p” cognition, which tacitly assumes a solitary and monologic knower-as-spectator uttering his knowledge claims into a void, epistemological positions developed around a “second person” conception of subjectivity represent the production of knowledge as a communal, often cooperative though also a competitive, contestatory activity. Knowledge claims are modes of address, speech acts, moments in exchanges that assume and indeed rely on the participation of (an)other subject(s), an interlocutor, an interpretive, conversational epistemic community. Thus, for example, Baier maintains that even changing one’s mind is possible only for a member of a community that trains its members in criticism, affirmation, and second thinking: “realize,” she proposes, signals membership in a group of rational agents, not outsider status. Ludwig Wittgenstein’s observation that “Knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement” (1968: § 378) captures some of these shifts secondperson thinking introduces into discussions of rationality, and is germane to questions of epistemic responsibility and interpretive engagement. Yet the capacity to gain acknowledgement as a bona fide rational participant in epistemic exchanges is gender-related in ways Wittgenstein would not have envisaged, and its gender specificity is multidimensional. Before she can even hope to achieve acknowledgement in many public and private deliberations, a woman has to free herself from stereotyped conceptions of her “underclass” epistemic status, her cognitive incapacity, and her everthreatening irrationality. Politically, spaces have to be created where a woman’s knowledge can be judged sufficiently authoritative to warrant acknowledgement, and such spaces have to be constructed variously to respond to differences between and among women. Such processes are neither individual nor instantaneous in their achievement: they require sustained collective effort. My thinking about reason, rationality, and knowledge in What Can She Know? (1991) develops through the thoughts I articulate in Rhetorical

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Spaces: Essays on (Gendered Locations) (1995: see especially chapter 10, “Critiques of Pure Reason”) on which I draw in the opening sections of this essay. It reemerges in a different guise in my most recent book, Ecological Thinking: The Politics of Epistemic Location (2006),3 for which one of the principal sources of inspiration is Val Plumwood’s challenge to conceptions of reason as mastery as she presents it in Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (1993) and elaborates it in numerous other works, notable among them the essay from which I take the epigraph to this analysis. In the diagnostic Introduction to the book I reiterate my claim that, in the early twenty-first century, ethical self-mastery, political mastery over unruly and aberrant Others, and epistemic mastery over the “external” world pose as the still-attainable goals of the Enlightenment legacy, with its governing conceptions of impersonal, instrumental reason and rationality. These discourses of mastery derive from and underwrite a reductive imaginary in which epistemic and moral agents are represented as isolated units on an indifferent landscape, to which their relation, too, is one of disengaged indifference. They enlist ready-made categories to contain the personal, social, and physical-natural world within a neatly manageable array of “kinds,” obliterating differences in order to assemble the confusion of the world into maximally homogeneous units. In contradistinction to these hegemonic discourses of mastery and domination, ecological thinking offers a frame for reconfiguring knowledge, rationality, sociality, and subjectivity, and reexamining the potential of epistemic and ethico-political practices to produce habitats where people can live well together,4 and respectfully with and within the physical/natural world. Being-in-the-world informed by ecological thinking differs radically from the masterful way of autonomous man, whose assumption of mastery over all he surveys allows surveying to substitute for engaged participation, and mastery to suppress diversity for the sake of instrumental simplicity. The challenge for such projects is to craft a conceptual apparatus sufficiently sensitive and powerful to carry them forward, sufficiently complex to generate innovative ways of inhabiting, engaging with, contemplating, the physical and human world. Feminist, post-colonial, and critical race 3 4

Here I am drawing from the Introduction to this book. The term “ethico-political” is from Bar On and Ferguson (1998).

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theory, with other “new” social theories, are sustained projects of critiquing and displacing conceptual structures that hold oppressive social orders in place. So these are not “just” verbal matters: revisionary conceptual frames are practically-materially efficacious: contra Kant, they require “us” to take account of the practical. Ecological thinking, then, is about putting into circulation a radically innovative conceptual apparatus; enabling it to infiltrate the social order where it can expand to undermine the intransigent hierarchical arrangements that hold it in place. For Plumwood, the dominant western concept of reason is a principal contributor to arrangements that are “exclusive of women and other oppressed groups and ... most fully represented by privileged social groups” (Plumwood 2002: 11). If it can establish a firm enough footing, ecological thinking – like feminism at its best – will re-conceive such human and “natural” locations and relations all the way down. Ecological thinking works with a conception of materially constituted and situated subjectivity for which place, embodied locatedness, sociality, and discursive-epistemic interdependence are conditions for the very possibility of knowledge and action. It ushers in a renewed conception of responsible deliberative-negotiative citizenship, as responsible in its knowing as in its doing It naturalizes feminist epistemology’s guiding question “Whose knowledge are we talking about?,” situates it in places whose intersections with other locations and their occupants, whose multiple structures of power and privilege and distributions of epistemic authority, reveal their epistemological significance. My claim, then is that an ecologically reconfigured epistemology offers a conceptual frame within which to construct a responsive-responsible theory of knowledge, rationality, and subjectivity, responsive to singularity, diversity and community; responsibly committed to knowing well so as to counteract the oppressions that the epistemologies of mastery sustain, and sensitive to the multiple responsibilities invoked in claiming a place within naturalistic inquiry. The proposal is naturalist, environmentalist, and democratic in the transformative inspiration of its enactment of thoughtful epistemic practice, and in its belief in the salience of theories of knowledge to emancipatory social movements. It requires stretching the limits of imagination toward responsive and responsible local sensitivity. Interpretively, recalling my reading of Alcoff’s text, a hermeneutic of suspicion wary of univer-

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salizing judgements and premature closure, while cognizant of the explanatory potential of comparative, analogically interpretive analyses, counts among its active ingredients. Suspicion is directed, principally, at the excesses of scientism, reductionism, and the instrumental-utilitarian moral and political reason that sustains an ethos of dominance and mastery, where a dislocated knower-as-spectator seeks to predict, manipulate, and control the behaviour of the material world and of other “less enlightened” people. The imperialism of over-developed countries imposing their knowledge, social orderings, customs, economics and other values, with scant concern for local sensitivities of land or of people, is one of the most visible global – anti-ecological – products of such thinking. More locally, the individualistic rhetoric of self-reliance, derived from the circumstances of a privileged few to rationalize dismantling social welfare and justify persistent patterns of hierarchy and inequality, requires analogous critical intervention. (Here again, is Plumwood: “The master perspectives expressed in dualistic forms of rationality are systematically distorted in ways which make them unable to recognize the other, to acknowledge dependency on ... the other. ... These forms of rationality are unable to acknowledge the other as one who is essential and unique, non-interchangeable and non replaceable.” 2002: 30.) The dominant model of knowledge and rationality in Anglo-American philosophy produces an epistemological monoculture both in “the academy” and in everyday life, whose consequences are to suppress ways of thinking and knowing that depart from the stringent dictates of an exaggerated ideal of scientific knowledge-making. Developed out of a reading of the Enlightenment legacy that emphasizes “the calculability of the world” as what makes knowledge-as-mastery possible, and reinforced by the successes of physical and psychological science, this model demarcates the epistemic domain to exclude from knowledge properly so called “whatever does not conform to the rule of computation and utility” (Horkheimer and Adorno 1994: 46). By contrast, specifically located, multifaceted analyses of knowledge production and circulation in diverse historical, demographic and geographic locations generate more responsible knowing than the reductionism endemic in the positivist post-Enlightenment legacy can singlehandedly allow.

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Ecological thinking is interdisciplinary. It works across and through a range of subject matters and disciplinary territories, often acting as a scavenger in its quest for viable epistemic sources and resources. It requires knowing the detail of place, population, and particularity, and thus requires reading, talking, thinking, studying widely, beyond the artificial boundaries of mainstream philosophy. It emerges from and addresses multiple interwoven, sometimes contradictory social-epistemological positionings – feminist, classist, environmental, post-colonial, racist, sexist – with the result that its detail and implications require multi-faceted chartings. Yet ecological thinking is not simply thinking about ecology or about “the environment,” although these figure among its concerns. It is a revisioned engagement with knowledge, subjectivity, politics, ethics, rationality, science, citizenship, and agency that pervades and reconfigures theory and practice at multiple levels. It does not reduce to a set of rules or methods; it may play out differently from location to location; but it is sufficiently coherent to be interpreted and enacted across widely diverse situations. As I conceive it, ecological thinking can generate responsible remappings of the epistemic and social-political terrains, animated by a attentiveness to diversity and specificity, and by a commitment to ideals of citizenship and the preservation of the public trust, all of which concerns are notably absent from putatively universal, a priori theories of knowledge and dislocated reason. It proposes ways of engaging with patterns, places, and interconnections of lives and events in and across the human and other-thanhuman world, in scientific and secular projects of inquiry where the traditional dividing line between the Naturwißenschaften (natural sciences) and Geisteswißenschaften (human sciences) is blurred, and where epistemic and ethical-political matters are reciprocally informative. In putting ecological thinking to work since the publication of this book, I have often entered epistemological inquiry through elaborated case studies, or narratives, working from the assumption that the reasoning required in thinking well, ecologically, is manifested in complex, multidimensional accounts, where interpretation, discussion, and diverse forms of consultation play a significant part. Rationality, then, is put to work in evaluating, comparing, contrasting, interpreting and reinterpreting, checking and counter-checking. With such thoughts in mind, I believe, Karen Jones proposes that “practical epistemology” should not be understood as the

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mere application of rules. As I note above, with reference to concrete, contested epistemological problems, she proposes that it is important to what I call epistemically responsible inquiry to investigate “the connection between affective and cognitive capacities and between epistemic virtues and moral virtues” (Jones 2002: 155). Such thoughts are continuous with my view that neither the monologic, punctiform, one-liner knowledge claims of mainstream epistemology, nor mere multiples of them, are exemplary of the kinds of knowledge people need if they are to navigate the world rationally and well, nor can they rightfully pose as models to which more complex knowledge should assimilate. Knowing that p, chances are that I know nothing else at all. They are, so to speak, in and of themselves. These are some considerations that emerge in response to my question “what can she know?” They require complex answers that incorporate shifts in sedimented conceptions of subjectivity, knowledge, and moralpolitical rationality, most notable among which in its implications for the autonomy-of-reason credo is a shift of emphasis away from individualism, toward taking intersubjectivity seriously into account.5 This shift is evident, if insufficiently heralded, in recent work in social epistemology which, I believe, claims its title from the central place it accords to testimony and knowledge-conveying exchanges in the real world. Many social epistemologists work with extended, situated examples of epistemic negotiation, analysing the effects of linguistic shifts away from impersonal claims that “S knows that p” to the language of speakers and hearers evident, for example, in Edward Craig’s Knowledge and the State of Nature (1990), and Miranda Fricker’s Epistemic Injustice (2007). Where the Sknows-that-p rubric enabled epistemologists to transcend the vicissitudes of the world in seeking a priori necessary and sufficient conditions for “knowledge in general,” social epistemologists return to and reclaim the world, both human and other-than-human, with its incoherence and messiness, its contradictions and specificities, to engage constructively and critically, descriptively and normatively, with real interactions and negotiations. Hence the very idea of “knowledge in general” is drained of content. Ethical-political questions – such issues as trust, power, advocacy, negotia5

Here I invoke the title of my essay, “Taking Subjectivity Into Account” (1993). The essay offers one of the now-best-known readings of my thinking on woman and reason.

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tion, and epistemic community – inevitably enter the discourse, and not to the detriment of rational, responsibly objective inquiry. Giving and receiving testimony involves many of these issues, and it is on an analysis of the politics of testimony that, I suggest, the next feminist critiques of reason will focus. References Alcoff L. 1995. Is the Feminist Critique of Reason Rational? Philosophical Topics, 23 (2): 1-25. Alcoff L. 2006. Visible Identities: Race, Gender, and the Self. New York: Oxford University Press. Baier A. 1985. Cartesian Persons. In her Postures of the Mind: Essays on Mind and Morals. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Bar On B.-A. and Ferguson A. 1998 (eds.). Daring To Be Good. New York: Routledge. Code L. 1981. Is the Sex of the Knower Epistemologically Significant? Metaphilosophy, 12 (3 and 4): 267-276; repr. with Postscript in T. Bynum and W. Vitek (eds.), Applying Philosophy. New York: Metaphilosophy Foundation, 1988. Code L. 1987. Epistemic Responsibility. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Code L. 1991. What Can She Know? Feminist Theory and the Construction of Knowledge. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Code L. 1993. Taking Subjectivity Into Account. In L. Alcoff and E. Potter (eds.), Feminist Epistemologies. New York: Routledge. Code L. 1995. Rhetorical Spaces: Essays on (Gendered) Locations. New York: Routledge. Code L. 2006. Ecological Thinking: The Politics of Epistemic Location. New York: Oxford University Press. Craig E. 1990. Knowledge and the State of Nature: An Essay in Conceptual Synthesis. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Foucault M. 1984. What Is Enlightenment?, C. Porter transl. In P. Rabinow (ed.), The Foucault Reader. New York: Pantheon Books.

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Fricker M. 2007. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harding S. and Hintikka M. 1983 (eds.). Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science. Dordrecht: Reidel. Haslanger S. 2002. On Being Objective and Being Objectified. In L. Antony and C. Witt (eds.), A Mind of One’s Own: Feminist Essays on Reason and Objectivity, 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Horkheimer M. and Adorno T. 1994. The Concept of Enlightenment, J. Cumming transl. In C. Merchant (ed.), Ecology. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. Jones K. 2002. The Politics of Credibility. In L. Antony and C. Witt (eds.), A Mind of One’s Own: Feminist Essays on Reason and Objectivity, 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Kant I. 1781 and 1787. Critique of Pure Reason, N. Kemp Smith transl. New York: St Martin’s Press, 1929. Kelly J. 1984. Did Women Have a Renaissance? In her Women, History, and Theory: The Essays of Joan Kelly. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Lloyd G. 1984. The Man of Reason: ‘Male’ and ‘Female’ in Western Philosophy, 2nd ed. 1994 (from which I quote). London: Routledge. Lopez McAlister L. 1996 (ed.). Hypatia’s Daughters: Fifteen Hundred Years of Women Philosophers. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Nye A. 1988. Feminist Theory and the Philosophies of Man. London: Croom Helm. Plumwood V. 1993. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. London: Routledge. Plumwood V. 2002. The Politics of Reason: Toward a Feminist Logic. In R. Joffe Falmagne and M. Hass (eds.), Representing Reason: Feminist Theory and Formal Logic. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Rooney P. 1994. Recent Work in Feminist Discussions of Reason. American Philosophical Quarterly, 31 (1): 1-21. Williams B. 1978. Descartes: The Project of Pure Inquiry. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

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Wittgenstein L. 1968. On Certainty, G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright ed., D. Paul and G.E.M. Anscombe transl. Oxford: Blackwell. Wollstonecraft M. 1792. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. London: Walter Scott.

REASON AND POLITICS Liz Sperling

Abstract. Current debates on political reason tend to concentrate on Rawls’ concept of public reason. This is a means by which the inevitable coercion resulting from decisions in diverse and crowded democracies are legitimated by free and equal citizens behaving reciprocally in their contributions to public reason. As such, it might be argued that public reason breaks down the hierarchies that have traditionally excluded some potential participants to public deliberation. This chapter considers how public reason might be enhanced in liberal democracies after a period in which political reason has arguably been undermined by market-led consumerism. The resulting loss of social cohesion and trust in citizen to citizen, and citizen to politician and service provider relationships lends itself to consideration of the mechanisms by which public reason can be instituted not only as a means to ensure that free citizens live together co-operatively, but as a educator in public reason itself.

1. Introduction The mid-twentieth century witnessed a reinvigorated debate on liberal democratic theory. The pervasion of the mass media may well have been a catalyst for this: when Rawls was writing A Theory of Justice (1972), and Nozick Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974), the anti-war, civil rights and feminist movements would have been maturing, and good media coverage was available. Perhaps for the first time, citizen and state relationships were writ large in everyday life rather than a remote concept brought to life in the ballot box or the hustings, or so mundane that they went unnoticed. As the political was acknowledged as the personal for everyone and not just feminists who coined the phrase, the liberal democratic contract could be questioned. How to reconcile the myriad of apparently incompatible views and wants or rights in crowded democracies was once again on the drafting tables of political thinkers. The balance between individual and state sovereignty, and thereby responsibility, was inherently argued in competing theories of individualistic market and more collective models, all of which rest on the notion of rationality. Whereas when Hobbes, Locke and later giants of political thought could rely on politics as an elite ac-

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tivity, despite their nods to wider involvement, contemporary thinkers had to account for the fact of greater participation and mass literacy, both literal and political. In other words, the social contract had come of age and the universal citizenship of rational human beings required a rethink in terms of political activity and relationships, based on over 300 years of experience. The remit was not to challenge liberal democracy but to make it inclusive and just. Very crudely, the choice offered was between selfreliant economic actors using reason to maximise self-interest, or reasonable individuals placing their interests in a context of co-operation. The former was inclusive and just as everyone was equally able to make choices within their personal socio-economic circumstances; the latter was intended to ensure equality of opportunity for even the least well-off in society. Political historians may look back on the first decade of the 21st century and wonder what the debate about public reason was about as reason seemed to have little to do with western liberal politics. A global economic crisis, the “usual” level of conflict across the globe punctuated by two wars involving major western states, media exposure of political corruption at home and abroad, and voter apathy in the mature democracies created a perception of autocratic decision-making, often by non-elected personnel outside of democratic institutions, and political unresponsiveness if not incompetence. In 2009 in the UK, a media spree concerning politicians’ expense claims, and later expense claims in other major organisations, led to public clamour for MPs’ blood and the first ever election success of extreme right-wing representatives to the European Parliament. Indeed, it might seem that the tenets of public reason were well hidden, politics being pursued based on the news headlines of the day. Political and economic crises with the concomitant crash in confidence in correlated institutions may have placed some credence in the restoration of the politics of reason as political relationships are re-examined. 2. Perspectives on Political Reason Debates on political reason tend to analyse the intricacies of Rawls’ work suggesting that, currently, his model of public reason dominates the discourse. This is not to ignore the market model of individual politicoeconomic reason which appears entrenched as western governments have

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embedded to the right of the liberal spectrum. Rather, as the consequences of individual reason based on self-maximisation are increasingly manifest globally, attention has returned to the concept of public reason as a potential means of redefining political relationships. As such, this section will concentrate on public reason, considering contemporary theory and debate. The objective of public reason is to ensure that any state coercion caused in the creation and maintenance of co-operative socio-political relations in the context of contemporary diversity, or reasonable pluralism, is legitimated so that everyone can accept the outcomes (Rawls 1999). Under circumstances of reciprocity, free and equal citizens work together to reach mutually acceptable principles, of both constitution and deliberation, by justifying their perspectives in the context of the basic structure of society. In other words, as Larmore (2003: 378) says, public reason ensures the conditions of co-existence under free institutions. What public reason attempts is to filter out irreconcilable differences from comprehensive doctrines, which encompass the complete set of values that define individuals’ attitudes, behaviours and relationships, to reach consensus on the constitutional essentials by which a well-ordered society is achieved (Rawls 1993: 175, 1999). To manage this, it is necessary to exclude aspects that are not “political,” for example, religious, ideological or philosophical belief, and concentrate only on what pertains to social and political institutions. This does not mean that moral values need not be considered in public reason, although Gaus (2003: 183-4) argues that, for Rawls, any belief that is irreconcilable with others is not public and, therefore, not subject to political reason. Rather, they are negotiated and defended, deliberation enabling changes in participants’ rationalities (McLaverty and Halpin 2008: 198) until either they are rejected or accepted by all. Such a process requires a sense of civic obligation (Boettcher 2007: 246) such that, not only do citizens respect each other’s comprehensive doctrines, they can accept that rejection of such is grounded in reason. The capacity of public reason to include all comprehensive doctrines leads Watson (2007: 473) to suggest that it defines citizenship in such a way as to undermine traditional exclusionary hierarchies. Indeed, it is interesting that over the years Rawls responded to critiques of public reason, developing the concept to incorporate issues such as ethnicity, religion and gender (Rawls 1999: 9). What appears to have occurred now is that the emphasis has shifted from arguing

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the grounds of exclusion to consideration of how public reason shapes deliberation to cast diversity into consensus. Events affecting the global economy since 2008 have seen a wider significance given to “the public” and how they should participate in defining a future order to ensure stability, individualism and deregulation of economic sectors being seen as a prime cause of the capitalist melt-down. It may be surprising in the twenty-first century that we still do not agree what or who comprises “the public” or the boundaries between this and other spheres of socio-political activity. Watson (2007: 486) states that we can no longer just see the public as the opposite of the private realm. This is supported by Craig (2007), among others, who suggests that all citizens are equal in terms of ability to participate in the process of public reasoning. If this is so, then groups that have historically been denied full ability to act as reasonable citizens, whether by dint of their private status, and/or because their activities were perceived as not being “public,” should now be fully incorporated public actors. It is the concept of public reason that marks this as more than the traditional formal definition of equal citizenship and, therefore, potentially more inclusive. Indeed, it is citizens’ reason that defines what is public and open to political debate (Watson 2007: 473; Boettcher 2007; Larmore 2003). In doing so, they contribute to public deliberation from their comprehensive doctrines, tempering the moral components so that only shared values, those that are acceptable to other participants, are brought into public reasoning (Baehr 2008; Bennett 2003). For example, women as a majority “group” historically excluded due to their “private” interests being outside the remit of public deliberation, can bring issues, such as prostitution to full and reasonable public debate. However, Baehr (2008) notes that their reasoning can only be on public grounds; harm caused in terms of the unequal distribution of social goods, rather than “moral” arguments which are unlikely to be universally established. In other words, injustice in terms of unequal distribution of power is a compelling argument in the context of public reason, not moral arguments regarding the commodification and exploitation of prostitutes. This type of management of argumentation is argued by Lister (2008) to alienate citizens in the context of public reason. The original function of public reason, according to Rawls (1999), was to determine constitutional essentials. Commentators define this in different ways: concurrence in the

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terms of debate (Craig 2007; Boettcher 2007); legitimation of state coercion (Bennett 2008; Gaus 2003: 198) or options for political consideration (Neal 2008), and acceptance of the terms of social co-operation (Lister 2008; Larmore 2003). Thus, public reason is either seen as a process for determining the parameters of public deliberation or a framework for political debate. In either case the functioning of public reason rests on respecting the inputs from all participants so that consensus on shared values is achieved. In effect this brings us full circle in that respect can be dependent on external drivers such as the media (Svendsen 2008: 19; Barry 2005: 180), institutional norms (Craig 2007: 163), and historical relations (Han and Heldman 2007: 19; Weedon 2004: 29). It is possible that either citizens self-censor their contributions to public reason or are censored, both on grounds that moral values are not legitimate foundations for public reasoning (Bennett 2008). This suggests that citizens are, in fact, not open to mutual understanding, and that they do not feel free to express their values, leading to the contention of equal citizenship as integral to public reason being misplaced. The role of citizens as reasoning actors may be academic when considering Rawls’ assertion that their exercise of public reason is reactive. It is judges, representatives, CEOs and members of non-governmental organisations who are the key actors and whose decisions and activities are to be based on reason. Citizens can only think as if they are decisionmakers (Rawls 1999: 135) effectively restricting their reason to holding officials to account. However, examples of public reason in action are given that belay this limited depiction. Craig (2007) records how public reasoning can be changed through what he calls “ritual protest,” in this case concerning civil rights. In other words, demonstrations and other political acts can define the political agenda and shift the focus of public reason, forcing individuals as well as organisations and governments to apply their reasoning differently and to “new” issues. This does not treat citizens as equal or aim to find consensus in the first instance, but is about pushing the boundaries of accepted reasonable politics and political relationships to bring about a radical shift in attitudes and behaviours. This may well produce a new consensus further along the road, but it is not about conceding to accepted institutional parameters. Moreover, here we see the overt moral aspects of comprehensive doctrines as key to public reason. Bennett (2008:

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55) suggests that this is not antithetical to public reason in that it is a public decision whether and what moral inputs are justified or not. Fundamentally, public reason is an ideal that assumes firstly that people are reasonable, and also that they should be able to identify and eliminate intractable differences to achieve consensus on a justified level of coercion (Michelman 2003: 396). However, Gaus (2003: 213) concludes from the status of public reason as an ideal that all that can be hoped for is “reasonable disagreement” as it is unlikely that close agreement can be reached even on constitutional essentials. As such, he says, democracy is a system for umpiring difference and no citizen is required to discard their moral values as long as the authority and decision of the umpire is accepted. What reason achieves is public justification, for which consensus is unnecessary. While reasonable citizens may not be able to agree on proposals or even an agenda, Gaus (2003: 223) claims that most unreasonable proposals are unlikely to be accepted. This suggests that public reason does not render citizens equal or respectful as the implication is that a majoritarian or dominant doctrine determines what is reasonable or unreasonable without recourse to public reasoning. It could be suggested, following this argument, that reasoning citizens accept and consent to the products of deliberation as long as it is evident that these have arisen from the conventions of public reason; in other words as long as the game, and their part in it, is seen to be played fairly the results are perceived as being legitimate. The current state of public reason appears to be that of consensus with regard to acceptance of Rawls’ model but disagreement in its meaning and implementation to the extent that Dryzek (2006: 103) states that even market models have to be validated through the medium of other discourses. This can be assumed to be by rational individuals in deliberative forums. The process of public reasoning is based on deliberation by rational individuals and networks, but the mechanism for whittling away disputed views is unclear. It may be accepted that this happens as an ideal but that does not suffice as a political practice, leaving the field open to either the “norms” of basic pluralism, albeit based on rational individuals, as opposed to either equal or unequal groups and corporations, exerting influence over a “neutral” state, or to the exertion of market individualism. Alternatively, appeals to public reason could be rejected as impracticable, no matter how many knots Rawls and his commentators tie in attempting to

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explain how it might work. More likely, there are elements of public reasoning in contemporary liberal polities as well as other models of rational politics that have been overshadowed in the debates on Rawls’ concept. On the other hand, it could be argued that western democracies have lost any claims to rationality and reason (Levine 2008). 3. The Retreat of Reason Nozick’s response to Rawls in the 1970s places reason firmly with the individual. Certainly public reason is a process in which individuals’ reason produces a consensus in order to legitimate the least level of coercion possible in diverse and crowded democracies. However, the individualism of Nozick’s model is uncompromising, with any interference in individual freedom being a coercive act where there is no acceptable level of coercion. Anarchy, State and Utopia (Nozick 1974) defines the historical outcome of Hayek’s Road to Serfdom (1944) in which the chink of post-war collectivism has mutated into the despotic, all-embracing state. Rational individuals would not allow this to occur, instead choosing their sociopolitical and economic relationships in a regulated framework that assures maximum liberty. Logically, then, any threat to the maximisation of liberty might be dealt with not by reason but through fear of loss of freedom. The post-war consensus of the mixed economy began to unravel in the mid-1970s. In the USA Rawls and Nozick were arguing out the liberal revival from centrist and right-wing perspectives against the backdrop of various human rights movements and the eventual election of Ronald Reagan on a clear neo-conservative ticket. In the UK, the rise of what became known as “Thatcherism” moved the consensus to the right with one of Prime Minister Thatcher’s most in/famous sound-bites being straight from Nozick’s work; that there is no such thing as society but only individual men, women and families (Nozick 1974: 33; Keay 1987). The release of citizens from responsibility to others, and the so-called new freedom or “right” to maximise self-interests rested reason not only in the individual but without recourse to the wider socio-political and economic good beyond how that related to maintaining maximum individual liberty. What resulted was the rationality of unbridled consumerism or the “politics of lifestyle” (Barnett et al. 2008: 626). It may be that there was little reason

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involved in individuals’ decision-making: parents succumbed to kidspower based on aggressive advertising and peer pressure, accruing large debts to ensure that their offspring had the “right” trainers and games; people took out mortgages that they could not afford because they were told that not only home-ownership but houses previously beyond their reach were available to them; and carpet-baggers in the UK ensured that mutual savings societies were brought into the private sector, rebadged as banks, and in effect sold to shareholders. Indeed, Hobbes might have recognised his state where the acquisitiveness of sovereign individuals was paramount and state power reserved for the exertion of internal and external law and order. For governments, appeals to maintaining the means of individual wealth creation, including tax cuts, increased home ownership and general consumer choice, enabled, perhaps required, those officials whom Rawls saw as the epitome of public reason to prey on fears regarding their loss. Svendsen argues that there is a continuous, “low-intensity fear” (2008: 46) pervading contemporary societies that creates general uncertainties and mistrust. Whether it is fear of losing a job or home based on lived experience and knowledge, or paralysis of individual’s decision-making in case the result is not as expected, Svendsen states that “fear undermines rationality” (2008: 38) and that actions consequently derive from emotion. The Hobbesian acquisitiveness encouraged by New Right thinkers, governments, political parties and financial institutions has resulted in economically overstretched citizens having much more to fear losing than might have been the case had the public sector been supported fully. Governments now have the task of addressing fears of loss, if not in the interests of citizens and constituents, in order to win elections. Thus, the language of fear infiltrates political discourse with political candidates and parties trying to outdo each other on who will raise taxes or cut public services most, whose defence policy protects or endangers the state more, and which is the most firm on law and order to protect citizens domestically. In addition to the everyday aspects of life are the crises that punctuate domestic and international politics such as international terrorism and threats from “rogue” states. To appeal on such grounds requires belief in the “fact” that the state, and therefore individual liberty, is in danger, that law and order has broken down, and that either an individual’s earnings are at threat of being purloined by the state and/or they will lose access to good

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public services. Political speeches and articles in the mass media abound with examples. It may be that there is a schism between the reason of governments and other organs of governance, and that of citizens. The rationality of government is to induce certain behaviours ensuring that objectives are achieved (Barnett et al. 2008: 630). The politics of fear may well be “reasonable” in terms of achieving political, and more commercial, goals, whether this is staying in power or providing services, either public or private. On the other hand, Levine (2008) argues that a retreat from reason involves acceptance rather than reasoned thought. By “invoking simple enduring truths” (Levine 2008: 48) it is possible to avoid the complexities of public reason. Emotional appeals to security in the face of global crisis envelop both officials and citizens who do not need to reason but to react. This is anathema to reason in that there is no need to weigh options or consider a range of potential outcomes. Nor is there any need to delve into comprehensive doctrines. Rather, “knowing” without reasoning provides simple answers and demands on citizens. Thus, citizens might accept restrictions on liberties domestically, and on suspected enemies, because fears are promoted by those who benefit from greater control. This is not to say that threats do not exist, but that events are utilised in order to achieve a certain response. In the face of a doctrine of threat, not only might reason retreat in terms of decision-making and holding officials to account, but it might also lead to unreasonable behaviour towards other citizens. Svendsen (2008: 109) notes that fear can bring communities together and it is interesting to note that there are frequent references in the media to such things as the international and various other communities. Unfortunately, community can also divide and be used to incite fear and concomitant conduct towards “enemy” or threatening communities. The simple “truth” that a community is harbouring potential enemies will not encourage reasoned attitudes, or reasonable behaviours towards diversity, for example. The Nozickean ideal1 is that individuals choose their communities according to their interests, with a minimal state regulating relationships in cases of infringement and ensuring maximum liberty. He does not consider reason explicitly, but it can be surmised that individuals use their reason to 1

Nozick (1974: xii) notes explicitly that his model is a philosophical exploration.

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make decisions that maximise their interests. Hence the development of no more than a minimal state, in which inviolable individuals are unconstrained by moral responsibilities, and who abide by the rule of market exchanges (Nozick 1974). However, it appears that Nozick’s vision does not result in self-regulating anarchy, but in self-acquisitiveness to the point of economic as well as intellectual bankruptcy. The result of this is the opportunity for a return to the power of political reason, with governments extending opportunities for citizen deliberation in developing policy and potentially influencing future direction of western liberal societies. 4. The Return of Reason An effect of market individualism is the loss of cohering social structures beyond small self-defined communities. The isolation of individual decision-makers changes the relationship of citizens to the government and amplifies socio-political fragmentation. This is supported by technology, for example, with mass media news coverage, as well as advertising and entertainment promoting the dominance of market values (Rose 1996: 52, 58). In an age of individualised reasoning, diversity and choice, it is evident that market values will remain a feature of government and politics in western liberal democracies. However, as with all ideal types, they have been shown not to live up to expectations for many people, societies and states. Whether public reason could be the catalyst that ensures social cooperation such that market, as well as other, values cohabit depends on bringing the concept out of the philosophical realm and addressing how it can be better supported in practice. Thus, it is not enough to say that political issues can be solved “by invoking the principles of public reason” (Rawls 1993: 215). The mechanisms exist to encourage and advance public reason; the issue is how to embed it in the national and global psyche so that citizens and officials utilise it to achieve their objectives. After all, public reason is not about denying individual self-interest but about placing this in a context that applies equally to all. Two linked key features of public reason are respect and reciprocity. These must depend on inclusiveness and acknowledgement of social as well as political relationships (Boettcher 2007: 229) and extend to citizen to citizen, and citizen to government and service provider relationships. A

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further variable in public reason is that of trust, and it is evident that this has been eroded in western liberal democracies (Kolsaker and Lee-Kelley: 735) as representatives are embroiled in corruption and scandal of political and personal natures (Thompson 2000). If citizens cannot trust other citizens, and if they do not trust their governments and service providers whether local, national or inter/transnational, public reason falls to isolation and fear. It may be that the paternalism of liberalism is to be discarded and that citizens are seen as fully moral agents, capable of distinguishing through negotiation what is suitable for public discourse (Bennett 2003: 62). This means that comprehensive doctrines are not to be divided into public and non-public, and that free and equal citizens do not need to exclude their moral values from political dialogue. Indeed, it is these that grace public debate with necessary diversity to reach inclusive decisions. Furthermore, such freedom should not result in political stalemate as incompatible comprehensive doctrines collide. The crunch comes when strong sentiments prevent the objective of public reason (Craig 2007: 168) to debate, inform, negotiate and persuade so that consensus can be reached. Liberal states already have well-established frameworks for public engagement. While public reason might extend the issues to be incorporated into political discourse and action, the limits of acceptable inclusions are recognised. For example, right-wing racism and other doctrines of hate are relegated to the margins of public reason; not excluded but not accepted as reasonable in promoting social co-operation and cohesion. On the other hand, doctrines such as feminism, which have been traditionally excluded (Sperling 2001: 161-2), become intrinsic to public reason. As Baehr (2008: 221) notes, public reason is about deepening and widening citizens’ knowledge, allowing change to occur in ideas. As such, in the context of working with free and equal citizens, feminisms can inform public discourse in both negotiation and through how feminists choose to lead their lives. Of course, politics is a minority sport even when respect and trust are high. Whether dealing with constitutional essentials or specific policies, citizens engage in issues which interest or affect them. At an everyday level, reason is used in social interactions and economic exchanges according to comprehensive doctrines, whether market orientated, political and/or religious. Recourse to public reason is the domain where change is required. This may relate to making constitutional change, as when the role

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of government is questioned as regulators or providers, or on specific issues. The “general will” drills down into policy, meaning that constitutional essentials are implicit to specific issues either involving the review of established policy perceived as discriminatory and requiring change, or ensuring that new policy is inclusive and comprehensive. In either case it is necessary to provide the means by which the people who wish to engage are able to as free and equal citizens, ensuring transparency to engender trust in the mechanisms of public reason and consequent political action. This is no easy task, not only in domestic arenas but increasingly in internationalised ones. Indeed, Fraser (2008: 96) refers to the transnational public sphere in which peer participation should occur regardless of citizenship of a particular state, requiring publicly agreed ground rules for engagement. One of the challenges of public reason is to motivate people to engage with it. The reason of individuals can only go so far in maximising selfinterest as can be seen in the development of networks to gain further purchase in the decision-making process (Clarke et al. 2007; Dryzek 2006: 58). It may be the action of an individual that sparks the creation of a network. A case in the UK in which one woman fought to be given a particular breast cancer drug ignited a network response with the mass media, charities, women’s groups and others successfully campaigning for the rights of women to the drug. Other networks grow through broader issues such as fair trade, climate change and environmental issues, often starting as local groups but blossoming into national and transnational networks. However, people joining networks are already motivated by issues of concern to them. There is also a need to motivate individuals who do not currently contribute to public dialogue, even to the point of not voting. The onus here must be on the officials that Rawls perceives as the embodiment of public reason to ensure the conditions for deliberation. This includes the preparation of citizens and maintaining transparency at all stages of the process. Thus, citizens should know what is expected of them in exercising their reason in public dialogue and what they can expect from it. It may be that they inform decisions on constitutional essentials per se or aspects of policy; or engage in debate in a consultative capacity (Kolsaker and Kelley 2008: 735) or as an exercise in agenda-setting (Wright and Street 2007: 855). In either case, they must be assured that, even if their contributions are not fully accepted, and rarely are participants completely satisfied that

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their views are comprehensively fulfilled, they have been considered and the basis for decisions, as well as the results, are justified and, therefore, in terms of public reason, legitimate. In liberal democracies a variety of mechanisms are already utilised for the purpose of encouraging participation, from national on-line consultations to local public meetings hosted by various public service providers (Wright and Street 2007; Jensen et al. 2007; Jensen 2003). However, once again, it is mainly self-motivated and critical citizens that engage with these. Kolsaker and Lee-Kelley (2008: 726-7) suggest that this may be because traditional ideas of citizenship and the citizen-government relationship are still imbued. As such more comprehensive information should be made available to citizens who should be prepared to utilise their knowledge and reason about issues, and representatives should understand participation as a means of engaging a more confident citizenry; a learning process for both citizens and politicians. It is likely that for this to be successful an earlier, or perhaps parallel, process of building trust between citizens and officials is required: public reason needs to be seen to operate in practice as well as theory. Hilbert (2009: 102) suggests that this could be facilitated via electronic channels whereby not only can citizens deliberate in the spirit of public reason, but on-line transparency of the full process of public reasoning and resulting decisions and actions should enable politicians and officials to regain public trust.2 There are, of course, issues of equality of access to on-line, as well as face-to-face, meetings. Whereas research by Jensen et al. (2007) in the US demonstrates that socio-economic status is less of an issue in on-line participation, Jensen (2003: 42-43) notes that it is better educated and politically active citizens that engage with egovernance. It may be that as public reason is proved accessible, practicable and desirable that it works to educate citizens, representatives and officials, and help to improve participation rates. Provision of access to technology is something to be dealt with by committed political institutions. However, it could be argued that citizens have, in fact, advanced this agenda. Examples already exist of domestic and transnational networks organising through new technologies. For ex2

Hilbert’s (2009) paper considers how on-line deliberation can be managed through mediation tools.

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ample, in 2000 a UK-wide fuel strike was organised by farmers and truck drivers through text and mobile phone messages, and anti-globalisation activists similarly organise protests at international economic summits through new media. There are, of course, examples of governments and local authorities attempting to engage citizen participation through the internet giving rise to the concept of e-government, so far with mixed results. While service portals have proved relatively successful, e-participation has not fully developed (Jensen 2003). The point here is that the channels of engagement are being used already, and being extended by active citizens. The challenge is to focus this into the arena of public reason, by settling the rules of engagement, articulating clearly the purpose and objectives of public reason, and ensuring the principles of public reason for free and equal citizens are maintained through transparency of process and honesty in interactions. New technologies only offer support in achieving these objectives. The point is that liberal democracies have a variety of mechanisms and fora through which contributions to public reason are possible. How these are utilised and how citizens, representatives and officials are prepared for them may determine the extent of inclusivity to, and therefore legitimacy of, public reason. Ultimately, of course, full participation cannot be expected as many people will continue to engage with what interests them while others may choose not to engage at all in terms of public reason but will continue their everyday activities in the context of their individual comprehensive doctrines. The relevance of public reason is that it should assure the legitimacy of decisions that inevitably limit some freedoms. Contributors justify their perspectives in the context of publicly agreed parameters, some are accepted and others not as deliberations change minds and lead to consensus. Those who are forced to behave in a way that contradicts their perspectives after deliberation have such minor coercions justified and accept this based on a transparent process. In some ways, everyone makes their reasoned choice whether to contribute to the public reason or not, and in doing so agree to accept the outcomes, much as people who vote for the losing party, or who do not vote at all, agree to abide by the government of the winners. Shifting public reason from an activity of the educated, politically

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aware or politically “selfish,”3 and making it inclusive, is a educative task. This involves improving public trust in the political system and in political actors, both in the public and private sectors, so that citizen engagement with the public reason genuinely enhances the feasibility of a general will. References Baehr A.R. 2008. Perfectionism, Feminism and Public Reason. Law and Philosophy, 27 (2): 193-222. Barnett C., Clarke N., Cloke P., and Malpass A. (2008) The Elusive Subjects of Neo-Liberalism: Beyond the Analytics of Governmentality. Cultural Studies, 22 (5): 624-653. Barry B. 2005. Why Social Justice Matters. Cambridge: Polity. Bennett C. 2003. A Problem Case for Public Reason. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 6 (3): 50-69. Boettcher J.W. 2007. Respect, Recognition and Public Reason. Social Theory and Practice, 33 (2): 223-249. Clarke, N., Barnett C., Cloke P., and Malpass A. 2007. The Political Rationalities of Fair-Trade Consumption in the United Kingdom. Politics and Society, 35 (4): 583-607. Craig D.M. 2007. Debating Desire: Civil Rights, Ritual Protest, and the Shifting Boundaries of Public Reason. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, 27 (1): 157-282. Dryzek J.S. 2006. Deliberative Global Politics: Discourse and Democracy in a Divided World. Cambridge: Polity. Fraser N. 2008. Scales of Justice: Reimagining Political Space in a Globalising World. Cambridge: Polity. Han L.C. and Heldman C. (eds). 2007. Rethinking Madam President: Are We Ready for a Woman in the White House? Boulder: Lynne Rienner. Hayek F. 1944. The Road to Serfdom. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Gaus G.F. 2003. Contemporary Theories of Liberalism. London: Sage. 3

This is not meant in a derogatory way but refers to those who only engage politically on issues specific to their circumstances.

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Hilbert M. 2009. The Maturing Concept of E-Democracy: From E-Voting and Online Consultations to Democratic Value Out of Jumbled Online Chatter. Journal of Information Technology and Politics, 6 (2): 87-110. Jensen J.L. 2003. Virtual Democratic Dialogue? Bringing Together Citizens and Politicians. Information Polity, 8: 29-47. Jensen M.J., Danziger J.N., and Venkatesh A. 2007. Civil Society and the Cyber Society: The Role of the Internet in Community Associations and Democratic Politics. The Information Society, 23 (1): 39-50. Keay D. (1987) Aids, Education and the Year 2000! Women’s Own Magazine, October 31st: 8-10. Kolsaker A. and Lee-Kelley L. 2008. Citizens’ Attitudes Towards EGovernment and E-Governance: A UK Study. International Journal of Public Sector Management, 21 (7): 723-738. Larmore C. 2003. Public Reason. In S. Freeman (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Rawls, 368-393. New York: Cambridge University Press. Levine D.P. 2008. Politics Without Reason: The Perfect World and the Liberal Ideal. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Lister A. 2008. Public Reason and Democracy. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 11 (3): 273-289. McLaverty P. and Halpin D. 2008. Deliberative Drift: The Emergence of Deliberation in the Policy Process. International Political Science Review, 29 (2): 197-214. Michelman F.I. 2003. Rawls on Constitutionalism and Constitutional Law. In S. Freeman (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Rawls. New York: Cambridge University Press. Neal P. 2008. Is Public Reason Innocuous? Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 11 (2): 131-152. Nozick R. 1974. Anarchy, State and Utopia. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Rawls J. 1972. A Theory of Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rawls J. 1993. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press. Rawls J. 1999. The Idea of Public Reason Revisited. In The Law of Peoples. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Rawls J. 1999. The Law of Peoples. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

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Rose N. 1996. Governing ‘Advanced’ Liberal Democracies. In A. Barry, T. Osborne, and N. Rose (eds.), Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism, Neo-Liberalism and Rationalities of Government, 37-62. London: UCL Press. Sperling L. 2001. Women, Political Philosophy and Politics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Svendsen L. 2008. A Philosophy of Fear, J. Irons transl. London: Reaktion Books. Thompson J.B. 2000. Political Scandal: Power and Visibility in the Media Age. Cambridge: Polity. Watson L. 2007. Pornography and Public Reason. Social Theory and Practice, 33 (3): 467-488. Weedon C. 2004. Identity and Culture: Narratives of Difference and Belonging. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Wright S. and Street J. 2007. Democracy, Deliberation and Design: The Case of Online Discussion Forums. New Media and Society, 9 (5): 849-869.

REASON AND ETHICS Carla Bagnoli

Abstract. This article concerns the role of reason in ethics under three distinct capacities: as the conformity of self-reflective minds to laws, as practical reasoning, and as the domain of normative considerations that make actions and attitudes intelligible and justified. In the first part of the article, I present competing accounts of practical reason and of its requirements, surveying recent debates about dichotomies such as explanatory, normative and operative, subjective and objective, justifying and motivating reasons. In the second part, I defend Kantian constructivism as the view of normativity that best vindicates the practical and reflexive nature of reason.

Whether there is a role for reason to play in ethics is a matter of contention. It is beyond dispute that we appeal to reasons in accounting for what we do and engage in arguments about the plausibility of our moral views. But there is a divisive disagreement about the nature and force of such reasons. This disagreement ultimately concerns the very possibility of “practical reason.” In its most general understanding reason is the capacity to think and act on principles. The ways in which we exercise this capacity are normative forms of practical reasoning and standards by which we guide our choice. The results of practical reasoning are substantive and specific considerations that apply in particular contexts. Sceptics argue that the concept of practical reason finds no application. As a general view, scepticism about practical reason is a rather radical view, which is seldom defended explicitly. However, several ethical theories lead to sceptical conclusions about practical reason. Sentimentalism, for instance, holds that moral judgments lack cognitive cores, and there is little use in appealing to reason in arguing about morality. In moral matters we are rather driven by passions. Dogmatic rationalism does not deny that reason plays a role in moral arguments; what it denies is that there is anything specific to the practical function of reason in ethics. Reason tracks down moral truths the same way as it tracks down all kinds of truths.

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1. Explanatory, Normative, and Operative Reasons When is it that we invoke moral reasons? We deploy reasons in order to explain, evaluate, or justify what to do (Baier 1958: chapter 6). Boris’ desire for fresh air explains his longing for a walk in the park. A bystander may explain his action to take an umbrella and walk toward the door by attributing him the intention to go out in a rainy day. Explanatory reasons are reasons that make one’s attitude or action intelligible. Suppose Boris walks out of a department meeting to take a walk in the lake park. When colleagues ask why he walked out of the meeting, Boris is not expected (only) to offer an explanation of his behaviour, but (also) a justification of an action that appears to violate departmental duties. Did he feel sick? If so, he should be excused. Was he obliged by a stronger obligation? Then, he really did not violate any obligation, because the stronger obligation cancelled or silenced any other consideration. Or was he simply taking the liberty of disregarding his duties to satisfy his desire for fresh air? Well, in this case Boris is to be blamed for making exception in his favour. Justificatory or normative reasons are considerations in support of or against actions or attitudes, which make them normatively significant. We appeal to normative reasons to justify actions or attitudes; they are considerations in favour of or against doing a certain action, harbouring a certain attitude, or holding a certain belief. When we attempt at explaining an action, we attribute some normative reasons to the agent, but the role of such reasons in the explanation is not normative. We refer to considerations that (we presume) guided the agent in deciding what to do. The explanation of the action succeeds if it makes the action intelligible on the basis of the agent’s reasons for performing it. It goes without saying that the third-person attribution of normative reason may not coincide with the first-person attribution of normative reason. This asymmetry plays an important role in the explanation of action. Agents are not always best equipped and situated to explain their own action in terms of their operative reasons; that is, they may fail to understand which considerations in fact drive their own actions. It is possible, and in fact it is quite common, that observers propose better explanations of how agents acted in a certain way. This is because the agent may be driven by considerations that are less transparent to him than to others.

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Since operative reasons may be opaque, there is a difference between what the agent takes himself to be doing and what he actually does in the eyes of others; and others may best detect and assess the intervening or motivating factors. This is to say that explanations in terms of first-person attribution may radically differ from the explanations in terms of thirdperson attribution; and this is a more general and pervasive phenomenon than special cases of irrationality or self-deception. However, agents have a special claim on their actions. The distinction between operative and normative reasons is useful in the action attribution, but it is questionable whether it can be deployed in the explanation of action. It is an open question whether we can plausibly and exhaustively explain action in terms of reasons that the agent himself does not recognize as reasons (Moran 2001: chapter 4). This is because in order to be authoring the action the agent must think that he is guided by his own reasons. 2. Objective and Subjective Reasons A distinct debate revolves around the distinction between objective and subjective reasons, which pertains at the level of justification. Subjective normative reasons are those considerations that the agent takes as relevant because of his partial understanding of the situation. For instance, Abe justifies his policy of not eating chicken at the restaurant because he believes that the meat of caged animals is toxic. Abe’s policy rests on a subjective and partial justification. Objectively, Abe is wrong; there are exceptions that undermine his belief and make his policy unjustified. The case is more complex when the agent’s justification invokes moral considerations. Take, for instance, the case in which Abe refrains from eating meat because he believes it to be morally objectionable. Is there any philosophical reason to question his position as subjective and ask for objective normative reasons? When the agent invokes value in the justification of her actions and attitudes the very distinction between objective and subjective standpoint becomes problematic. This is for two reasons. First, it may be that the values to which justification appeals may be for their own nature partial and perspectival, and such that they do not command universal endorsement. For instance, loving relations and friendships or personal projects are of this kind. Second, to presume that the sub-

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jective stance on moral value should be corrected by broadening its scope and reach an objective standpoint is to construe the claim of objectivity in ethics in a way that may be regarded as problematic. On this construal, the aspiration to objectivity amounts to the aspiration to overcome the partialities of the personal stance as immoral biases. Whether this is a legitimate aspiration is the very matter of contention. There seem to be moral reasons rooted in specific loyalties, which the objective stance would rule out as biases. Most agents are not ready to give up such reasons as merely subjective and illusory unless otherwise grounded and vindicated by the objective stance. Some philosophers argue that the subjective and personal nature of these reasons matter more than their objective vindication (Williams 1985; Wolf 1986). Others think that moral rational justification is relative to specific traditions (MacIntyre 1981, 1989). Impersonality is typically associated with rationalism, the view that moral matters are decided by reference to reason (Nagel 1970). But Rationalism does not necessarily commit to the impersonality of the objective stance. Rather, it commits to the claim that the considerations that one can legitimately take as reasons survive critical reflection. Reflection requires that the agent is capable of reflective detachment, but it does not require him to give up or ignore his subjective perspective. 3. Motivating and Justificatory Reasons Are agents moved by the very considerations that they invoke in the justification of their action? The issue is whether the normative reasons that justify the action coincide with motivating reasons. Internalists hold that this coincidence is a requirement of practical rationality. Insofar as one is rational, one’s normative reasons are operative, that is, exciting and motivating (Frankena 1958; Falk 1983; Korsgaard 1986). Externalists regard moral obligations as stating normative facts, which are independent of the motivating states of the agents. On their view, motivating and normative reasons are two distinct orders of reasons (Dancy 2000). On the internalist view, instead, these are not two distinct categories of reasons; it is a requirement of rationality that they do not come apart. If agents are rational and in a healthy state of mind, they should be motivated by the considerations that they take as grounds for acting. If Sue believes that betraying a

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friend is wrong, she should thereby be motivated by this consideration when dealing with her friends, on pain of irrationality and inconsistency (Korsgaard 1986). What is a defect of rationality is that Sue fails to be motivated by her own normative reasons. 4. Theories of Normative Reasons How do normative reasons motivate us? This is a question that pertains to moral psychology, which is a part of moral theory that is empirically constrained. To settle questions that pertain to moral psychology it is thus necessary to take into account descriptively plausible models of the mind. The moral ideals proposed ought to be practicable, or their practical function would be to diagnose our failures and shortcomings. This is where moral theory profits from meeting philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences. This is not to say that moral psychology derives from or is reducible to empirical research. Moral psychology remains an integral part of moral theory, and the relation between these two distinct disciplines is of mutual support and constraint. While moral theory identifies the morally decent ideals, the cognitive sciences indicate which moral ideals are empirically sustainable. In accounting for the phenomenology of moral experience, one key issue is what kinds of items moral reasons are. Externalists hold that normative reasons are beliefs and owe their normative status to their cognitive cores. By contrast, internalists insist on their affective cores. Internalists typically also hold that normative reasons owe their conative force to their being desires (Foot 1978; Williams 1981; Smith 2004; Frankfurt 2006). This is the central claim of desire-based theories. The obvious attraction of these theories is their simplicity and minimal ontological commitments. Such theories take desires as basic normative sources, but they allow for them to be subjected to some constrains and corrected, e.g. by moral education. The most prominent and widespread form of desire-based theory is the Humean theory of motivation (Williams 1981; Prinz 2007; Schroeder 2007). Despite its emphasis on desires, this view is not directly at odds with rationalism. In fact, some internalists defend it with the qualification that desires should be subject to rational constraints. Some neo-Kantian rationalists hold that such constraints are powerful enough to produce uni-

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versal and categorical requirements (Nagel 1970; Korsgaard 1986; Smith 1994, 1995; Dancy 1995). These neo-Kantian theories are perfectly compatible with naturalistic models of the mind. The dispute between neoKantian and neo-Humean theories of normative reasons is thus internal to the naturalistic agenda. The objection is that desire-based theories make moral reasons contingent on facts about our motivation, which could contain some quite extravagant items (Quinn 1993; Parfit 1997, 2006). Regardless of the oddities and eccentricities of actual motivational sets, this account may be held objectionable simply for its contingency. The argument in this latter case is that it fails to capture the alleged unconditionality of moral claims. Humean constructivists are not vulnerable to the objection as they relax the unconditionality of moral reasons (Street 2008; Wong 2008). NeoKantians preserve the unconditionality of moral reasons by invoking rational constraints as constitutive of the activity of willing (Korsgaard 1996: chapter 4, 2008, 2009). This strategy, called constitutivism, is the focus of a growing debate about the nature of rational and autonomous agency (Enoch 2006; Ferrero 2008). Normative expressivists provide an analysis of reasons in terms of a norm of acceptance and a normative attitude of acceptance. When Abe says that he has reason not to eat meat he means that there is a norm that prohibits killing animals and he endorses the attitude of acceptance of this norm, so that Abe’s accepting the norm gives him a reason for treating killing animals as counting against eating meat (Gibbard 1990: 163). This analysis does not prove successful in reducing the notion of reason because it implies that we already understand what it means that a consideration counts in favour or against doing something (Scanlon 1998: 58). An alternative expressivist reduction deploys the concept of plan and thus bypasses the notion of reason (Gibbard 2003). As for the desire-based theory, the conative core of the expressivist analysis is cashed out in terms of mental states, such as desires and attitudes. Contrary to the neo-Kantian desire-based theory, however, desires and attitudes are not the object of rational deliberation; rather, they are inherent forces that drive deliberation to its target, which is action. To say that normative discourse is expressive of some psychological states rather than descriptive of some facts is to

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treat sentiments and emotions as providing normative guidance, rather than as blind emotional forces that goad us (Blackburn 1998). The question arises, however, how natural forces that happen to guide us, even though intelligently, toward the realization of some natural end, can have normative force. Can we resist their force? Can we follow their dictates badly or incorrectly? It seems that in order to answer these questions in the positive, we need to appeal to normative criteria that are not themselves reducible to natural forces. In contrast to desire-based and expressivist theories, realists deny that desires are normative sources, and take reasons as “primitive,” that is, as not reducible to other kinds of states (Scanlon 1998: 17; Broome 2001: 180; Scanlon 2003: 7, 19; Dancy 2000; Parfit 2007: 330-331). Realists about reasons deny that the notion of reason can be understood or analyzed in terms of desires or in terms of normative attitudes. Their claim is that there is nothing further to explain beside the point that some considerations are taken as reasons in favour of or against some course of action. 5. Practical Reason and Structural Principles If the philosophical significance of reasons is exhausted by their role in specific contexts of explanation, justification, and deliberation, why do we need to discuss “practical reason” at all? In the remaining part of this article I will attempt at clarifying the very idea of practical reason, and defend a Kantian constructivist conception of the role it plays in ethics. When we raise questions about what to do we are engaging action as agents, rather than as bystanders. We are asking for considerations that we endorse as reasons for action. This is a sort of operation that is open to us only insofar as we are the prospective agents of the action, and in this specific sense we have a special claim on it. It is a matter of contention how exactly to identify this claim. According to Kantian constructivism, to be the agent is to be the author of the action, and the special claim authors have on their actions is one of agential authority. Agents exercise a special authority on their actions insofar as they are theirs. Agential authority implies autonomy, the capacity for self-government and normative guidance. We can think of actions in a very broad sense, as activities that we author. In this sense, believing and feeling are also “things we do.” That is,

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they are rational activities in which we engage, although their constitutive aims and thus their criteria of success differ from the ones pertaining to the performance of an action. Feelings and beliefs are not decided or deliberated in the same ways actions are, but they are nonetheless endorsed on the basis of reasons. Practical reason, then, is not called “practical” because it ranges over a specific domain of objects, namely, act-performances. Rather, it is practical because it indicates a practical standpoint from which reasons are undertaken as autonomous forms of rational guidance. According to Kantian constructivism the very possibility of practical reason rests on autonomy. Autonomy is a principle that governs rational thinking in general, and thus informs both rational actions and rational thoughts. This view is defended in contrast to various forms of scepticism, which range from sentimentalism to realism and which all deny the autonomy of reason. The most straightforward form of scepticism is the view that ethical matters do not belong to the domain of applicability of reason, because there are no moral truths to be tracked; thus, the role of reason in ethics must be purely ancillary to the passions. Reason is exactly as the intuitionist describes it, namely, the capacity for an intellectual insight into truth, and this is why it has no use in ethics. It plays at most an instrumental role in planning actions, but it does not directly drive to them. This sort of scepticism about practical reason is thought by its supporters to have quite benign consequences for moral practices. It is supposed to be compatible with maintaining moral credence and practices as they are. But more importantly, it is supposed to prove that ethics can do perfectly well without invoking reason. The grounding place of reason is taken by habits and sentiments. These are the forces that govern action and rule agency (Blackburn 1998; Schroeder 2007; Prinz 2007). To highlight the specificity of the constructivist account of reason in ethics it is most instructive to elucidate the differences with realism. Realism attributes to reason the capacity to discover self-evident truths such that adequately understanding them is sufficient for justifying our belief in them, and such that believing them on the basis of adequate understanding entails knowing them (Audi 1986, 1999; see Crisp 2006). Since realism directly connects reason with self-evident truths it might appear to be the strongest candidate to vindicate objective moral knowledge. In fact, constructivists object that realism ends up with a too modest account of the

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standards of objectivity in ethics (Rawls 1980; Bagnoli 2002). This is because realism does not attribute to reason the direct power to determine what counts as a reason for action. The role of reason amounts to registering or tracking truths that are prior and independent of its own workings. There is not such a thing as reason’s own domain, except in the very limited sense that describes a domain of applicability. Practical rationality amounts to responsiveness to reasons that are part of the ontological furnishing of the world, hence not of our making. The worry is that this view makes reason a receptive, rather than active, faculty. In the case of ethics, this view undermines the agent’s authority on her actions. This is why Kantian constructivists argue that practical rationality cannot be reduced to responsiveness to some normative items of the world, and it cannot be defined in terms of the appropriateness of certain responses. Practical rationality requires that we engage in an activity, being governed by specific normative criteria, which are internal and constitutive of that activity itself. As Korsgaard objects against realism: “If this is all there is to rational agency, then of course it does not involve the exercise of any specifically human power which we might identify with the faculty of Reason: it is just a way we describe certain actions from outside, namely the ones that conform to rational principles or to the particular considerations we call ‘reasons’” (Korsgaard 2008: 213). The point is that being rational is not merely a matter of being motivated by considerations about what makes an action good; rather, it is a matter of being motivated by the representation of the action as good. This is not a distinction that can be captured by invoking the subjective/objective reasons dichotomy. Rather, it emerges from the reflective structure of reasons, and to account for this feature we need to refer to self-consciousness, which is the fundamental aspect of our mind that explains our search for reasons (O’Neill 1989; Korsgaard 2008; Bagnoli 2009; see Quinn 1993; Foot 1995). The conception of reason as a passive or receptive aspect of the mind is typically combined with the view that there are practical principles reasoning that apply in the very same way as the principles of logical inference, the canons for the assessment of evidence, or mathematical principles. By contrast, the conception of reason as the active aspect of the mind takes practical principles to be principles of construction, which leads to substantive practical judgments. For a constructivist no substantive con-

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siderations count as reasons prior to and independently of the adoption of such practical principles. Instead, for the realist, the principles of practical reasoning serve the purpose of tracking down substantive reasons that exist independently of any reasoning. An important corollary of the constructivist position is that there are structural principles of rationality, that is, norms that guide and bind us insofar as we are rational. Kantians think that categorical and hypothetical imperatives are such principles. Since they also deny the normativity of the instrumental principle taken in isolation of non-instrumental principles, ultimately they recognize only one structural principle, which is the categorical imperative (Korsgaard 2008: 27-68). But instrumentalists may in fact agree that the instrumentalist principle is not an objective normative requirement of minimal rationality. The issue about the status of requirement of principles or reasons is questioned more generally. Some argue that there are no constraints of rationality independently of the substantive features of reasons to which one is responsive (Kolodny 2005). 6. Autonomy as Self-Legislation Constructivism argues that practical reason is autonomous; but autonomy of what and from what? According to intuitionism we simply respond to some facts of the world as providing reasons, or we recognize normative facts. Intuitionists often represent the specific function of Reason as akin to perception, directed to detect salient features of reality. According to constructivists, to treat reason as a receptive faculty implies that it derives its authority from facts that are normative prior and independently from reason’s own workings. In order for reason to explicate its practical function, it has to be autonomous, that is, independent of alien sources of authority. The vindication of the concept of practical reason can thus be only selfvindication (O’Neill 2003; Korsgaard 2008: 206). Kantian constructivists understand the activity of reason as a form of self-legislation. They claim that this is what makes moral claims normative. On their account, normativity arises from the first-person perspective as the agent represents herself as acting or judging on the basis of some considerations that survive critical reflection. They object that the realist

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account does not explain how and why such reality is normative for us. Constructivism does not dispute that reasons are facts or that moral judgments have cognitive cores; nor does it dispute that reasons have both cognitive and affective cores. It disputes that normative reasons are normative insofar as they are true facts. Facts cannot be normative reasons, unless they are self-legislated. In other words, facts become normatively significant and acquire authority on our mind only through self-legislation. This is not an ontological claim about the nature of the contents of reasons, but a claim about the source of their authority. Normative reasons are facts that the agent thinks as supporting one course of action rather than another while “acting under the representation of freedom” rather than mysteriously moved by internal forces or externally bid to follow truths. 7. Normative and Probative Reasons: The Quest for Moral Knowledge One source of reservations about constructivism as a theory of normative reasons is that in making reasons “up to us” it destroys the very possibility of genuine moral knowledge. If the contents of reasons are decided, and if reasons are the products of the agent’s deliberation how can they show anything about the world? Understood as the result of self-legislation, not only do reasons lose their categorical and unconditional features, but they also lose their probative value. If I simply decide that some consideration counts as a reason against taking this course of action, this entitles me to call the action mine. But does the fact that I decided account for the probative value of my considerations? Does it show that I am right in acting as I decided to do? Am I entitled to say that the consideration I adduce for refraining from x has probative value against doing x? It seems unlikely. Personal decisions carry normative significance for the agent, and certainly count toward taking the action as expressive of one’s personality and reflection of one’s character, but they clearly do not prove the moral status of the action. The objection takes self-legislation to amount to a personal decision. One other way to restate the worry is that personal decisions are importantly connected to authenticity but not to authority. Personal decisions show that the action is authentically the agent’s own action, rather than

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something from which the agent feels estranged and alienated. This is an important aspect of autonomy, which distinguishes actions that the agent decided to perform from those in which he plays only or mostly a causal role, as it happens in forced or mixed actions where the agent acts unwillingly to avert a greater evil. However, it seems that the conception of autonomy as authenticity is irrelevant to determine whether the agent has good reasons for action and assess the probative value of reasons. This objection applies to some varieties of constructivism, which reduce the self-legislation to a form of self-government that is meant to grant coherence from within a specific normative web (Street 2008; Wong 2008). But such relativistic varieties of Constructivism have already given up a strong conception of objectivity. The objection is also meant to address Kantian constructivism; and it seems to me that the at least in some of its formulations, Kantian constructivism is not vulnerable to this objection either. This is because Kantian constructivism understands selflegislation as a more demanding and basic form of self-government than its opponents assume. On this reading, autonomy does not amount to authenticity but to universal authority. The autonomous mind is supposed to construct reasons that claim universal authority. Autonomous decisions are not only authentic and personal, but also authoritative because principled. The short answer to the objection invokes the distinction between principled and personal decisions. But there is a longer route to this conclusion, which is perhaps more illuminating. For Kantian constructivism reasoning is a legislating activity, and the constructions of reason claim universal authority. However, the worry about the possibility of moral knowledge is not limited to the claim of universality. Constructivism does not seem capable of addressing the objection about the alleged probative value of reasons. The objection is that this theory of reasons accounts for the normative role that reasons play in the agent’s deliberative set, but it does not account for the role that reasons play as evidences that count in favour or against doing something. The thrust of the argument is that in reducing reasons to (personal or principled) decisions, constructivism is incapable of accounting for the key role that reasons play in gaining moral knowledge. Constructivists are bound to deny that there is moral knowledge, or to admit that there is an evidential role of reasons, which remains unaccounted for by the theory. If one denies

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that reasons play an evidential role in moral arguments, one also denies the possibility of moral knowledge. If so, then constructivism is to be aligned with scepticism rather than with realism about practical reason. The alternative is to admit that constructivism is not a complete account of normative reasons; if it aims at objective moral knowledge it has to build upon realist foundations. It might seem that Kantian constructivists rest content with the first option and renounce moral knowledge. For instance, Korsgaard insists that the role of normative reasons is not epistemic (Korsgaard 2008: 310-317). This is because normative reasons are endorsed from the first-person perspective at the time of action; they are the results of rational deliberation, rather than cognitions about what makes actions good that we apply in practice. Korsgaard is opposing a specific model of moral knowledge, where we invoke principles of practical reasoning when we attempt at applying normative truths in practice. I agree that this model mistakes the very nature of deliberation, but in my view the problem is not that we cannot achieve moral knowledge or that there is nothing that deserves the name. Rather, the problem is with the idea that in deliberating one is merely putting truths in practice. On this view, the agent faces a deliberative scenario, grasps some truths that importantly bear on the case, and applies such truths to the case at hand. What’s wrong in this picture is the role of normative truths. They are supposed to be rules that one applies in a specific context in order to figure out what to do. But surely this must be a mistake; normative reasons exert their authority through action itself (Korsgaard 2008: 317). Reasons provide evaluative standards, but they do not have authority on us unless we conceive of them as laws for ourselves. The argument is complex, and if it works it discourages us from adopting this specific epistemological account of moral knowledge (Korsgaard 2008: 310-317). However, Korsgaard’s argument does not provide a sufficient basis for discarding the claim of moral knowledge. One may agree with Korsgaard that normative considerations acquire the status of authoritative reasons through deliberation, and still want to say that exactly this acquisition counts as moral knowledge. To have moral knowledge just is to be guided by rational considerations. There are good reasons for retaining the claims about moral knowledge. Kantian constructivism is often defended and attacked as a form of

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anti-realism (Korsgaard 2008: 302-326; Americks 2003: 263-282; Schneewind 1991). In my view, it is a mistake to construe Kantian constructivism as a variety of anti-realism. This is because it aims at steering a midway between realism and anti-realism. It does so by abandoning the realist standards of ethical objectivity, but it does not thereby abandon the claim that moral reasons are moral cognitions. Kantian constructivist can and should be defended as a form of irrealist cognitivism, according to which moral judgments are true or false statements whose purpose is not to represent a normative reality. Objectivity is practical rather than metaphysical, but this simply means that there are no facts of the matter that make normative statements true or false. Kantian constructivism offers a distinctive account of the truth-makers of normative statement that are internal to the practical standpoint. This is why the standards of objectivity are better said practical rather than metaphysical. This conception of Kantian constructivism can successfully vindicate the possibility of moral knowledge and accounts for the probatory role of reasons. Reasons are facts, but these facts are quite complex, and play a normative role only insofar as they are legislated from the practical standpoint. The probative value of reasons is understood here in its original legal sense as “tending to prove,” that is, having the quality or function of proving, demonstrating, affording evidence for something to be the case. Probative evidence seeks the truth of the matter. In order to have probative value, reasons must establish the truth of the matter. This might seem to require us to endorse strict evidentialism, the view that for something to be rational it is to be constrained by how the world is. On this reading, reasons have probatory role when they track some truths in the world. When understood as cognitivist irrealism, Constructivism does not deny that reasons may have probatory role and serve as a basis for assessing evidences that establish the truth of the matter. What they deny is that the probatory value of reasons is completely guided by the world, or governed by realist standards. An alternative reading is suggested by the definition of probatory evidence in common law. The evidence that can be judged probatory ought to be also material and relevant to the case. However, relevancy is not an inherent property of any item of evidence, but it is the result of a relation between an item of evidence and a matter properly being provable in the case. Whether the matter is provable and consequential is not some-

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thing that is completely determined by how the world is like; rather, it requires judgment and assessment of the circumstances of the case. Likewise, in the practical case, it is arguable that while probatory reasons tend to establish the truth of the matter, the way in which they establish truth is not completely world-guided. Rather, it depends on many factors, which include the agent’s assessment of the relevance and of the consequentiality of the matter, and the circumstances of action. Constructivism offers an account of the way in which such truths are established. In contrast to noncognitivism, it argues that such truths can be established, rather than not. In contrast to realism, it argues that they can be constructed via practical reasoning rather than found in the world. However, to claim that reasons are established through practical reasoning is not to say that they are arbitrarily stipulated, nor does it imply that truths come into existence by a sheer act of will. Indeed, the concept of normative reason encompasses different sorts of normative relations, all of which are subject to rational constraints. Nonetheless, in order to qualify as probatory or normative reasons, they must be conceived as authoritative for the rational agent. Constructivism is more promising than its competitors to account for moral knowledge because it explains not only what it is to rely on evidence but also why agents find evidences authoritative. References Ameriks K. 2003. On Two Non-Realist Interpretations of Kant’s Ethics. In Interpreting Kant’s Critiques, 263-282. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Audi R. 1986, Acting for Reasons. Philosophical Review, 95 (4): 75-205. Audi R. 1999. Self-Evidence. Philosophical Perspectives, 13: 205-228. Bagnoli C. 2002. Moral Constructivism: A Phenomenological Argument. Topoi, 21: 125-138. Bagnoli C. 2009. Practical Necessity: The Subjective Experience. In B. Centi and W. Huemer (eds.), Value and Ontology, 23-43. Frankfurt: OntosVerlag. Baier K. 1958. The Moral Point of View. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Blackburn S. 1998. Ruling Passions. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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Broome J. 2001. Normative Practical Reasoning. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 7: 175-193. Crisp R. 2006. Reasons and the Good. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dancy J. 2000. Practical Reality. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Enoch D. 2006. Agency, Shmagency: Why Normativity Won’t Come from What is Constitutive of Agency. Philosophical Review, 115: 169-198. Falk W.D. 1980. Ought, Reasons and Morality. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Ferrero L. 2008. Constitutivism and the Inescapability of Agency. Oxford Studies in Metaethics, 4: 303-333. Foot P. 1978. Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives. In her Virtues and Vices. Berkeley: University of California Press. Frankena W.K. 1958. Obligation and Motivation in Recent Moral Philosophy. In A.I. Melden (ed.), Essays in Moral Philosophy, 40-81. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Frankfurt H. 2006. Taking Ourselves Seriously and Getting it Right. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Gibbard A. 1990. Wise Choices, Apt Feelings. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Gibbard A. 2003. Thinking How to Live. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kolodny N. 2005. Why Be Rational? Mind, 114 (455): 509-563. Korsgaard C. 1986. Skepticism About Practical Reason. Journal of Philosophy, 83: 5-25. Korsgaard C. 1996. The Sources of Normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Korsgaard C. 2008. The Constitution of Agency. Oxford: Oxford University Press. MacIntyre A. 1981. After Virtue. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press. MacIntyre A. 1988. Which Justice? Whose Rationality? Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press. Mackie J.L. 1977. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. London: Penguin. Moran R. 2001. Authority and Estrangement. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Nagel T. 1970. The Possibility of Altruism. Oxford: Clarendon Press. O’Neill O. 1989. Constructions of Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parfit D. 1997. Reasons and Motivation. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. 71: 99-130. Parfit D. 2006. Normativity. Oxford Studies in Metaethics, 1: 325-380. Prinz J. 2007, The Emotional Construction of Morals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Quinn W. 1993. Putting Rationality in Its Place. In Morality and Action, 228255. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Railton P. 2005. Normative Guidance, Oxford Studies in Metaethics, 1: 3-33. Rawls J. 1980. Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory. Journal of Philosophy, 77: 515-72. Scanlon T.M. 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Scanlon T.M. 2003. Metaphysics and Morals, Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, 77 (2): 7-22. Schneewind J.B. 1991. Natural Law, Skepticism, and Methods of Ethics. Journal of the History of Ideas, 52: 289-308. Schroeder M. 2007. Slaves of the Passions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Smith M. 1994. The Moral Problem. Oxford: Blackwell. Smith M. 2004. Humeanism, Psychologism and the Normative Story. In Ethics and the A Priori, 146-154. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Street S. 2008. Constructivism about Reasons. Oxford Studies in Metaethics, 3: 208-245. Williams B. 1981. Internal and External Reasons. In Moral Luck, 101-113. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Williams B. 1985. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Williams B. 1995. Making Sense of Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Wolf S. 1986. Moral Saints. Repr. in R. Crisp and M. Slote (eds.), Virtue Ethics, 79-98. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Wong D. 2008. Constructing Normative Objectivity in Ethics. Social Philosophy and Policy, 25 (1): 237-266.

REASON AND RELIGION Lynne Rudder Baker

Abstract. This paper is organized around a single argument against the existence of God, The Evidentialist Master Argument (EMA): 1. If one is entitled to believe that God exists, then there is sufficient evidence for God’s existence; 2. There is not sufficient evidence for God’s existence; Therefore, 3. No one is entitled to believe that God exists. In section 1, I consider arguments for and against each of the premises (including the argument from evil). After discussing a range of arguments on both sides, I argue that the outcome of these arguments is inconclusive. In the section 2, I rebut two arguments for the EMA, one aiming to show that there is no possibility of rational disagreement among epistemic peers, the other using science against the existence of God. The upshot is that the Evidentialist Master Argument is unsound.

“I don’t believe in God, but I miss Him” are the first words of Julian Barnes’ book on death, Nothing to be Frightened Of (2008: 1). Nonbelievers (like Barnes) who are wistful and even nonbelievers (like Nietszcheans) who say, “good riddance” may be intrigued by the topic of reason and religion. What is religion? Daniel Dennett’s definition is a good starting point: religions are “social systems whose participants avow belief in a supernatural agent or agents whose approval is to be sought” (2006: 9). Religions are complex social phenomena that encompass a congeries of institutions, hierarchies of human authorities, beliefs, doctrines superstitions, public rituals, private practices, prescribed and proscribed behaviour. In the vast arrays of practices and doctrines that make up religions, reason has a sprawling role. The three Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – endorse a personal God. In these religions, God is conceived as the creator of the universe, who cares for his creatures. He is maximally excellent in power, knowledge and goodness. Philosophical questions about reason and the Abrahamic religions tend to arise with regard to beliefs about God – his existence, his nature, and his relation to us. To avoid getting lost in the ungainly array of activities and beliefs that mark religions generally, I’ll confine attention to arguments about a single question: is it reasonable to be-

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lieve in a personal God? I shall confine discussion to the epistemic reasonableness of personal theism. 1. State of the Art The current state of the question of religion and reason has its recent roots in earlier centuries. Medieval theologians offered a variety of proofs of the existence of God based on premises that reasonable people would assent to. If successful, a natural-theological argument (e.g., the ontological argument, the “First-Cause” argument, the design argument, etc.) would demonstrate the truth and rationality of theism. Today, however, most of these arguments are defunct – although I still harbour hopes for a sound version of the ontological argument (Baker and Matthews 2010). The 18th century saw religious authority challenged by Enlightenment thinkers; the 19th century saw Freud, Marx and Nietzsche deal religion a further blow by emphasizing nonrational aspects of human nature. Finally, the rise of Darwinism seemed to leave theistic religion in eclipse, especially in the eyes of intellectuals. It is hardly surprising that in the 20th century, the question of evidence for the existence of God came to the fore. In epistemology generally, a view called “evidentialism” rose to prominence. According to evidentialism, a person is epistemically justified in believing a proposition p if and only if the person has good epistemic reasons supporting p. Epistemic reasons are reasons to think that the proposition is true. Evidentialism is not concerned with any sort of practical value that a belief may have. Epistemic justification concerns only reasons relevant to the truth of a belief. I shall organize the discussion of the “state of the art” discussion of reason and religion around a simple generic version of an evidentialist argument against theism, formulated in terms of epistemic entitlement. Say that a person is epistemically entitled to believe p if and only if the person’s believing that p violates no epistemic duty. Evidentialism applied to the question of the existence of God becomes the view that one is entitled to believe in God only if one has sufficient evidence for God’s existence. Call this “The Evidentialist Master Argument” (EMA):

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1. If anyone is entitled to believe that God exists, then there is sufficient evidence for God’s existence. 2. There is not sufficient evidence for God’s existence. Therefore, 3. No one is entitled to believe that God exists. Let me make a comment on each of the premises: (1) The sufficient evidence required by Premise 1 is epistemic. Pragmatic considerations – such as the moral value of believing something – are not evidence in the requisite sense. Similarly, being entitled to believe is interpreted as epistemic. (2) Sufficient evidence for God’s existence means “sufficient evidence on balance.” Evidence, otherwise sufficient, may be overridden by evidence against God’s existence – from science, the existence of evil, or from some other source. The Evidentialist Master Argument (EMA) is obviously valid. The question is whether or not it is sound. Are its premises true? In this section, we’ll consider arguments for and against the premises of the EMA. In Favour of Premise 1 of the EMA Many philosophers simply assume that Premise 1 is true. At the beginning of the 20th century, for example, W.K. Clifford, proclaimed, “It is wrong, everywhere, always, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence” (Clifford 1901: 273). Clifford gave reasons to believe this dictum that many have found inconclusive, at best. It is noteworthy that the dictum is usually applied exclusively to religious belief – to the detriment of theism. Toward the end of the century, Peter van Inwagen (1999) spelled out the disastrous consequences of consistently applying the principle to all our beliefs. Nevertheless, many philosophers (e.g., Feldman 2007) embrace this dictum with moralistic fervour. In Favour of Premise 2 of the EMA Premise 2 is supported by various arguments about the existence of evil. Whatever sufficient evidence there is for the existence of God is overridden, many hold, by the extent of undeserved suffering. Alvin Plantinga (1978) showed that the existence of God is not logically inconsistent with the existence of evil. However, the mere logical consistency of the exist-

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ence of God and the presence of (some) evil does not dispel worries about the amount and distribution of evil in the world. Here is a simple example of what is called the “evidential” argument from evil: (directly quoted from Rowe 2004: 5) a. There exist horrendous evils that an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly good being would have no justifying reason to permit. b. An all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly good being would not permit an evil unless he had a justifying reason to permit it. ∴ c. God does not exist. Although presented as if it were a valid deductive argument, at the end of the article, Rowe claims only that “the facts about evil in our world provide good reason to think that God does not exist”; the argument is “only one of probability” (2004: 13). In response, Howard-Snyder and Bergmann criticize premise b. (along with “Bayesian” probabilistic variants) as being arguments from ignorance (Howard-Snyder and Bergmann 2004). How can we know what reasons an omnipotent God has for allowing horrendous evils? Neither arguments for or against Premise b. are, I believe, logically compelling. Theodicies that attempt to “justify God’s ways to man” invariably fail.1 Attempts to use a libertarian view of free will don’t touch the problem inasmuch as the real worry is the evil caused by God (see Job, King Saul). In my opinion, the best that the theist can do in the face of examples of horrific evils is to charge that we are in no position to judge what an all-good, omnipotent God would permit to happen. The atheist can always respond that, surely, an all-good, omnipotent God would not permit this atrocity to happen. And the theist can ask the atheist, How do you know? The result seems to be a logical impasse. I’ll consider a different line of thought – one based on science – in support of Premise 2 of the EMA in the next section. First, let us turn to arguments that can be deployed to reject the EMA.

1

“Malt does more that Milton can / To justify God’s ways to man” (Housman 1954: 456-58).

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In Opposition to Premise 1 of the EMA Alvin Plantinga’s view of warrant may be seen as rejection of premise 1. Plantinga exploded onto the scene with what he called Reformed Epistemology, which holds that evidence is not necessary for warranted belief in God. Plantinga has argued at length that Christian belief can have “warrant even if it doesn’t receive it by way of argument or propositional evidence” (2000: 135). Although Plantinga does not reject natural theology, which aims to prove the existence of God on the basis of premises that are thought (or hoped) to be generally agreed on, his approach is rooted elsewhere. In the Reformed (or Calvinistic) tradition, Christians do not need such arguments, because belief in God is “properly basic.” A “person is entirely within his epistemic rights, entirely rational, in believing in God, even if he has no argument for this belief” (Plantinga 1987: 265). Plantinga proposes a model for how beliefs about God have warrant. He develops a suggestion of Calvin’s, which can also be seen in Aquinas, that human beings have an instinctive tendency to develop beliefs about God in a variety of situations and circumstances. On this view, all people have a sensus divinitatis working in them (Plantinga 2000, 170-2). Plantinga likens the sensus divinitatis to an input-output device: It takes as input various circumstances – the starry heavens, the beauty of a tiny flower – and issues as output beliefs about God. Such beliefs are as spontaneous as perceptual beliefs or memories. They are “occasioned by the circumstances; they are not conclusions from them” (2000: 175). You look at the buds on the trees and spontaneously the belief arises in you that there are buds on the trees. What prompts your belief is not evidence for it. Such a belief is “basic, in the sense that it is not accepted on the evidential basis of other propositions” (2000: 175). Similarly, for memories. You ask me what I had for breakfast, and the answer just comes to my mind. Or a priori beliefs: I don’t infer from other beliefs that modus ponens is a valid form of argument; I just see that it is. According to Plantinga, God designed our cognitive faculties, one of which is the sensus divinitatis. Under the right conditions, the sensus divinitatis produces true beliefs about God that are not evidentially based on other beliefs. The sensus divinitatis is a reliable belief-forming mechanism.

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Beliefs produced by the sensus divinitatis are typically not accepted on the basis of any argument at all. And like memory beliefs, perceptual beliefs, and a priori beliefs, beliefs about God can have warrant without being inferred from any other propositions. On Plantinga’s model, the sensus divinitatis works in a way analogous to the cognitive mechanisms for perceptual beliefs, memories, and a priori beliefs. Such beliefs are all starting points for thought. They are not inferred from other beliefs. They are thus basic. Moreover, when the cognitive systems function properly, such beliefs are properly basic in two ways. First, with respect to justification: if belief that p is produced in S by S’s sensus divinitatis, S is within his epistemic rights to accept p independently of the evidential basis of other propositions. Second, with respect to warrant: if belief that p is produced in S by S’s sensus divinitatis and S accepts p independently of the evidential basis of other propositions, then p has warrant for S (Plantinga 2000: 178). Plantinga (1993) goes on to develop a positive account of knowledge as true, warranted belief, where a belief has warrant if the belief is produced by proper functioning of epistemic faculties, in an appropriate environment, according to a design plan that is successfully aimed at truth. Warrant is thus connected to proper function. A belief has warrant just in case “it is produced by cognitive processes or faculties that are functioning properly, in a cognitive environment that is propitious for that exercise of cognitive powers, according to a design plan that is successfully aimed at the production of true belief” (Plantinga, 2000: xi). Plantinga applies this general schema to theistic belief. Plantinga notes that his account of warranted theistic belief presupposes that God exists: if God does not exist, the belief that he does exist is (probably) without warrant, and if God does exist, the belief that he does exist (probably) does have warrant. Thus, the de jure question of whether belief that God exists has warrant is not independent of the de facto question of whether God does exist. Richard Feldman diagnoses Plantinga’s view as a species of what he calls “authoritarian epistemology,” which fits the following general pattern: “If S has evidence E, then it is rational for S to believe P iff the inference from E to P is approved by ____” (Feldman 2004: 123). But, Feldman asks, “Why think that good reasoning is reasoning that follows patterns

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prescribed by God?” (2004: 124). He does not accept the answer that “God knows what good reasoning is and designed us to reason well” (2004: 124). On the contrary, Feldman holds that “there is an independently identifiable thing that counts as good reasoning or justified belief” (2004: 124). Feldman’s criticism rests on a presupposition that Plantinga would deny – namely, that Plantinga’s condition for reasonable belief aims to explain or illuminate the basis of rationality “as an independently identifiable thing” (Feldman 2004: 124). Since Plantinga would deny Feldman’s presupposition, the Feldman/Plantinga disagreement here seems to be a stand-off. Whether belief in God is “properly basic” and thus reasonable depends in part on whether there are defeating conditions for the belief, especially from the existence of evil. Atheist Michael Tooley, along with others both theists and atheists, has pushed this line of thought in a book he coauthored with Plantinga (Plantinga and Tooley 2008). Tooley argues that in light of the Lisbon earthquake in which approximately 60,000 innocent people died, it is extremely unlikely that a powerful and beneficent God exists; i.e., the fact of such innocent suffering makes it highly improbable that God exists. Plantinga replies, among other things, that even if God’s existence were improbable with respect to evil, or a certain kind of evil, it may not be improbable on our total evidence. There are back-and-forth responses and replies by Plantinga and Tooley. Again, there seems to be a stand-off. Plantinga’s view has also come under criticism from inside Christianity. A different kind of dissent from Plantinga comes from within the natural-theology tradition in Christianity (Quinn 1985).2 A number of philosophers, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, have taken issue with Plantinga (Pargetter 2007; Zagzebski 1993). Some of the most interesting material comes from a debate between Plantinga and Philip Quinn (1985), who argued that intellectually sophisticated people in our society are unlikely to be in an epistemic situation in which belief in God is properly basic (Hasker 1998).

2

Also see Plantinga’s reply (1986). For Roman Catholic responses to Reformed Epistemology, see Zagzebski (1993).

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In Opposition to Premise 2 of the EMA William Alston’s view of religious experience as evidence for the existence of God may be seen as rejection of premise 2. Alston has argued that we do, in fact, have sufficient evidence for God’s existence (2004). Religious experience of the sort that is taken to be awareness of God provides prima facie rational grounds for believing. The rational support may be overridden if one also has reason to think that the experience is untrustworthy. Alston’s strategy is to take religious experience to be like sensory experience in that in the absence of overriders or rebutters, beliefs formed on the basis of such experience are rationally acceptable. Then, he fends off objections about dissimilarities between perceptual experience and religious experience that is taken to be awareness of God. As attractive as Alston’s case is for a believer, it remains the case that religious experiences, unlike perceptual experiences, are not subject to “cross-checking” that would rule out unsuitable causes (e.g., subliminal factors – Fales 2004). Many philosophers (e.g., Daniel Dennett) would dismiss Alston’s position out of hand. In order to be evidence of anything, such philosophers hold, a phenomenon must be publicly available. This seems to me too quick (Baker 2011). In the interest of space, let me just conclude that both sides are riddled with presuppositions not shared by the opponents. 2. My Point of View Turning now to my own point of view, I find the “state of the art” to be deeply inconclusive with respect to the role of reason in providing entitlement for religious belief. Neither the arguments canvassed for or against Premises 1 and 2 of the EMA would be logically compelling to a neutral party (if there are any). Although I believe that the EMA is unsound, my arguments will not show that belief in God is rational, but will criticize two arguments. The first is a new evidentialist argument that aims to show that there is no possibility of rational disagreement among epistemic peers; the second, uses science against the existence of God.

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The No-Rational-Disagreement Argument The argument that I want to refute is a (new, to me) version of evidentialism developed by Richard Feldman (2007). This argument – call it the “No-Rational-Disagreement Argument” or the “(NRD) Argument” – is designed to show that if epistemic peers who fully discuss all their evidence cannot come to agreement on a proposition p, then neither is epistemically justified in believing that p. Feldman’s argument concludes that there can be no rational disagreement among epistemic peers who share all their information. In that case, if epistemic peers who initially disagree about whether or not God exists share all their information, and neither is convinced by the other, the only rational position is for both of them to suspend judgment about the existence of God. In that case, neither has sufficient evidence for or against her belief about God. In greater detail: suppose that A asserts, “God exists,” and B asserts, “God does not exist.” Then, there is a single proposition about which A and B disagree. One of them is wrong; one of them believes something that is false. A and B may agree on politics and on how the curriculum should be structured and on much else; but there is at least one thing that they genuinely disagree about: whether or not God exists. Say that A and B are epistemic peers if they are more or less equal in intelligence, reasoning ability and background information.3 When epistemic peers have fully discussed a topic and have not withheld any information about it, they know each other’s view on the topic and the evidence that the other has for her view on the topic. Say that such epistemic peers have shared all their evidence. People who are not epistemic peers, or who have not shared their evidence may rationally disagree. But, according to Feldman’s argument, epistemic peers who have shared their evidence cannot rationally disagree. The argument is based on what Feldman calls “the Uniqueness Thesis” – the thesis that a “body of evidence justifies at most one proposition out of a competing set of propositions (e.g., one theory out of a bunch of ex3

The terminology as well as the argument from the (im)possibility of rational disagreement come from Richard Feldman (2007).

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clusive alternatives) and ... it justifies at most one attitude toward any particular proposition” (2007: 205). The Uniqueness Thesis (UT): Given a body of evidence, there is only one rationally justified attitude toward a proposition: belief, disbelief, suspension of judgment. If A and B are epistemic peers who have shared all their evidence, and still disagree on a topic, then, by (UT), the only rationally justified position is for each to suspend belief on the topic. Let me formulate the argument from Feldman that is to show that belief in God is unreasonable. First, let me give conditions for being in circumstances C: A and B are in circumstances C if and only if: (1) A and B are epistemic peers and (2) A and B have shared all their evidence. (UT) and the idea of circumstances C then lead to a new argument form – the No-Rational-Disagreement Argument: (1) If disputants in circumstances C disagree about the truth of a proposition p, the only rational position for each is to suspend judgment about p. (from UT) (2) q is a proposition, and the disputants who are in circumstances C and disagree about the truth of q. (empirical truth) ∴(3) The only rational position for the disputants is to suspend judgment about q. (4) If (3), then a disputant’s belief that q is unreasonable. (conceptual truth) ∴(5) A disputant’s belief that q is unreasonable. If we substitute the proposition that God exists for “q,” we get the conclusion that a disputant’s belief that God exists is unreasonable. If the NRD Argument is sound, then whatever reason that a person has to believe in God is compromised by the existence of unbelieving epistemic peers: “Even if our individual reflections on these hard questions [about the existence of God] provides some justification for the beliefs that

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may seem correct to us, that evidence is counterbalanced when we learn that our peers disagree” (Feldman 2007: 212). “[I]t cannot be that epistemic peers who have shared their evidence can reasonably come to different conclusions” (2007: 213). However, the NRD Argument is unsound. Here is a straightforward counterexample to it. (1”) If the Supreme Court Justices are in circumstances C and disagree about the truth of a proposition p, the only rational position for each is to suspend judgment about p. (UT) (2”) That the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act is compatible with the US Constitution is a proposition, and the Supreme Court Justices are in circumstances C, and disagree about the truth of the proposition. ∴ (3”) The only rational position for the disputants is to suspend judgment about the proposition. (4”) If (3”), then the only rational position for the disputants is to suspend judgment about the proposition that reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act is compatible with the U.S. Constitution ∴(5”) Belief that the proposition that reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act is compatible with the U.S. Constitution is unreasonable. The argument is valid. Is the conclusion (5”) true? It seems not. If (5”) were true, then all nonunanimous Supreme Court decisions based on the Justices’ beliefs would be unreasonable, because each member of the Court would be unreasonable to have the belief, no matter how carefully considered, on the basis of which he or she voted. Many of the most important U.S. Supreme Court decisions – including the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act – are arrived at by a 5 to 4 majority. Any standard of epistemic reasonableness that has the consequence that it is epistemically unreasonable for Justices to have beliefs on which they vote is a nonstarter. Nor is it any good to note that the Justices have a legal obligation to decide: a legal obligation may give them a legal or moral reason to come to a decision, but not an epistemic reason to have the divergent beliefs that led to the decision.

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A defender of the NRD Argument may respond that the NRD Argument has to do only with belief, not action. However, this response will not do: belief is inextricably bound to action. To suppose that action is independent of belief would make action (and Supreme Court decisions) incoherent. You do not have to confuse epistemic and practical rationality to think that (epistemically) rational belief should not lead away from (practically) rational action. Principles that put epistemic and practical rationality in conflict are unacceptable. Since the NRD Argument is valid and the conclusion is false, one of the premises is false. Someone may suggest that the Supreme Court Justices are not in circumstances C. But the Justices are a paradigm case of epistemic peers who have shared the same evidence, and who have discussed the evidence with one another. So, (2”), the empirical claim, is true. The likely culprit to be the false premise is (1”) – based on (UT). Feldman gives no direct arguments for UT. He supports UT with a number of examples. Here are two: (a) A detective, who knows that there is only one culprit guilty of a certain crime, gathers evidence against Lefty and Righty and comes to the conclusion that Lefty is guilty. The detective infers, then, that Righty is not guilty. Feldman says that such a detective “cannot also reasonably think that it is reasonable to conclude that Righty is guilty. This combination of beliefs simply does not make sense” (2007: 205). Feldman is mistaken. If you think that p is true and thus that not-p is false, it does not follow that you think that not-p is unreasonable. (b) Feldman argues that difference in worldviews does not generate rational disagreement. But his argument conflates reasonably rejecting a starting point (because it’s incompatible with your own starting point) and finding the other’s starting point unreasonable. Surely, you can reasonably reject a starting point without finding it unreasonable. Feldman repeatedly conflates holding a belief to be false with holding it to be unreasonable. Of course, if I think p and you disagree, I think that you are wrong and that your belief is false. But I need not think that it is unreasonable for you to have your belief – even if I think that you are my epistemic peer and that we have combined all our evidence. I do not think that you would assess Feldman’s examples the way that Feldman does un-

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less you were already committed to (UT). So, rather than supporting (UT), Feldman’s examples depend on (UT). There are further reasons to reject (UT). In general, honest acceptance of (UT), i.e., willingness to act on it, would be epistemically crippling. Here are some examples. 1. Two epistemic peers, A and B, with shared evidence may disagree in how to weigh the evidence for p, without there being a “right” way to weigh the evidence: suppose that A and B disagree about a proposal to tax petroleum-based packaging products. In sharing their evidence, they find that they agree that if the new policy comes into law, there will be a significant decrease in the amount of waste that goes into landfills. But they still disagree on how much weight to give this proposition, especially when weighed against the cost to the less affluent. Neither convinces the other. According to (UT), they cannot both be rational. Rationality is preserved only if they both suspend belief. If there is a vote on the proposal to tax petroleum-based packaging products, both A and B should stay home. Indeed, so should everyone who was discussed the proposal with someone she disagrees with. This consequence would devastate our common life. 2. Applying (UT) to itself, we should suspend judgment on it. I, for one, think that (UT) is false, and my evidence consists in the counterexamples I gave. If you are my epistemic peer and you think that (UT) is true, then I’ll combine your evidence with mine as far as I can. If we each want to maintain our beliefs about (UT), then (according to UT) we should suspend judgment on it. But if we suspend judgment on it, we should not regard as true. And without (UT), the tolerant view of reasonable disagreement remains intact. In short, (UT), and the NRD Argument in general, would have us suspend beliefs about politics, values, family life, equality of the sexes, discrimination against homosexuals, along with philosophical beliefs (about universals, mereology, modality, and so on) and scientific theories underdetermined by the evidence (e.g., Copernicanism in 1543). This concludes my counterargument to the NRD. To refute the NRD, of course, does not show that either premise of the Evidentialist Master Argument is false; but it does show that the NRD gives us no reason to suspend belief on the existence of God.

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Rebuttal of Second Argument for EMA: An Argument from Science There are numerous arguments based on science that could be used to support the premises of the EMA. Here is a simple argument for Premise 2 of the EMA. i. If there is sufficient evidence for belief that God exists, then science provides it. ii. Science does not provide sufficient evidence for the belief that God exists. ∴ iii. There is not sufficient evidence for belief that God exists. (Premise 2 of the EMA) Again, the argument is valid. Premise ii is true, but its truth is not a matter of what science turns up; its truth follows from the nature of science. Science is constrained by methodological naturalism, the view that scientific explanations make no reference to any supernatural forces. Methodological naturalism is not an ad hoc assumption, or a bias in science; it is constitutive of science and partly responsible for the success of science. The sciences are in the business of discovering natural causes, and only natural causes. They do not and cannot appeal to immaterial entities or to supernatural agents. As long as an explanation seems to require a supernatural agent, it is not yet a scientific explanation. So, even if God exists, science – by its nature – will provide no evidence for his existence. Hence, although Premise ii is true, Premise i is false. Hence, the scientificnaturalism version of the EMA is unsound. The Upshot The conclusion is not that God exists or even that the belief that God exists is epistemically justified. Rather, evidentialism – construed as the EMA, the NRD Argument, or the argument from science – provides no reason to deny or to suspend belief in the existence of God. However, we can reach a more constructive conclusion. Premise 1 of the EMA is just an instance of evidentialism. So, if Premise 1 of the EMA is false, then so is evidentialism. However, to give up evidentialism does not imply that evidence is irrelevant to whether one should believe p, much

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less that we should abandon reasonableness. Rather, it means that we should conceive of reasonableness in a more reasonable way. Indeed, epistemic evidence does not seem to be the only ingredient in epistemic entitlement. We are certainly entitled to our everyday beliefs (e.g., that my book review is due next week, that I’ll go to the grocery store tomorrow, that many Americans lack health insurance). But for most everyday beliefs, we have nothing worthy of being called “bodies of evidence.” To hold that “rationally, you should suspend all those beliefs” would make it impossible to live. Evidentialism leaves out nonepistemic reasons – moral, social, psychological – for accepting or rejecting a belief. Evidentialism view is not suitable for human beings, who must act under uncertainty. It cripples rational action. It divorces rational belief from what it is rational to do. Interestingly, the so-called New Atheists – Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and with more restraint, Daniel Dennett4 – also go beyond evidentialism in their critiques of religion. They also use social and moral arguments, not just epistemic arguments, against religion. They are concerned, not only with the falsity of religion, but also with its impact: Is it oppressive or liberating? Is it toxic or beneficial? Richard Dawkins (2006) takes religion of all kinds to be dangerous to society; he claims that religion promotes fanaticism and subverts science. Sam Harris (2004) links religion to terrorism, and Christopher Hitchens (2007) holds that religion “poisons everything.” Such claims against religion do not concern the epistemic credentials of any particular kind of religion, but rather concern reason in a broader sense. I heartily agree that reason in a broader sense is more appropriate than the epistemic reasons allowed by evidentialism that sever belief from action and, if adhered to, paralyze action or result in hypocrisy (as we saw in the case of the Supreme Court). However, the way that some of the New Atheists use nonepistemic reasons leaves something to be desired. Here is an argument that can be elicited from Dawkins (2006):

4

Daniel Dennett, who tends toward religious scepticism, makes only one prescription “categorically and without reservation: Do more research” (2006: 311). Dennett takes the stance of a sociologist of religion. See Dennett (2006).

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i. All manner of atrocities are committed in the name of religion. ∴ ii. Therefore, religion is pernicious. This argument is a nonsequitur (or it is unsound if we charitably add the premise that would make it valid: If all manner of atrocities are committed in the name of religions, then religion is pernicious). In the first place, religion is far from monolithic. Even within one religion, there are bitter disagreements. Some Christians kill Christian abortion doctors. Atrocious, I agree. But in light of all the Christians condemning the murder, it hardly seems fair to blame Christianity as a whole. To every case that Dawkins mentions, there is a similar response. Dawkins (2006) also argues that religious people inculcate unquestioned faith into their young, with the result that their ability to reason well and appreciate science is impeded. Some religious parents no doubt do indoctrinate their children, as do some nonreligious parents; but not all of either sort do. Moreover, fundamentalists may be excellent at reasoning. Ideology does not seem to hamper the ability to reason well. The New Atheists all consider religions to be social institutions, and only to be social institutions. To understand religion better, Dennett advocates more research on the evolutionary history of religion, as well as “what religion does” (2006: 31). Theists can agree; they too want to understand religious social institutions better, and research would help us understand the sociological dimension of religion better. But that’s all. Because of the methodological naturalism of science, we know in advance that any scientific explanation of the origin and development of religious belief ipso facto will include no reference to any supernatural forces. If any religion is true, its truth will not be uncovered by a scientific account of its origins. Perhaps if we had a scientific account of the origins and development of a religion, people would no longer seek anything transcendent. My guess is that some would and some would not. The religious need felt by some believers is not a gap that science can fill. Of course, there could be a scientific psychological account of religious longing, but that would imply nothing about whether such a need was satisfied by something transcendent. There is no way for science to rule out the existence of God, except to declare that there is nothing more than what science has access to. But how would a scientist be justified in claiming that?

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In sum, scientific reason is constitutionally unable to render a verdict on the existence of God. In any case, we need to construe reason more broadly than evidentialists allow. It seems to me no violation of any epistemic duty to reject the Taliban’s version of Islam on account of their treatment of women. I would not be irrational to persist in my unbelief in the face of Taliban leaders who are both my epistemic peers and who disagree with me. Without taking a stand on the effects of various kinds of religion – and it is important to remember that religion is not monolithic – let me conclude with a thought from William James “A rule of thinking that would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule” (1956). So, I conclude that reason, rightly understood, does not preclude religion, rightly understood. References Alston W. 2004. Religious Experience Justifies Religious Belief. In M. Peterson and R. Vanarragon (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion, 135-145. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Baker L.R. 2011. Does Naturalism Rest on a Mistake? American Philosophical Quarterly, 48: 161-174. Baker L.R. and Matthews G.M. 2010. Anselm’s Argument Reconsidered. The Review of Metaphysics, 64: 31-54. Barnes J. 2008. Nothing to be Frightened Of. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Clifford W.K. 1901. The Ethics of Belief. Repr. in E. Stump and M. Murray (eds.), Philosophy of Religion: The Big Questions, 269-273. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1999. Dawkins R. 2006. The God Delusion. New York: First Mariner Books. Dennett D. 2006. Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. New York: Penguin Books. Fales E. 2004. Do Mystics See God? In M. Peterson and R. Vanarragon (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion, 145-158. Oxford: Blackwell.

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Feldman R. 2004. Authoritarian Epistemology. In E. Conee and R. Feldman, Evidentialism: Essays in Epistemology, 111-134. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Feldman R. 2007. Reasonable Religious Disagreements. In L. Antony (ed.), Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life, 194-214. New York: Oxford University Press. Harris S. 2004. The End of Faith: Faith, Terror and the Future of Reason. New York: W.W. Norton. Hasker W. 1998. The Foundations of Theism: Scoring the Quinn-Plantinga Debate. Faith and Philosophy, 15: 52-67. Hitchens C. 2007. God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. New York: Hatchette Book Group. Housman A. 1954. Terence, This is Stupid Stuff. In C. Coffin (ed.), The Major Poets: English and American, 456-58. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World. Howard-Snyder D. and Bergmann M. 2004. Evil Does Not Make Atheism More Reasonable than Theism. In M. Peterson and R. Vanarragon (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion, 13-25. Oxford: Blackwell. James W. 1896. The Will to Believe. Repr. in his The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. New York: Dover Publications, 1956. Pargetter R. 2007. Experience, Proper Basicality, and Belief in God. In M. Peterson, W. Hasker, B. Reichenbach, and D. Basinger (eds.), Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings, 3rd ed., 273-279. New York: Oxford University Press. Plantinga A. 1978. God, Evil and the Metaphysics of Freedom. In his The Nature of Necessity, 164-196. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Plantinga A. 1986. The Foundations of Theism: A Reply. Faith and Philosophy 3: 298-313. Plantinga A. 1987. The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology. In M. Peterson, W. Hasker, B. Reichenbach, and D. Basinger (eds.), Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings, 3rd ed., 261-273. New York: Oxford University Press. Plantinga A. 1993. Warrant and Proper Function. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Plantinga A. 2000. Warranted Christian Belief. New York: Oxford University Press. Plantinga A. and Tooley M. 2008. Knowledge of God. Oxford: Blackwell. Quinn P. 1985. On Finding the Foundations of Theism. Faith and Philosophy, 2: 469-86. Rowe W. 2004. Evil is Evidence Against Theistic Belief. In M. Peterson and R. Vanarragon (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion, 3-12. Oxford: Blackwell. Van Inwagen P. 1999. It is Wrong, Everywhere, Always, and for Anyone, to Believe Anything Upon Insufficient Evidence. In E. Stump and M. Murray (eds.), Philosophy of Religion: The Big Questions, 273-274. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Zagzebski L. 1993 (ed.). Rational Faith: Catholic Responses to Reformed Epistemology. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame.

REASON AND AESTHETICS Susan L. Feagin

Abstract. One of the liveliest debates in contemporary philosophy of art concerns whether it is possible for reasons to provide at least some measure of rational or logical support for evaluative judgments of works of art. In Sections 1 and 2 I concentrate on whether there is a logical role for reasons in arguments in support of a judgment that a given quality is a good-making (or bad-making) feature of a work, for judgments of artistic or of aesthetic value. Central to the debate is whether there are general principles of criticism, and whether aesthetic qualities have “inherent polarity.” Section 3 looks at whether there is a way to justify or warrant the perception or apprehension of qualities of a work as good-making or bad-making, as opposed to justifying a value judgment as the conclusion of an argument.

One of the liveliest debates in contemporary philosophy of art concerns whether it is possible for reasons to provide at least some measure of rational or logical support for evaluative judgments of works of art. Reasons are generally taken to be verbal (written or oral) articulations of propositions so that they may figure in arguments as premises whose truth or plausibility can be assessed, and so that the cogency of the arguments themselves can be evaluated logically. If reasons are on offer anywhere, it would be in art criticism, which is a verbal exercise, whether written or oral. I examine here some of the issues in contemporary debates over whether reasons can logically justify value judgments of works of art, and defend the view that they can. A distinction is often made between aesthetic value and artistic value, which have an uneasy relationship within the subdiscipline (or overlapping subdisciplines) of philosophy known as aesthetics or philosophy of art. Kant’s analysis of judgments of beauty in the Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790) provides a major paradigm for thinking about judgments of aesthetic value, which he proposes are grounded, in some sense, in one’s feeling of pleasure. Aristotle’s analysis of tragedy in the Poetics (c. mid-fourth century BCE) as a techne provides a major paradigm for thinking about judgments of artistic value, where artworks are conceived as functional kinds and these kinds provide relevant concepts for criticism

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and appreciation. Beyond these historical precursors, three papers and one book from roughly the mid-twentieth century are seminal sources for current debates on the topic: “Critical Communication” (1949) by Arnold Isenberg, “Aesthetic Concepts” (1959) by Frank Sibley, “Categories of Art” (1970) by Kendall Walton, and Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism (1958) by Monroe Beardsley. In Sections 1 and 2 I concentrate on whether there is a logical role for reasons in arguments in support of a judgment that a given quality is a good-making (or bad-making) feature of a work, for judgments of artistic and of aesthetic value. I begin in Section I with Isenberg’s defence of a heuristic role for reasons in art criticism and his denial of a logical role for them. Central to his argument and to the ensuing debate is whether there are general principles or criteria of criticism that link properties of a work to value judgments about a work’s being good or bad. In the second section, I turn to the value contributions of so-called aesthetic qualities, and the extent to which aesthetic qualities independently of their larger role in a work can be appealed to in reasons to support aesthetic judgments. Section 3 looks at the perception or experience of a work’s value, and at whether there is a way to justify or warrant the perception or apprehension of qualities of a work as good-making, as opposed to justifying the conclusion of an argument that contains a value judgment. I defend the view that a perception or experience of a work as having certain valuable properties or as having flaws can be justified or warranted, but I also point out why disputes over what perceptions or experiences are appropriate will often remain unresolved. 1. Reasons, Criteria, and Categories of Art In his paper “Critical Communication,” Arnold Isenberg describes and criticizes what he takes to be a commonly accepted account of what occurs in criticism: a value judgment or verdict V of a work is supported by a reason R that cites a property of a work, along with a norm N that makes a general claim that relates the properties cited in R to the value judgment. N may be based on an empirical generalization about how people tend to respond to objects with similar properties to the one being evaluated, but N is supposed to function as a normative principle and not as an explanatory

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generalization. Isenberg famously proposes that even if statements that appear to be norms occur in criticism, they cannot play that role. For, he claims, a work is good not in virtue of the presence of the quality described in R, but in virtue of some other quality that the perceiver is able to see, perhaps even a particular instance of the generic quality mentioned or articulated in words by the critic, but not in virtue of its being an instance of that quality. It is possible to understand what a critic says when in the presence of the work being criticized, so that one sees (or hears) the relevant properties, even though only general terms are used. As Isenberg writes, “There is no vanishing point at which [a concept] becomes a percept. [A concept] is the idea of a quality, it is not the quality itself” (1949: 151), and hence the quality’s role as a good-making quality of a work can never be described or subsumed generically under a concept. He concludes that a critic cannot logically defend value judgments by giving reasons. Rather, “it is a function of criticism to bring about communication at the level of the senses; ... a sameness of vision, of experienced content” (Isenberg 1949: 148). Monroe Beardsley defends the RNV model of critical argumentation in Chapter 11 of Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism. On his view, artworks are members of a function-class, whose function is established by what “members of this class can do that the members of other similarly defined classes cannot do, or cannot do as well” (Beardsley 1958: 525). Functions adhere to classes, and only to individual entities insofar as they are members of a given class. The function of artworks as a class is to provide aesthetic experiences, and to have aesthetic value is to have the capacity to provide aesthetic experience. The general criteria or norms for evaluating individual artworks are derived from the concept of aesthetic experience, which is an experience having unity, complexity, and intensity of feeling quality. Thus the reasons are tied logically to a value judgment about a work. Nevertheless, because there is no fixed weighting of these criteria, it will not always be possible to rank order artworks in relation to their aesthetic value. One controversial aspect of Beardsley’s theory is that he denies that there is any such thing as intrinsic value. All value is instrumental, and you “can never judge the value of anything except in relation to other things that are at that time taken to be valuable” (Beardsley 1958: 541). The pro-

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cess of reason-giving may for practical purposes come to an end, for example, if discussants agree on something’s instrumental value and on what makes it instrumentally valuable, but reason-giving never, logically speaking, comes to an end. Any conclusion can at least in principle be contested; everything has consequences, and is subject to evaluation in relation to them (Beardsley 1958: 542). Beardsley’s view that the function of any work of art, as a work of art, is to provide an aesthetic experience is shared by Gary Iseminger (2004), who develops what he calls a “new aestheticism” for determining how art has acquired its function. More promising, to my mind, however, is the path laid out by Kendall Walton in “Categories of Art,” which contextualizes the debate not in terms of aesthetic experience but in relation to more specific judgments about types of works of art. Walton first defends the psychological claim that how we perceive a work, what properties we perceive it as having, depends in important ways on what type of object we take it to be. Further, he argues that, it may be correct to perceive a work as a particular type of work, or as a member of one or more categories, and incorrect to perceive it in others. Various considerations count for and against a work’s being in, and hence being correctly perceived in, a given category. These include having a relatively large number of features that are central to the category; it’s having few of the features that tend to count against something’s being in a given category; its being more interesting when perceived in a given category; its having been intended by the artist to be perceived in that category; and the category’s being well established in the society in which the work was made. Sometimes the particular type of process by which a work was made constitutes a relevant category, as can its having certain physical features or structure, even if they are not perceivable (Walton 1970: 208 in Dickie and Sclafani 1977). There are debates over what determines category membership, but the crucial feature of Walton’s view is that category membership provides a way of establishing the relevance of reasons. In On Criticism, Noël Carroll defines a critic as “a person who engages in the reasoned evaluation of artworks” (2009: 7), something which, notably, Isenberg claims cannot be done. According to Carroll, to qualify as criticism a verbal exercise must contain an explicit or implicit evaluation that is also defended by reasons. Reasons comprise some combination of

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description, classification, contextualization, elucidation, interpretation, and analysis – aspects of critical discussion that are explicated by Beardsley (1959). Still, some general norms or principles are needed to make the logical connection between the description, elucidation, and so on, and the value judgment. Unlike Beardsley, Carroll is not convinced that there are general norms or principles for artworks per se, but, building on Walton and Aristotle, he does endorse principles that apply within categories or kinds of art. Such principles indicate why the property in question is a goodmaking feature of that category of art, and hence why the principle itself is reasonable: because the feature is of a sort that helps the work do what works of that kind are supposed to do. For example, slapstick comedy is a category of art, and, “given the purpose or function of slapstick comedy, slapstick comedies that contain many successful pratfalls, all other things being equal, are good (pro tanto)” (Carroll 2009: 167). Category-relative evaluative principles, as in the example of slapstick comedy, provide a logical connection between pro tanto reasons – that is, reasons that a work is good or bad to the extent that it has the quality cited in the reason – and critics’ evaluative judgments of a work. Carroll’s theory of horror as a genre whose function is, inter alia, to produce certain emotional effects in perceivers, provides another extended example of category-relative principles that are developed along Aristotelian lines (Carroll 1990: 8). Carroll accepts that classifying a work in a category or categories can be justified by many of the same types of reasons advanced by Walton. One type of reason is structural, “where a work has an abundant number of features that are typical of the artworks already adjudged to belong to a certain category” (Carroll 2009: 172), and the more such features a work has, the more reason there is to classify it that way. Similarly, the fewer such features a work shares with other works in a category, the less reason there is to so classify it. Other reasons place works in their art-historical context, with the emphasis on “historical,” that is, in relation to ideas and practices of the artist’s time and culture. And others place a work in the category the artist intended a work to be perceived in. Carroll rejects as irrelevant whether a work is more interesting when perceived in a given category, a consideration that Walton endorses. For Carroll, the need for categories and hence the relevance of reasons has to do with the fact that we are concerned with an artist’s work and its “success value,” rather than

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whatever happens to strike the fancy of the would-be appreciator. Hence the relevance of artists’ categorial intentions but irrelevance of categories where the art work happens to “work.” Pro tanto, category-relative principles establish a logical connection between reasons and evaluative judgments even if there are no general principles that apply to art per se, and even if they do not provide conclusive reasons in support of overall value judgments such as that a work is good or bad. Carroll also points out that virtually all works fall into a number of categories and hence that one’s evaluations may produce mixed results, which is in fact what we often see in critical writing about art. That a work may succeed in some ways and fail in others without there being a clear way to rank strengths and weaknesses impedes rankings and comparative judgments of works even within a category, but Carroll sees this implication as a point in favour of his view rather than as a defect. Evaluation may be central to criticism even if ranking artworks is not. Looking at Carroll’s examples of slapstick comedy and horror, one might object that category relative principles cannot be the whole story, precisely because works in these genres are not necessarily or perhaps even typically works of art. That is, one may object that unless one has some general concept of what art is supposed to do, perhaps as a category itself (something Carroll rejects), we do not know whether, for example, a particular slapstick comedy is good not merely as such but as art. It should be noted that Carroll himself has a broad conception of what art is, and is unmoved by objections that he extends it to what others might think of as “merely” popular culture. But similar questions arise about categories that are more clearly categories of art in relation to other functional categories to which an object might belong. A common criticism of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum in New York City is that, though it may be a magnificent building, it functions badly as a museum, that is, as a place to display art. To what extent do the design features that inhibit it from fulfilling its function as a museum count as defects of it as a work of art? To what extent are features that are irrelevant to fulfilling its function as museum relevant to an evaluation of it as a work of art? These are legitimate questions, and we should not expect that answering them should be easy. Such questions press the need to develop a theory of interpretation that, among other things, provides a set of considerations that sanction various

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art critical practices, including determination of what is relevant to properly categorizing artworks. But any theory of value and evaluation needs such theories, and their difficulties do not constitute difficulties with the category approach to justifying judgments per se. Daniel A. Kaufman (2003) defends critical criteria along similar lines as Carroll and also describes his account as Aristotelian. On his view, at least some aspects of critical discourse are both reasoned and objective – not a matter of taste or mere perceptual response (Kaufman 2003: 396). Everything has “a distinctive purpose,” which provides an “intrinsic criterion for evaluative ascription” (2003: 394). There are different “critical laws,” as he calls them, for different kinds of things, and kinds are individuated according to “the common purposes of the individuals that belong to them” (2003: 397). Moreover, just as categories for films such as slapstick comedy and horror provide principles for evaluating artworks that are members of such kinds, so also, Kaufman proposes, such kinds for visual works of art are “consistent with the sorts of kind-descriptions that art historians use for classifying artworks” (2003: 398). The categories within which works are to be perceived are more clearly categories of art, since they are kinds explicated by historians of art. Yet, Kaufman claims too much for critical laws, in particular, that they provide sufficient conditions for evaluations. Perhaps he goes this far because his target is Isenberg, whose RNV model of criticism takes the conclusion to be an overall value judgment such as “This work is good,” rather than pro tanto, as Carroll does. I am sympathetic to the category approach, though a work’s membership in multiple categories raises complications. The value an artwork has qua member of more than one category may on occasion be additive and hence easily conceptualized; nevertheless, there are potential conflicts among categories, and artworks may themselves construct hybrid categories. Kaufman may be on the right track for some works when he says that what makes an individual artwork unique is its particular combination of purposes. But if he is right about this, it is even less likely that there will be sufficient conditions for a work’s being good precisely because of the complexities that are introduced when a work does not sit comfortably within an existing category. Though artworks may break the boundaries of existing categories, perceiving their value will consist at least in part in

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perceiving them in relation to the categories whose boundaries they break. Further, relevant categories need not have been established prior to the creation of the work, whose nature and criteria for evaluation are likely to be subject to debate. Creating and understanding art are continually evolving activities, and, crucially, learning all extant categories and bringing this apparatus to one’s experience of it will not ensure success at either task. That one may not be able to identify relevant categorizations prior to one’s acquaintance with a work is no barrier to the applicability of categoryrelevant principles, for the principles are not supposed to play a heuristic role to improve appreciation but the logical role of establishing the appropriateness of reasons in relation to an evaluation of a work as of a given type or kind. One worries at this point that the critic’s argument will turn out to be circular, with no independent criteria for identifying a work’s type beyond observing what it in fact does or does not do. But the critic’s argument will be circular only if one uses the “success criterion” alone for categorizing a work – a criterion that Walton accepts as a consideration for categorymembership, but which Carroll notably rejects even as a consideration. The “messiness” of having multiple considerations for categorymembership, which might initially be taken to be problematic, is actually a merit and reflects a characteristic desire to preserve the potential richness of artworks by allowing their potential to extend beyond the control of any one factor or individual: artist’s intentions, extant categories of a given society or culture, the pronouncements of a single critic, and so on. If functional kinds can be for any given work hybrid or even unique, one may wonder if they can play any role in affirming the logical status of reasons. To the contrary, the evolving status of categories casts doubt on the possibility of norms or principles, rather than the status of reasons. Categories may, as Carroll proposes, provide a framework for pro tanto principles, but then again they may not. As far as the logical role of reasons goes, properties of a work will be good-making or bad-making depending on how they work within a particular work, with their value contribution dependent on the function of the work. It is therefore not necessary to have general norms or principles to determine their relevance or contribution to value, good or bad.

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2. Reasons and Aesthetic Qualities as Valuable tout court In “Aesthetic Concepts” (1959) and “Aesthetic and Non-Aesthetic” (1965), Frank Sibley advances the idea that individual properties of a work can be good-making or bad-making features tout court – that is, in isolation from other features of a work and from consideration of the whole. Sibley’s view is the antithesis of a functionalist view, since value judgments are allegedly possible independently of any categorization of a work. Even so, his distinction between aesthetic and nonaesthetic concepts or qualities was originally developed independently of what the value contribution of any given aesthetic quality per se might be: non-aesthetic qualities – such as that a novel has many characters and that a painting uses pale colours – can be perceived by “anyone with normal eyes, ears, and intelligence,” and aesthetic qualities – such a being unified, lifeless, elegant, delicate, or insipid – can be applied only by those who have “taste or perceptiveness” (Sibley 1959: 29). That is, there are no sufficient conditions specifiable in non-aesthetic terms for the application of an aesthetic term (1959: 52 n. 7). The distinction between aesthetic and nonaesthetic qualities has itself been the subject of a great deal of criticism, and I shall not rehearse those arguments here (see, for example, Cohen 1989; Brady and Levinson 2001). Germane to our purposes, however, is Sibley’s claim that many aesthetic properties have “inherent polarity,” that is, they are good-making or badmaking features of a work in themselves and independently of their relationship to other properties of the work or to the work as a whole. Building on Sibley’s work, George Dickie (1988, 2006) integrates an account of aesthetic qualities into a theory about the value of art. He eschews overall judgments such as “This work is good” or “That work is bad,” and argues instead for the existence of principles for evaluating art that focus on a work’s aesthetic properties independently of their interactions with one another and independently of their relation to a work’s overall structure or function. He proposes that at least some aesthetic properties of a work, such as elegance or garishness, have either a positive or negative inherent polarity or “valence,” and that “principles of artistic evaluation are to be formulated in terms of the capacity of the aesthetic qualities of works of art to produce intrinsically valued or disvalued experience” (Dickie 2006: 319. He grants that other types of properties such as cogni-

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tive properties may be good-making or bad-making, and some theorists have argued that a work’s moral properties are relevant to one’s artistic or aesthetic judgment, but I confine my discussion to aesthetic properties here. See Dickie 1988: chapters 7 and 8; and Gaut 2007). Overall aesthetic value goes beyond the use of principles (Dickie 2006: 322) and is always established via “comparison matrices,” where comparisons are made among the independently valued properties that works possess (Dickie 1988: 163, 179). The principles are derived from the (alleged) recognition of the inherent polarity or valence of the aesthetic qualities themselves. They clearly are not intended to assist appreciators or artists, since the principles are derived from the perceived qualities and not used as a basis for perceiving the work. If aesthetic properties did have inherent polarity or valence, their contribution to the value of a work would of course be independent of the work’s category or kind. Alan Goldman (1995: 303) argues that there is no point in such principles, since the properties of a work of art always come in a context, and evaluating a work always requires considering it in context, not just its properties in isolation. Context and character overall are fundamental to treating something as art, even if one is interested in a work’s aesthetic properties. Goldman also denies that there are categoryrelative or genre-relative principles of the sort defended by Carroll, claiming that one can always find actual or possible exceptions. He takes a different path to determining how value judgments can be justified and hence how reasons may figure in that justification. For him, the key question is whether critics are justified in making the judgments they do, so that the justification of judgments is parasitic on how justified a critic is to make them. “Real critics,” he asserts, “are justified in their judgments to the extent that they approximate to ideal critics” (Goldman 2006: 310). Whether a critic is justified in making a particular value judgment depends on the critic’s expertise, familiarity with relevant types of works, and so on. On this view, value judgments can be supported only indirectly, by establishing the reliability of the critic. Art per se has a function, loosely speaking, on Goldman’s view: “to fully engage all our mental capacities simultaneously” (2006: 303), or, put another way, “to exercise and develop all our mental capacities – perceptual, affective, imaginative, cognitive – simulta-

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neously ‘in free play’” (1995, 2006: 311). This function, according to Goldman, is much too amorphous to generate principles for evaluation. It bears repeating that the uselessness of principles for creating something that fulfils the function of art or for appreciating an artwork should not be confused with principles that play a logical role in supporting or justifying value judgments. (Goldman, 2006: 311, it seems to me, comes dangerously close to conflating them occasionally.) Even if a principle is not useful for creation or appreciation, it does not follow that it will not play the relevant logical role. Plato infamously claims that both writing tragedies and responding to tragedies draw on irrational propensities of the mind. Aristotle’s Poetics is at least in part a philosophical response to Plato’s attacks. In systematically describing the function of tragedy and how various aspects of plot design can aid in or inhibit it from fulfilling its function, Aristotle attempts to show how reason is involved both in the production and appreciation of tragedy. But it would be a mistake to assume that critical principles that play a logical role in justifying evaluations of art would be useful for artists or appreciators, or that useful “rules of thumb” for artists and appreciators could serve as critical principles. Put in terms of Isenberg’s RNV model for critical argumentation, neither N, the norms, or R, the reasons, need be useful or even comprehensible to artists or appreciators, who may or may not have the relevant talent, background knowledge, or experience, including experience of the work under examination, to apply them. Yet, more can be said on behalf of the idea that we recognize valuable features of a work considered in isolation. For example, critics often pick out individual aspects of a work as good-making features when the work is not very good overall. Similarly, critics often identify localized defects in a work, particular things that are poorly done, again independently of an overall judgment. A writer may have a good ear for dialect, a filmmaker a good eye for camera placement, a painter a talent for composition, and so on. In particular, such strengths and weaknesses are often highlighted in critiques of student work or emerging artists, and the process can provide useful feedback about their strengths and weaknesses as artists. But, so described, pointing out features taken in isolation is undertaken with the objective of benefiting the artists, or as preliminary to getting a better fix on a work’s function. Attention is called to good-making features not because

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they are valuable as ends in themselves, but because overall the work is either pretty much a failure or the overall point is obscure. It is in the absence of a sense of overall value that one reverts to consideration of elements in isolation. The biggest problem with pro tanto principles, however, is that the value contribution of any given property is defeasible; that is, it’s status as a good-making or bad-making feature may be defeated in some way. For example, in relation to Carroll’s proposal that successful pratfalls are always good-making features of slapstick comedies, one might point out that it is possible for such a comedy to have too many pratfalls, even if they are individually well done. So the question is whether it is possible for a property to have inherent polarity – that is, to have value or disvalue in itself, independently of its relationship to the rest of the work – and accommodate what appear to be exceptions to its having such a polarity. To answer this question, a bit more conceptual fine-tuning is necessary, in particular, some of the apparatus that has been developed in epistemology in relation to justification of belief, including the concept of prima facie justification, and the ways that justification or reasons may be undermined or overridden. Prima facie justification is justification, “on the face of it,” that is, without any assumption that the justification will hold up after further scrutiny. For example, the quality or character of a person’s sensory experience is typically considered to provide prima facie justification for that person’s relevant belief about what one senses. In the absence of reasons to believe the contrary, for example, the fact that something looks red to a perceiver prima facie justifies that person’s belief that it is red. One might say something similar about aesthetic qualities that allegedly have inherent polarity. The fact that one perceives a work to be elegant might be taken to prima facie justify two beliefs: the belief that the work is elegant, and the belief that the work is to that extent good. Prima facie justification does not entail that the property one is justified in attributing to the object (that the work is elegant) is a property of the object, much less that the value of the property is in some sense inherent in it. It is an important metaphysical point that the two phenomena (its appearing red to a given perceiver and its being red; its appearing elegant to a given perceiver and its being elegant) are separable. The fact that they are separable is in part what makes the justification only prima facie. We may assume for the sake of argument that a

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work’s appearing elegant to a perceiver prima facie justifies the perceiver’s belief that it is elegant. The point in question is whether the perceiver is prima facie justified in believing that the work is good to the extent that one perceives it as being elegant. The answer to this question depends on how qualities, even aesthetic qualities, considered in isolation from other properties and from the work as a whole could be grounds for evaluating something as art. Sibley boldly claims that if at least some of such “properties are not themselves grounds of aesthetic value (positive or negative ...) in the realm of the arts, I cannot conceivably see what could be” (1983: 16). Clearly, those who take a functionalist or category approach can conceive of things being otherwise; as noted above, Goldman rejects principles that do not recognize the value contribution of properties to a work’s overall function. In addition, Jerrold Levinson writes that the pleasure appropriately produced by art is “characteristically a global affair, and not reducible to a series of pleasant local events” (1992: 14). He adds that we should give an artwork “a comprehensive and balanced regard, its features weighed and responded to both individually and as a whole, if pleasure received from the work is to be much indication of its true worth” (1992: 17, original emphasis). Along similar lines, Robert Stecker (2005: 196) distinguishes aesthetic value that is intrinsic and aesthetic value that is extrinsic to something’s value as a work of art. One may value the elegant “sculptural” line and pristine porcelain surface of Duchamp’s Fountain, but these qualities have nothing to do with its value as a work of art. Whatever aesthetic value such properties might have is extrinsic to it as the work of art it is. Hence, one should not take aesthetic properties to have an inherent valence or polarity precisely because doing so advocates seeing properties as valuable or “disvaluable” in themselves, as if the properties were themselves the artworks, rather than a part of something else. One way that prima facie justification may be defeated is if the value contribution of the property is overridden by its interaction with other features of a work and in relation to the work’s overall function. If overridden, a property retains its original value contribution, but it is outweighed by other factors, so the verdict about the work will be mixed. However, the value contribution of a property might also be undermined, so that it no longer counts even as prima facie evidence for the conclusion one origi-

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nally drew. This possibility constitutes the strongest challenge to the thesis of inherent polarity. For example, suppose that one knows that the lighting in a particular room is filtered in such a way that yellow objects look red. Once one is aware of this circumstance, the fact that an object looks red no longer provides any justification at all, not even prima facie justification, for the belief that the object is red. The prima facie justification that the object’s appearance usually provides is undermined: it no longer exists. The same thing happens with judgments about art. Suppose Julie Andrews sings, with her aesthetically exquisite, elegant voice, the rock song “Bad to the Bone.” Her singing does not have an inherently valuable aesthetic quality, elegance, whose contribution to the value of the whole is simply outweighed by other considerations; rather, any value the elegance of her singing might normally have is undermined by the overall consideration of what type of song is being sung. Elegance here is a flaw, not a merit. 3. The Phenomenology of Perception, Concepts, and Reasons Aesthetic qualities have typically been understood a perceivable qualities of a work, so that an analogy with other types of perceptual qualities would seem to be appropriate. David Hume, for example, develops this analogy in his “Of the Standard of Taste” (1742: 10-11). Yet, as Sibley points out, there are some important differences between perceiving aesthetic qualities and perceiving ordinary perceptual qualities such as redness. First, the former but not the latter can be defended or supported (even if not conclusively) by reasons, and second, critics, through what they write or say, can get us to see aesthetic qualities, but not, for example, that the book is red. Elisabeth Schellekens agrees that one should not take the perceptual model as the “chief and only guide” (2006: 177) for understanding aesthetic perception and aesthetic judgment, especially when the model is colour perception. Kaufman also makes the point against Hume that so-called “taste,” insofar as it is used to characterize what goes on in the appreciation of art, is not a matter of “control[ing] for physiological normalcy” as perceiving redness might be (2003: 396, 2002: section II). According to Carroll (2009: 161), neither is it a matter of emotional or “intellectual” normalcy, but of perception that is relevant or appropriate to a category.

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Sibley mentions seven ways that a critic “supports his judgments and gets his audience to see what he sees” (1959: 45), noting two functions of a critic, not just the one that Isenberg endorses. We can come to see a particular aesthetic quality in a work by reading what critics say, but the question is whether getting someone to see (or apprehend) something in a given way should be separated from reasons or justification in the way Isenberg proposes. But to say, as Sibley does when characterizing aesthetic qualities, that perceiving them requires certain special skills or abilities does not go far enough to explicate how a particular perception or experience of a work may be warranted. In what follows, I attempt to provide some explanation of how this can be. Everyone knows that perceptions change, but the question is whether there is a sense in which they can also be warranted in a way that accommodates the immediacy of perception, especially the perception of a work’s qualities as good-making or bad-making. That is, is there a way that such a perceptual experience can be warranted when it is not based on an inference from an articulated reason that serves as a premise in an argument? Two possibilities present themselves. First, an experience of a work may be warranted in virtue of being informed by relevant ideas and, second, it may be warranted by a background of experience. In regard to the first point, ideas that should inform our experiences, such as that a work falls within a given category, can be articulated in the premises of an argument. Identifying a work as falling within a certain category or as being of a given type may help to establish the relevance of certain properties to a work’s value. Reasons can be given that a given perception is appropriate or warranted, for one can provide reasons to believe that a work falls into a particular set of categories, so that when perceived in relation to the appropriate contrast class provided by that category, the work can be perceived as having a given property. This is not to say that such reasons will be conclusive. There may be debates over whether a given category is appropriate, what the relevant contrast class is, and so on. But these debates provide a structure within which perception and thinking occur, thinking or reasoning that may adventitiously affect not only one’s perception of the work in question, but also of other works that are relevantly similar to and different from it. That is, reasoning as such can affect how one perceives or apprehends a work without compromising the immediacy of the experi-

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ence. Such reasoning does not merely cause a “gestalt shift” or change in perception (or reinforce the perception one already had), but it justifies or warrants perceiving or apprehending a work in a given way. In this way, reasoning provides an epistemic or logical basis for and not merely an explanation of a perception, even when the perceptual experience itself is not inferential in the sense that it constitutes the conclusion of an argument. In such cases, one’s perception may be a result or effect of making appropriate cognitive shifts in understanding that are evoked by reasons. But there are other cases where the experience itself is “informed by” or “structured by” at least some of the relevant concepts. Indeed, it is fair to say that a “received view” in the philosophy of perception is that all perceptual experience is conceptually structured in some way, echoing Kant’s useful dictum that “percepts without concepts are blind.” The issue is then not whether but what concepts are to inform perception in any given case – granting, of course, that there may be multiple possibilities. It bears noting that it is often difficult if not impossible to tell to what extent the concepts have led one to have an experience with a new phenomenology and to what extent those concepts actually inform the experience itself. Suffice it to say that it would be unwise to adopt a conception of the phenomenology of experience that assumes first-person infallibility with respect to one’s knowledge of it, especially where conceptual components are concerned. Malcolm Budd (2006: 141) argues that perceiving a work in a way that is informed by concepts, identified by terms used in criticism, may make those concepts partly constitutive of the phenomenology of the experience. That is, one’s actual experience, the phenomenology of it, will be sharpened by the articulation of concepts that inform or structure it. Budd points out that there are cases where more than one term seems equally well suited to characterizing relevant properties of a work, and hence to characterizing one’s experience of them. If you are “a certain kind of person,” according to Budd, you will find this situation unsatisfactory and therefore strive to find yet another term that is better suited than either of the initial ones, so that “in perceiving the item the person regards the concept as being uniquely well suited to convey an aspect of the item’s character” (2006: 141). Even though the perception or apprehension of the work is immediate or “direct,” it is grounded in thinking and reasoning that both informs and potentially warrants, to some degree or other, one’s taking the

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aesthetic term to be uniquely well suited to the work and the perception itself, in so far as it is informed by the concept. Though Budd highlights striving for terms that are uniquely well suited to a work, I suggest that comparatively better sets a more reasonable goal, especially since no existing term might quite capture the character of the property or properties involved. Metaphors and invented terms, such as “Hitchcockian” (which may in principle describe films other than Hitchcock’s own) will be useful in criticism to the extent that readers can know or can figure out what they mean. Budd’s view about how concepts inform the phenomenology of experience occurs in the context of his discussion of whether and to what extent one must experience a work to appreciate its good-making qualities. The view that one must have such an experience is known as the acquaintance principle. Budd proposes that to the extent that one can understand the concepts independently of their informing a relevant experience, the acquaintance principle is false. So how might one come to be able to understand such concepts? Not by having “taste,” as Sibley proposes, but by having a sufficiently broad and relevant background of experience. Having a relevant background of experience is the second possibility referred to above for warranting an experience of a work. Obviously, past experiences cannot be contained within the premises of an argument, but it can affect how one experiences a work in relation to other works. Experience is cognitively informed not merely by “correct categorization,” but also by experiencing other members of the same categories and members of relevantly contrasting categories. For example, appreciation of Piero della Francesca’s Baptism of Christ is enhanced by having seen other works by Piero and other depictions of the baptism by other painters. Such experience enables one to understand the concepts that are used to describe a work in relation to an artist’s corpus and as distinguished from the work of others at the artist’s time. The acquaintance principle asks whether we can know that a work has a given valuable property “just” by understanding the argument and without a first-hand experience of or acquaintance with the work. But this makes it sound like all one needs to do is look at the argument, which is no more plausible than saying that all one needs to do is look at the work. Understanding the argument – what quality is being attributed to a work and why one should experience it as a good-making quality – is overwhelmingly

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likely to require acquaintance with a range of works in the art world as background experience. Indeed, it may require more background experience to understand the argument than it does to perceive the relevant qualities of the work. This is an empirical matter; some qualities will likely be appreciated with little experience and others only with a great deal. What catches us up in both cases – understanding the argument and perceiving the work – is the likelihood that substantial variations in background experience among different people will enable them to experience a work’s good-making or bad-making qualities appropriately, and the inevitable debates over the relevance of various comparisons and contrasts. A musical tyro may exult in the power and spirit of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, while the experienced listener hears it as unsubtle and even bombastic. It is a real and interesting question whether the would-be appreciator who perceives a work against a greater background of experience is always the one who is better situated to appreciate what is good about it. Disputes over how to answer this question will involve arguments over categorization and function, and much else. In any case, the goal of a appreciator should hardly be to appreciate a work as much as one can without actually perceiving it, but to bring as much as one can to enrich and enliven one’s experience. And that experience should not be identified in isolation – i.e., in relation to this particular quality of this particular work – but always with a view to the larger contextualization of artworks and modes of appreciating them. I began with a description of Isenberg’s position that, because the properties that make a work good or bad can never be adequately described by words, it is not possible to provide reasons that figure in arguments for evaluative conclusions about an artwork. It is therefore no function of criticism, on his view, to provide reasons to support evaluative judgments; the main function of a critic is to enable would-be appreciators to perceive or apprehend what is good or bad about it. A functionalist view, building on Walton’s work on categories of art provides a way of linking properties of a work to the work’s value, a way that does not appeal to general principles but also does not resort to ascriptions of inherent value or valence to individual properties, even so-called aesthetic properties. Finally, not only can evaluative conclusions about a work be justified, but perceptual experiences of a work can be warranted by appealing both to the way rel-

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evant concepts and background experiences inform the experiences one has when appreciating a work. It may not be possible to judge whether such an argument is a good one without perceiving the work, or without oneself having a reasonably broad background of experience of relevantly similar and different artworks, but this should not stand in the way of taking such arguments as presenting reasons in a perfectly legitimate sense. References Aristotle c. mid 4th century BCE. The Poetics of Aristotle, S. Halliwell transl. and comm. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1987. Beardsley M. 1958. Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. Brady E. and Levinson J. 2001 (eds.). Aesthetic Concepts: Essays after Sibley. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Budd M. 2003. The Acquaintance Principle. British Journal of Aesthetics, 43 (4): 386-392. Budd M. 2006. The Characterization of Aesthetic Qualities by Essential Metaphors and Quasi-Metaphors. British Journal of Aesthetics, 46 (2): 133143. Carroll N. 1990. The Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of the Heart. New York: Routledge. Carroll N. 2009. On Criticism. New York: Routledge. Cohen T. 1989. A Critique of Sibley’s Position: Aesthetics/Non-Aesthetics and the Concept of Taste. In G. Dickie, R. Sclafani, and R. Roblin (eds.), Aesthetics: A Critical Anthology, 2nd ed., 375-393. New York: St. Martin’s, 1989. Dickie G. 1988. Evaluating Art. Philadelphia: Temple. Dickie G. 2006. Iron, Leather, and Critical Principles. In M. Kieran (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 313-26. Feagin S.L. 2009. Affects in Appreciation. In P. Goldie (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gaut B. 2007. Art, Emotion and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Goldman A.H. 1995. Aesthetic Value. Boulder, CO: Westview. Goldman A.H. 2006. There are No Aesthetic Principles. In M. Kieran (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art, 299-312. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Hume D. 1742. Of the Standard of Taste. In J.W. Lenz (ed.), Of the Standard of Taste and Other Essays, 3-24. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965. Iseminger G. 2004. The Aesthetic Function of Art. Ithaca, NY: Cornell. Isenberg A. 1949. Critical Communication. Philosophical Review, 58 (July): 330-44; repr. in J. Margolis (ed.), Philosophy Looks at the Arts: Contemporary Readings in Aesthetics, 142-55. New York: Scribner’s, 1962. Kant I. 1790. Critique of the Power of Judgment, P. Guyer transl. Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Kaufman D.A. 2002. Normative Criticism and the Objective Value of Artworks. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 60 (2): 151-66. Kaufman D.A. 2003. Critical Justification and Critical Laws. British Journal of Aesthetics, 43 (1): 393-400. Levinson J. 1992. Pleasure and the Value of Works of Art. British Journal of Aesthetics, 32: 295-306; repr. in his The Pleasures of Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays, 11-24. Ithaca: Cornell, 1996. Schellekens E. 2006. Towards a Reasonable Subjectivism for Aesthetic Judgements. British Journal of Aesthetics, 46 (2): 163-77. Sibley F. 1959. Aesthetic Concepts. Philosophical Review, 68 (October): 42150; repr. with revisions in J. Margolis (ed.), Philosophy Looks at the Arts: Contemporary Readings in Aesthetics, 3rd ed., 29-52. Philadelphia: Temple, 1987 (from which I quote). Sibley F. 1965. Aesthetic and Nonaesthetic. Philosophical Review, 74 (2): 135159. Sibley F. 1983. General Criteria and Reasons in Aesthetics. In J. Fisher (ed.), Essays on Aesthetics: Perspectives on the Work of Monroe Beardsley, 3-20. Philadelphia: Temple. Stecker R. 2005. Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: An Introduction. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

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Walton K.L. 1970. Categories of Art. Philosophical Review, 79: 334-67; repr. in G. Dickie and R. Sclafani (eds.), Aesthetics: A Critical Anthology. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1977.

REASON AND LANGUAGE Manuel García-Carpintero*

Abstract. The paper discusses four main views on the relation between language and reasons. Two of them contend that there is no significant relation, on different bases; a third contends that linguistic features can only be clarified by relating them to motivating reasons, and the fourth makes a similar claim but with respect to normative reasons instead. These approaches assume contrasting views on the nature of language. The first is a Platonist view on which the languages are abstract entities whose properties are independent of the psychology of rational beings. The second, promoted by Chomsky’s very successful research programs, sees languages as a feature of the nonconscious deep psychology of human beings, a genetically determined subpersonal part of the mind/brain. The third has two different guises: the Davidsonian interpretationist perspective, and Gricean proposals. The fourth holds that languages constitute speech-act potentials, on the assumption that speech-acts provide speakers with normative reasons.

1. Introduction I will start by indicating how I understand the concepts of reasons and language, before moving on to present in the core of the paper what I take to be the philosophical state of the art on their relationship, and my own views on the matter. In the case of language, we are to be concerned with foundational views about its nature; issues that philosophical reflection since Frege has focused on – which to the extent of my knowledge also encompass those addressed in previous classical discussions by Plato, Aristotle, several medieval philosophers, Hobbes, the Port-Royal grammarians, and Locke – *

Financial support for my work was provided by the DGI, Spanish Government, research project HUM2006-08236 and Consolider-Ingenio project CSD2009-00056; through the award ICREA Academia for excellence in research, 2008, funded by the Generalitat de Catalunya; and by the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement no. 238128. Thanks to Teresa Marques for helpful discussion of some topics in this review, and to Michael Maudsley for the grammatical revision.

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and in the past few decades theoretical linguists have approached too, with a more scientific outlook: the nature of the referential relation between words and objects; that of truth and validity; the relative roles of features of sentences and features of sub-sentential constituents; the connections between meaning and use in several dimensions: meaning and experience; meaning and intention; meaning and convention; meaning and norms. When it comes to reasons, we will bear in mind the well-known distinction between explanatory or motivating reasons and justificatory or normative reasons. Here I follow Davis’s (2005) exposition. Motivating reasons are reasons why an agent acted. They are propositions, or states of affairs, usually not about psychological matters: my reasons for opening the umbrella were that it was raining, and to keep dry, not that I believed that it was raining or that I wanted to keep dry. The latter could be reasons for going to the psychiatrist, if I repeatedly find myself having these attitudes while all the evidence shows that it is not raining and I do not need to worry about getting wet. This established, however, we point out that, on the nowadays standard Davidsonian account, these propositions are motivating reasons to the extent that they constitute the contents of psychological states of the agent – typically complexes of beliefs and pro-attitudes (desires, intentions, emotions), in the previous example the indicated belief and desire – which caused the action in the proper way. The relevant sense of causation here is intended to be the very same one operating when it relates non-mental events or states of affairs; in particular, as Setiya (forthcoming) puts it, the because here at stake is the same because that applies to deviant causal chains: those cases of nonintentional action, where the purported reasons cause the action in a nonordinary way (hence the constraint “in the proper way” above), as when my inordinate desire to keep dry together with my belief that it is raining conspire to produce in me a state of anxiety that ends up causing my hand to open the umbrella in a quirky way. Admittedly, even if standard, this Davidsonian view of motivating reasons is controversial; however, I find it convincingly enough defended from recent criticism in the two papers I have mentioned, Davis (2005) and Setiya (forthcoming), and I will assume it in what follows. Normative reasons are also propositions, states of affairs or facts, but their connection with the psychological states of agents, if any exists, is

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more controversial and in any case more indirect. For it is uncontroversial that agents may have normative reasons that, because of ignorance or error on their part, do not move them to act; in the above case, it may well be that, in the circumstances, I have normative reasons not to open the umbrella: perhaps to do so is doomed to cause lightning that will strike and kill me. Internalists – defenders of the Humean Theory of Reasons, the view that, for someone to have a normative reason for doing something, he must actually have some desire that would have been served by his doing it – insist that there must be a substantive relation between normative and motivating reasons. Readers will find in Sinhababu (2009) a recent defence of the view, again convincing enough by my lights to sustain the internal connection between normative and motivating reasons that I will be assuming in what follows. In the paper I will present and discuss the four main views on the relation between language and reasons that, I think, we can find in the recent literature. Two of them contend that there is no significant relation that the philosopher (or the linguist, for that matter, investigating language in a more scientific way) should take into consideration, on radically different bases; a third contends that linguistic features can only be clarified by relating them to motivating reasons, and the fourth makes a similar claim but with respect to normative reasons instead. These approaches can be seen as based on four contrasting views on the nature of language. The first, well represented by Soames (1984, 1985), is a Platonist view, on which the languages that merit study by philosophers and linguists are abstract entities, whose properties are independent of the psychology of rational beings; this anti-psychologism (captured by the Montagovian boutade that linguistics is a branch of mathematics) was also central to the conception of the founders of the analytic study of language, Frege, Russell, Moore and the early Wittgenstein. The second, promoted by Chomsky’s very successful research program in linguistics, and propounded for instance by Laurence (1996), sees languages as a feature of the non-conscious deep psychology of human beings, a genetically determined subpersonal part of the mind/brain alien to rational constraints – whether motivating or normative – at least if we assume that rational states must be responsive to conscious deliberation and control. The third has two different guises: the Davidsonian interpretationist perspective,

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carefully presented and discussed in Lepore and Ludwig (2005) on the one hand, and several Gricean proposals, of which Lewis (1975) and Bach and Harnish (1979) are good representatives. The fourth is well represented by views on which languages constitute speech-act potentials, on the assumption that speech-acts are to be understood essentially as providing speakers with normative reasons, as in Alston (2000). In the following sections I will describe in outline these four types of proposals. I will be presenting them and indicating what I take to be the main critical considerations to choose among them, from the perspective of a normative reasons view that I will outline in the final section, thereby concurring with Dummett: “Any adequate philosophical account of language must describe it as a rational activity on the part of creatures to whom can be ascribed intention and purpose. The use of language is, indeed, the primary manifestation of our rationality: it is the rational activity par excellence” (1996: 104). 2. The No-Reasons Platonist and Chomskyan View “What is a language?,” asks David Lewis, and he goes on to answer: “Something which assigns meanings to certain strings of types of sounds or of marks. It could therefore be a function, a set of ordered pairs of strings and meanings” (1975: 163). This, which for Lewis is merely a thesis to be merged with an antithesis (that a language is something used by a population to further some goals) into the appropriate synthesis (the Gricean account to be summarized in the next section), is on the Platonist conception put forward by Soames the whole story: “Languages are abstract objects whose semantic properties are not dependent on empirical facts” (1985: 209).1 According to Soames (1984), linguists aim to answer some “leading questions,” seeking to unveil and systematically articulate features with respect to which natural languages are similar or differ, features that distinguish them from artificial languages or with respect to which they change. The subject matter of these questions is, Soames submits, “the structure of natural language, considered in abstraction from the

1

For related views, see Devitt (2003) and Katz (1985).

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cognitive mechanisms causally responsible for language acquisition and mastery” (1984: 157-8). Thus, to fix ideas, consider the apparently unmediated, “intuitive” judgments that speakers have about the acceptability or otherwise of strings of symbols, their truth or falsity with respect to specified conditions, the relations of consequence among them. On the three alternatives to the Platonist view to be characterized below, these judgments are (albeit in different ways) constitutively related to what languages are. On the Chomskyan view,2 this is because those intuitions are causal products (together with linguistically irrelevant factors, whose influence the theorist should somehow learn to discard) of the cognitive structures that languages ultimately are (idiolects or “I-languages”). On the Gricean brand of the explanatory reasons approach, this is because some intuitions, which again the theorist should somehow select, manifest the communicative intentions constitutive of languages; on the Davidsonian brand, it would be instead because the selected class of intuitions represents the basic data that the radical interpreter should accommodate in an interpretive truth-theory, similarly constitutive of what languages are on this view. Finally, on the justificatory reasons approach, this is because some of those intuitions (those constituting “agreement in judgments,” rather than in opinion, to put it in Wittgensteinian terms) determine which among many alternative possible sets of constitutive norms defining speech act potentials are in fact “in force” among the members of a given population, setting for them permissions and obligations. In contrast with these views, on the Platonist proposal “even intuitions of grammaticality are not data for theories in linguistics; whereas facts about grammaticality are” (Soames 1984: 174), assuming that “data” is “what theories make claims or predictions about.” Intuitions of grammaticality, or semantic intuitions, are like mathematical or geometrical intuitions: indications, which we must take to be reliable if we are to have some starting point at all, of some of the facts (the only real data) about numbers or space that mathematicians aim then to gather in an encompass2

For reasons of expediency, in presenting what I am calling “Chomskyan view” I will abstract away from several aspects of Chomsky’s own views (for instance, concerning mental causation), which I take to be idiosyncratic.

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ing system characterizing the structure of numbers or space. Number theory is about two plus three being five and related intuitive facts, not about our intuition that this is so; similarly, linguistics is on this view about abstract languages, say, languages that have “the cat is on the mat” as a grammatical sentence, and “some cat is on the mat” as logically following from it – not about our intuition that any of this is so: they merely provide the facts to be captured and systematized by the linguist in answering the “leading questions.” I will introduce the alternative anti-reasons view of languages by presenting what I take to be a compelling objection, by Chomsky and his followers (see e.g. Fodor 1981), to the Platonist view; as we will see later, the objection extends to some versions of the pro-reasons views. Frege and the early Wittgenstein gave pride of priority to the Principle of Compositionality in devising semantic theories; and Davidson and Chomsky made the concerns that motivate the principle central to their theoretical goals and, through their influence, to those of all contemporary theorists of language. Informally, the principle says that the meaning of complex expressions is determined by the meaning of the expression’s structure and that of its constituents; it thus constrains linguistic theorizing in general, because its satisfaction depends on some specification of what the parts of complex expressions are, and thus on syntactic, morphosyntactic and even phonological matters. The principle is motivated by the need to provide explanations for different capacities manifested by speakers. They include: the productivity and systematicity of natural language understanding, i.e., the capacity speakers exhibit to understand a potential infinity of sentences, and the manifested interrelations between understanding some and understanding others; the ability to express and understand new thoughts; the learnability of languages with a potential infinity of expressions, or at least with expressions never encountered in the learning process; communicative success, i.e., the capacity to put their thoughts in words so as to allow others to grasp them. Important issues arise concerning how to precisely formulate the principle, and the extent to which it is required to account for those facts. Relative to some adequate way of settling them, empirical is-

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sues also arise, concerning the extent to which natural languages are in fact compositional.3 I will focus on the latter. Now, if we just consider the evidence that Soames’ “leading questions” profess to be answerable to, plus methodological considerations of simplicity, explanatory strength and so on, we can expect to end up with a huge plurality of abstract languages equally adequate to meet them: to compare English to other languages – natural and artificial – to characterize how it has changed, etc. The amazing success of Chomsky’s program in linguistics, however, has pointed out many other considerations, among them facts about language acquisition and language processing, unimaginable a priori and, in any case, going well beyond Soames’ questions, that at least prima facie appear to be relevant to select among abstract languages the ones that are best suited to characterizing natural languages. Practicing linguists, including semanticists, do take those further pieces of evidence very seriously, choosing characterizations of languages capable of accounting for them. To mention only the cases to my mind most striking – the most unimaginable a priori – consider the evidence concerning the process by which a pidgin turns into a creole, which, according to Pinker (1994: 32-9) – following Bickerton – provides direct evidence of the operation of a Chomskyan innate language faculty; particularly, the case of the development in recent decades of Idioma de Signos Nicaragüense, a new natural sign language that emerged in schools for the deaf around Managua. Or consider the case of patients with Specific Language Impairment (SLI), also invoked in support of a Chomskyan nativist conception of language by Pinker (1994: 297-314) – this time following work by Gopnik and collaborators. SLI patients, despite having normal non-verbal intelligence, speak slowly and with effort, frequently making errors in their production and comprehension of sentences and words, more specifically errors showing a severe disruption of morphosyntax (i.e., the rules governing the formation of words from smaller semantic units, or morphemes). Important 3

Dever (2006), Szabó (2008), and Pagin and Westerståhl (2010) are useful recent surveys, which present careful formulations of the principle, and discuss the extent to which it can be taken to be well motivated by considerations like those mentioned in the main text.

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research is being devoted to studying the working and evolutionary history of the gene FOXP2, which appears to be responsible for the impairment. It does not matter for our purposes whether the claims in support of the Chomskyan nativist view based on this evidence – or those concerning the “poverty of stimulus” considerations about language acquisition originally invoked by Chomsky, which, properly articulated, are still for many the most significant – really establish those claims.4 What I think they support beyond any serious doubt is that Chomsky was right in requiring from his early work of linguistic theories “explanatory adequacy”: in principle, we cannot discard a priori that the facts we have mentioned, or others that now we cannot conceive of, are relevant in order to select among different abstract languages the ones that are best suited to characterizing natural languages. In particular, when we think whether natural languages obey a properly characterized Principle of Compositionality, and what this can account for, this seems perfectly well justified. Why should it be deemed irrelevant to a proper theoretical characterization of whatever productivity, systematicity, etc., natural languages in fact exhibit, that the proposal accounts for facts such as the development of creoles from pidgins, SLI, or facts about language acquisition? Why should Soames’ “leading questions” constrain the data that linguistic theories try to account for? After all, prima facie natural languages are natural kinds, if anything is, and we do not consider it explanatorily adequate to restrict in the way Soames suggests the data that scientific theories of other natural kinds purport to account for. The Platonist attitude regarding the nature of natural languages, as objects of explanatory concerns by linguists and philosophers, appears to be wildly unmotivated.5 Following Chomsky (1986: chapter 2), several philosophers such as Laurence (1996) have articulated a conception of what languages are which, in spite of being a radical alternative to the Platonist view, agrees with it in constituting a no-reasons view. On the Chomskyan view, linguistics aims to characterize I-languages. The “I” stands for “internal.” An 4

Cowie (2008) provides a good critical overview, even if, by my lights, ultimately not very convincing. Crain and Pietroski (2001) provide a compelling articulation and defence of the “poverty of stimulus” argument. 5 Laurence (2003) develops this criticism in more detail.

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I-language is an abstract state the “mind/brain” can be in, an informational state or state of knowledge, a “competence.” This competence breaks down into two components, corresponding to the dual focus of linguistics (based on the nativist considerations) on Universal Grammar and on the grammars of particular languages. Universal Grammar is essentially a theory of the knowledge embedded in the language-acquisition mechanism. According to recent versions, this knowledge is embodied in a system of parameters, and language acquisition is basically a matter of setting the parameters of that language, which are “set” by “triggering” information in the corpus that the child is exposed to. For each general way that languages can differ from one another, there corresponds a parameter. Having set all the parameters, a child will have learnt all the syntactic principles governing the language.6 Theories of particular languages’ grammars are theories of the knowledge that results from this process, embodied in the acquired set of principles determined by the parameter settings. This knowledge base plays a central and essential “subpersonal” role in language processing. It cannot be considered as consisting of reasons, on the usual assumption that reasons are under the control of a conscious system of decision and deliberation. On this view, linguists are not interested in languages conceived of as social entities, social artefacts devised for communicative purposes, which are usually understood to be what Chomsky (1986: 20) calls “E-languages” – the “E” being for “external” – in that the properties of an E-language are “independent of the properties of the mind/brain” (Chomsky 1986: 20); these entities are important for sociological, ethical or political considerations, but they cannot be the object of a properly scientific study. As Chomsky puts it: The commonsense notion ... has a normative-teleological element that is eliminated from scientific approaches. ... Consider the way we describe a child or a foreigner learning English. We have no way of referring directly to what that person knows: It is not English, nor is it some other language that resembles English. We do not, for example, say that the person has a perfect knowledge of some language L, similar to English but still different from it. What we say is that the child or foreigner has a “partial knowledge 6

Baker (2001) provides an excellent introduction.

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of English,” or is “on his or her way” toward acquiring knowledge of English, and if they reach the goal, they will then know English. Whether or not a coherent account can be given of this aspect of the commonsense terminology, it does not seem to be one that has any role in an eventual science of language” (Chomsky 1986: 16).

A scientific study of language can only be addressed to idiolects, even if, given their interest in unveiling general facts about the “language faculty,” linguists focus on characterizing the “stable state” of an idealized speakerhearer after passing the learning period which has fixed the relevant parameters in the “initial state” constituting the genetically codified UG. It should be clear that, as we said, thus understood, languages and their essential features do not constitute motivating reasons, and even less justificatory reasons. In the final section I will articulate a fundamental aspect of the normativity that, as Chomsky notes, characterizes our ordinary conception of languages, and I will suggest that there are no good reasons to think that we should renounce it in order to accommodate the compositionality-related explanatory concerns that – as I have been granting to the Chomskyan view – an adequate conception of natural languages should account for. 3. The Explanatory Reasons View The Davidsonian Project On the face of it, Davidson’s early theorizing on language is driven on the one hand by the concerns behind the Principle of Compositionality, and by Quinean empiricist qualms about intentional notions and intensional entities on the other. Davidson came up with the idea of putting Tarski’s work on truth-definitions to use in order to account for the semantics of natural languages. Tarski had shown how to make use of semantic recursive devices such as truth functions and quantifiers in artificial languages, originally characterized by Frege, to construct finite definitions entailing all instances of the following schema for sentences of those languages, having in place of “p” a sentence in the metalanguage with the same meaning as the object-language sentence designated by the name taking the place of “S”:

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(T)

Sentence S is true if and only if p

A truth-definition meeting this condition will be materially adequate, in that it characterizes the set of true sentences of the object language. Of course, in making this claim we essentially depend on the obtaining of the synonymy relation between sentences used in the right-hand-side of instances of (T) and sentences mentioned in the left-hand-side. Davidson, however, wants to appeal to Tarskian ideas to explain in a reductive way, meeting Quinean empiricist strictures, what it is for sentences of a language to have the meaning that they have, showing in so doing how the meaning of complex expressions depends on the meaning of their components. Appeal to Tarski’s resources might help with the facts of composition, but reliance on notions such as synonymy must be shunned. In trying to meet this goal, Davidson submits that meaning is what a correct theory of meaning characterizes; the meaning of the utterances of a speaker is just what a theory that would allow for successful interpretations ascribes to them; and he suggests that a true Tarskian truth-theory meeting certain constraints (intuitively intended to guarantee that the condition Tarski places on (T), to wit, that the sentence used on the right-hand-side conveys the meaning of the one mentioned on the left-hand-side) would allow just for that: successfully interpreting the speaker, showing in so doing how the meaning of the complex depends on the meaning of the parts. Given the foundational goals, constrains on the truth-theory should be free from locutions such as meaning, translation or synonymy. Davidson contends that the relevant constrain is confirmability from the standpoint of the radical interpreter. A radical interpreter is someone who purports to interpret a speaker without any previous knowledge of the meaning of the expressions in the speaker’s language, or of the speaker’s propositional attitudes. The radical interpreter has access only to the speaker’s interaction with his environment, and whatever other knowledge about the physical word he may need; and according to Davidson he will operate by assuming a Principle of Charity, which holds that most of a speaker’s beliefs about his environment are true. These suggestions establish a constitutive connection between language and motivating reasons: how a speaker understands the sentences he uses is one of the components (together with his other attitudes, beliefs, intentions and so on) that the radical interpreter

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purports to make the best sense of, given the speaker’s behaviour and his relations with the environment. On this view, thus, a language is essentially constituted by reasons that explain a speaker’s behaviour, as discerned by a radical interpreter. Even though Davidson’s proposal is thus very different from the Platonist one, it falls prey to the Chomsky-inspired objections outlined before – unless the radical interpreter is thought of as being in a position to appeal to data about language acquisition, language evolution and language-processing, which, even if not in principle ruled out by the program, appears to fit badly with Davidson’s (1990) motivation for his stance.7 That stance is essentially behaviourist, in spite of disclaimers: We should demand ... that the evidence for the theory be in principle publicly accessible, and that it not assume in advance the concepts to be illuminated. The requirement that the evidence be publicly accessible is not due to an atavistic yearning for behaviouristic or verificationist foundations, but to the fact that what is to be explained is a social phenomenon. Mental phenomena in general may or may not be private, but the correct interpretation of one person’s speech by another must in principle be possible. A speaker’s intention that her words be understood in a certain way may of course remain opaque to the most skilled and knowledgeable listener, but what has to do with correct interpretation, meaning, and truth conditions is necessarily based on available evidence (Davidson 1990: 314).

However, as Chomsky has repeatedly pointed out with regard to analogous considerations by Quine, this misses the possibility that what accounts for mutual intelligibility is a shared innate endowment, whose character is only accessible to empirical procedures going well beyond those available to the radical interpreter, given the way Davidson appears to think of this methodological posit (see Pietroski 2006: 43-4). As Lepore and Ludwig (2005: chapters 12-15) argue, there is no good reason for thinking that successful radical interpretation is always possible, unless we make ontological assumptions about languages that are unjustified elsewhere.

7

Pietroski (2005: 264-5) expresses similar concerns.

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The Gricean Project Here I will briefly summarize what I take to be a plausible version of the Gricean program, which I have presented in more detail elsewhere (see García-Carpintero 2001, 2006). Central to the Gricean conception is the notion of speaker meaning, which we can illustrate with an example. In one of Borges’ short stories, “The Garden of Forking Paths,” Yu Tsun, a German spy in England during the First World War, finds no better way of communicating to his superiors in Berlin that the city they should bomb is Albert than killing in extraordinary circumstances a man named “Albert.” (Yu Tsun makes sure that the news of such an apparently unmotivated murder will be in newspapers read in Berlin.) This example fits nicely with Grice’s original explication of speaker-meaning in terms of communicative intentions: by “uttering” his murdering of Albert, Yu Tsun intends his superiors to judge that the city to bomb is Albert; and his plan is to produce this effect precisely through their recognition of Yu Tsun’s very intention that they so judge. Now, it is certainly the case that Yu Tsun’s “utterance” is not a conventional device for informing someone that Albert is the city to be bombed. The Gricean suggestion is that linguistic meaning results from the enlisting of conventional devices to facilitate exchanges such as the one just described, essentially dependent on the presence of Gricean communicative intentions. However, as Grice himself found out, it is no simple matter to characterize the conventionalized meaning of natural language sentences in terms of the concept of speaker meaning, as applicable to cases like Yu Tsun’s. The best proposal only indirectly appeals to Gricean communicative intentions; nonetheless, it is still a straightforward explanatory reasons account close to the one envisaged by Grice. It has recourse to Lewis’ (1975) explication of convention, on which conventions are regularities rationally “selfperpetuated,” in that conformity is secured by the expectations of participants that others will conform, given shared goals, the satisfaction of which requires coordinated behaviour. The goals are in our case the benefits of communication; focusing on the specific one of sharing information, the relevant conventions are conventions of truthfulness and trust: they require, for instance, speakers to regularly utter declarative sentences only when they take them to be true, and audiences to trust that uttered de-

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clarative sentences are true. On this view, what makes one of the many possible abstract languages the one spoken by a given population is the presence of such conventions of truthfulness and trust in the population: this is the Lewisian synthesis we mentioned at the beginning of section 2 above. It thus remains essential to this conception of languages that speakers act motivated by reasons, and take their fellow speakers to do so. Curiously enough, as in the Davidsonian case, although this theoretical stance is very different from the Platonist one, and even though perhaps the framework in itself does not require it, the way Lewis himself understands it makes it prey to the Chomskyan objections to the Platonist no-reasons view. A crucial problem for the Gricean account is that the appeal to speaker-meaning by itself cannot provide a necessary condition for determining what is said by possible utterances of sentences (i) too long or too complicated to be actually uttered, or (ii) trivially true or for uttering which no speaker could have a sufficient reason, (iii) by sentences typically uttered to perform non-literal acts of meaning, or (iv) sentences that say such bizarre things that would not be uttered but to mean something different from what they say (Schiffer 1993: 233-9; Lance and O’Leary-Hawthorne 1997: 290-4). What makes an account of linguistic meaning distinctively Gricean is that it is to be given in terms of the concepts used in the Gricean account of speaker-meaning, in particular that of communicative intention. What this amounts to is that it is to be given in terms of (self-supporting regularities involving) a specific form of rational purposive activity characteristic of persons. Now, only a small finite subset of all logically possible utterances with a literal meaning in a typical natural language occur under such rational control. To deal with this, Lewis appeals to: extrapolation. First, use somehow determines meaning for the fragment of language that is actually used. There are rules of syntax and semantics that generate the right sentences with the right meanings within the used fragment. These rules also generate other, longer sentences, with meanings, outside the used fragment. Use determines some meanings, those meanings determine the rules, and the rules determine the rest of the meanings … True, there are many grammars. But they are not on equal terms. Some are ‘straight’ grammars; for example, any grammar that any linguist would

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actually propose. Others are ‘bent,’ or ‘gruesome,’ grammars (Lewis 1992: 109-10).

However, as Schiffer (1993: 236-9) argues, from a Chomskyan viewpoint this is still too extrinsic a way to determine the language spoken by a given individual or community. For we can think of individuals who in fact speak a finite language without grammar, or one for which they have internalized (perhaps by explicit learning) a “bent” grammar, for which Lewis’ recipe would produce the wrong extrapolation. Loar (1981: 257-60) resorted at this point to a Chomskyan psycholinguistic grammar internalized by the speaker to determine the actual language he speaks. Lewis resists this move with considerations that remind us of earlier arguments of his (see Lewis 1975) against internally represented grammars: Maybe there is a grammar somehow written into the brain. And conceivably it is a bent grammar, so that the language it generates differs, somewhere outside the used fragment, from the language we get by straight extrapolation. Schiffer has asked: does straight extrapolation give the right answers even then? I think so. If not, then whenever we resort to extrapolation to answer questions of syntax and semantics, we are engaged in risky speculation about the secret workings of the brain. That seems wrong (Lewis 1992: 110).

What Lewis finds wrong, as Schiffer guesses, “is that if the inference is risky, then language users will not know what language they are using. If L is used by P only if some grammar of P is used in the processing of utterances of L, and if no one is now in a position to go that deeply into the brain, then how can the members of P know that it is L that they are speaking?” (Schiffer 1993: 256, n. 5). For the sort of reasons mentioned above in reply to the Davidsonian behaviourist considerations, I think Schiffer is right in rejoining as follows: But the most that follows from the antecedent of this question is that members of P do not have knowledge of the function L in a way that affords them a finite definition of it. They may nevertheless know that, say, they speak Italian, where ‘Italian’ is a rigid designator of the language they speak; or they may have all sort of knowledge by description of the language they use, where the descriptions under which they have their know-

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ledge of L do not give the wherewithal to determine the grammar that in fact makes L the language they use (Schiffer 1993: 256, n. 5).

A potential source of resistance to accepting Schiffer’s suggestion lies in that it involves referring to the language whose nature one is attempting to define in Gricean terms in the explicans of our philosophical account, not only in the explicandum. People approaching the Gricean project with reductionist goals will not be happy with this. Once the reductionist goals are abandoned, however, as I will suggest in the following section we must in any case do, there is no reason why we should not take Schiffer’s advice. Thus, there is no good reason not to invoke Chomskyan help in dealing with the “meaning without use” problem for the Gricean. In the next section, however, we will examine a different line of criticism to Gricean views – considerations why we need to move from this version of the motivating reasons account, to a normative reasons view. 4. The Normative Reasons View Wittgenstein’s later philosophy makes a connection between language and norms or rules; Kripke’s (1982) widely debated interpretation has further encouraged discussion about the role of normative reasons in characterizing languages. Kripke’s presentation appeals to rules or norms such as these: (Plus) If one means addition by “+,” one ought (to answer “125” if asked “68 + 57?”). (Circ) If one means being circular by “circular,” then one ought not (to apply “circular” to o if o is not circular) and one is permitted (to apply “circular” to o if o is circular). Given that almost everything in this debate is highly controversial, in the space allowed I will limit myself to developing without much justification the line on these matters that I find compelling; I have already started to do this by choosing the illustrative examples above, phrasing them and explicitly providing scope indications.8 Note that the obligation in (Plus) men8

Glüer and Wikforss (2009) is a good introduction that gives an accurate idea of the different controversies.

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tions a speech act, answering, which presumably involves asserting, and so does the one in (Circ) under the interpretation I intend for applying – which I also take to be a form of assertion. I agree that, in an alternative interpretation on which “to apply” just means predicating – see Glüer and Wikforss (2009: 2.1.1) – we do not have here genuine rules giving normative reasons for agents to act. Let me elaborate on this. Most speech acts have representational contents, which can be shared by acts of different illocutionary types. Representational contents, or propositions, encode correctness conditions with respect to different possible worlds: conditions that (putting aside necessarily true or necessarily false contents) obtain with respect to some worlds, perhaps the actual world among them, and not with respect to others. But the notion of “correctness” here at stake is an etiolated one for present purposes. I can assert p, or order p, or (in fiction-making mood) propose that you imagine p. Arguably, that p is not the case in the actual world (not just now, but atemporally, speaking sub specie æternitate) does not make the order thereby incorrect, and certainly does not make the act of fiction-making incorrect; but it does make the assertion incorrect. Similarly, that p is the case in the actual world does not make the order correct – the order might have been a stupid one, or one given without any proper authority, thus providing no genuinely normative reason for the recipient to act; nor, again, does it thereby make the act of fiction-making correct: p might well be a totally uninteresting thing for anybody to imagine. Arguably, however, it might be enough for making the assertion correct. Hence, the correctness conditions encoded by propositions do not constitute normative reasons in the sense that interests us. They merely effect a division of representational contents into two classes (with respect to any possible world): those obtaining in, or correctly representing the world, and those not obtaining.9 That a represen9

I think that ordinary speakers would find the likes of (Circ) intuitively compelling only under the assertion interpretation, and not under the alternative predication interpretation. Note that, in that alternative understanding, we are under the relevant etiolated “obligation” of “applying” “circular” to N not just when we say “N is circular” (which is what first comes to mind, but does not allow us to distinguish the two interpretations, because here we are also applying “circular” to N in the speech-act sense) but also when we say “it is not the case that N is circular,” “N is circular or it is not,” “Peter said that N is circular” or “N is circular, I imagine;” for in all these cases we are

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tational act represents an obtaining proposition does not, by itself, furnish any agent with a normative reason; for discerning that we need to know, in addition, what the illocutionary act is, what is its “point.”10 I take it that rules like (Plus) and (Circ) are intuitively “primitively compelling,” to use Peacocke’s (1987) terminology.11 Is there an explanation for why this is so? Such an explanation would appeal, firstly, to accounts of speech acts in terms of constitutive rules, along the lines of Austin (1962), Searle (1969), Alston (2000), or Williamson (1996) for the specific case of assertion; secondly, to a view of meanings of natural language sentences as speech act potentials, as also developed by Alston (2000) and others. I will now briefly outline both ideas. Williamson (1996) claims that the following norm or rule (the knowledge rule) is constitutive of assertion, and individuates it: (KR)

One must ((assert p) only if one knows p).

In the course of the debate that Williamson’s proposal has engendered, other writers have accepted the view that assertion is defined by constitutive rules, but have proposed alternative norms; thus, Weiner (2005) proposes a truth rule, (TR), and Lackey (2007) a reasonableness rule, (RBR):

predicating “circular” of N. If so, the fact that we may also find (Circ) correct under the predication interpretation when we fully grasp the theoretical notion of representational content (which I grant) is I think irrelevant for purposes of philosophical theorizing, and thus I do not think that that interpretation of meaning-normativity is adequate to play the role it has in Kripkenstein’s rule-following considerations. 10 This is also Dummett’s (1978) main reason why “deflationary” definitions of truth constrained only to generate all true instances of (T) above (be they for linguistic items, as in that schema, or directly for propositions) do not suffice to (and perhaps are then unnecessary) to characterize truth, understood not as a property of representational contents, but of assertions themselves – which arguably are the intuitively primary truth-bearers, for the sort of consideration invoked in the previous footnote. 11 More in line with the goals of that paper, we could easily state analogous rules for expressions that are used to build complex sentences, such as logical constants (negation, implication, quantification, predication), by invoking fundamental argumentative transitions (modus ponens in the case of implication) instead of acts such as answering or applying.

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(TR) One must ((assert p) only if p). (RBR) One must ((assert p) only if it is reasonable for one to believe p). As a first motivation for his account, Williamson (1996: 252) mentions intuitive conversational patterns: we challenge assertions politely by asking “How do you know?” or, more aggressively, “Do you know that?” (Williamson 1996: 252). Austin already pointed out these patterns: it is important to notice also that statements too are liable to infelicity of this kind in other ways also parallel to contracts, promises, warnings, &c. Just as we often say, for example, ‘You cannot order me,’ in the sense ‘You have not the right to order me,’ which is equivalent to saying that you are not in the appropriate position to do so: so often there are things you cannot state – have no right to state – are in no position to state. You cannot now state how many people there are in the next room; if you say ‘There are fifty people in the next room,’ I can only regard you as guessing or conjecturing (Austin 1962: 138).

As Hindriks (2007) notes, these facts about our practices of appraising assertions are by themselves insufficient to justify normative accounts. For we also evaluate assertions relative to (invoking Rawls’ well-known distinction – Rawls 1955) merely regulative norms, norms that regulate, relative to certain purposes, acts in themselves constitutively non-normative – for instance, as witty, polite or well-phrased. Hindriks shows that norms for assertion could be merely regulative of a constitutively non-normative practice, definable in the motivating reasons Gricean account that Bach and Harnish proposed, GA below (“R-intending” there is to be explicated in terms of Gricean communicative intentions). The regulative norms in question would then be derived from an ultimately moral sincerity rule such as (SR): (GA) To assert p is to utter a sentence that means p thereby Rintending the hearer to take the utterance as a reason to think that the speaker believes p. (SR) In situations of normal trust, one ought to be sincere. I think, however, that there are considerations against non-normative accounts such as (GA), and in favour of normative accounts stronger than

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those provided by (TR) or (RBR) (García-Carpintero 2004). In the first place, there are well-known objections to Gricean accounts of speakermeaning in general, of which (GA) is a special case for assertoric meaning, which strongly suggest that normative accounts are preferable (Vlach 1981; Alston 2000: chapter 2; Green 2007: chapter 3). Thus, the clerk in the information booth uttering “The flight will depart on time,” or the victim saying to his torturer “I did not do it,” or any of us uttering to our neighbour in the lift “nice weather, isn’t it?,” may well lack the Gricean intentions that (GA) requires them to assert, but they are asserting all right; any normative account would capture this, for, no matter their intentions, they are still committed to knowing what they say (or having justification for it, or being truthful). In the second place, there are situations in which we may have overwhelming prudential or moral reasons to violate (SR), i.e., not to be sincere. If the “regulative rules” account were correct, any sense that we are violating a pro tanto norm – even if all things considered we are doing the right thing – should vanish in those cases; but it does not, or at least it does not according to intuitions many of us share – exactly as it happens in analogous cases involving promises, as Rawls (1955) pointed out in his influential argument against “regulative rules” accounts of them. Williamson provides additional justification for his specific normative proposal: first, the account explains what is wrong in a version of Moore’s paradox with “know” instead of “believe”: A, and I do not know that A (Williamson 1996: 253-4). Second, mathematics provides for formal situations where the speaker’s sensitivity to the norms of assertion is highlighted; in those situations, being warranted to assert p appears to go hand in hand with knowing p. Third, an account based on TR seems at first sight preferable: given that the truth rule is satisfied whenever the knowledge rule is, but not the other way around, it provides for a practice with fewer violations of its governing rule; some evidential rule could then be explained as derived from TR, and considerations not specific to assertion. However, the truth rule does not individuate assertion; alternative speech acts like conjecturing, reminding or swearing also involve a truth rule (Williamson 1996: 244-5). Moreover, reflection on lotteries (cases in which, knowing that you hold a ticket in a very large lottery, I assert “your ticket did not win” only on the basis of the high probability of the utterance’s truth) question the validity of any such alleged derivation (William-

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son 1996: 246-52). Finally, intuitions about many cases in which we assert without knowing can be made compatible with the view. In some cases, it is reasonable for us to think that we know, even if we do not; what we do is not permissible, but it is, as we feel, exculpable. In some cases, additional values (saving someone from danger, enjoying a relaxed conversation) are at stake, allowing again for exculpation based on their contextual relative strength (Williamson 1996: 256-9). Speech acts like assertion are thus normative; they are constituted by rules such as (KR). This applies both to those done by resorting to purely conventional means, if there are any, but also to those done in an indirect way, having recourse to the sort of pragmatic mechanism that Grice (1975) famously characterized as conversational implicature, as for instance when we “ask,” “who the hell would want to see a film with that plot?” A full explanation of our intuitive feeling concerning the appropriateness of (Plus) or (Circ) is provided by a view of what natural languages are for such as Alston’s (2000), according to which the literal, primary meanings of sentences in natural language are speech act potentials. Why “potentials”? Consider utterances of “he is hungry.” This is a declarative sentence, and it is reasonable to argue that such sentences are used by default to make assertions. If so, and according to rules such as (KR) or (TR), in uttering it with its default meaning, a speaker commits himself to knowing (or to the truth of) a certain proposition. Intuitively, to identify such a proposition we need information about the context in which the utterance is made; knowledge of English tells us that the referent of “he” should be some male made salient (“demonstrated”) by the speaker; but we need further information about how such salience is established in the context, in order to identify it. Recent debates in linguistics and the philosophy of language about the semantics/pragmatics distinction suggests that this point is widespread in natural languages. Literal and direct utterances of “it is raining” in a context commit their utterers to propositions concerning specific times and places; of “no one showed up at the party,” to propositions concerning specific domains of discourse; of “Peter is tall,” to propositions concerning specific tallness-standards. Kaplan (1989) famously articulated a distinction between character and content to properly account for indexicals such as “he;” character is the semantic property common to different uses of “he,” content its contribu-

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tion to what is asserted in well-behaved particular uses. García-Carpintero (2006) argues that additional examples such as those provided before for the sake of illustration should be accounted for by generalizing the idea: semantics for natural languages is “character-semantics,” on an adequate generalization of Kaplan’s idea. The semantics of a language as such does not identify the concrete speech acts that can be made with its sentences, but merely constrains it; full determination of specific speech acts goes well beyond what is provided by the language as such. In fact, this point applies also to the identification of the specific type of speech act that is made. The declarative mood of the whole sentence conventionally indicates that a speech act in the saying family is made; but whether it is one of guessing, conjecturing, predicting, or a default one of asserting, this depends on contextual considerations of “saliency;” the same applies to the other conventional indicators of speech act type such as the interrogative or the imperative moods.12 Speech acts such as assertion are thus essentially normative, and the meanings of natural language lexical items consist of their contributions to speech act potentials; the fact that we are sensitive to these two points is what our intuitive acceptance of claims such as (Plus) and (Circ) reflects. We could add that we expect agreement with our fellow speakers concerning deontic judgments like those, and that our subscribing them reflects at its core the “normative-teleological” ordinary conception of what a language is that Chomsky disparages in the quotation cited at the end of section 2. Now, I have been invoking at crucial points the importance of the considerations motivating the Principle of Compositionality, and the need to acknowledge purely empirical concerns in a proper account of whether or not the natural languages we speak honour them, and, if so, exactly how. Which grammar properly determines the meanings of sentences we never use and with respect to which we lack significant intuitions, I have in ef12

This might be in agreement with the difficult-to-interpret, disparaging remarks that Chomsky usually makes about truth and reference, see Pietroski (2003, 2006). I put “character” inside scare quotes to acknowledge Pietroski’s claim that perhaps the meanings of natural language lexical items are not appropriately thought of as, strictly speaking, functions from context to semantic values; the term is merely adequate in this context to give a quick indication of the sort of conception of semantics I am gesturing towards.

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fect granted to Chomskyans, may crucially depend on subpersonal facts about language processing well beyond the ken of ordinary normativeteleological intuitions. There is a tension here, in fact the tension between the normativity of meaning manifested by judgments such as (Plus) and (Circ), and the “dispositionalist” accounts that Kripke (1982) most carefully brings out. I have suggested that languages essentially provide normative reasons to their users, in fact reasons with a social backing; but I have also emphasized the main considerations supporting what in Kripke’s terminology are purely dispositionalist accounts of the sort that Chomskyans support. Is this not an unstable, ultimately inconsistent position? With Martin Davies (2000) and others in the “tacit knowledge” tradition, I do not think it is. In the first place, as Wright (1984) argues, the considerations of Kripke’s Wittgenstein establish at most that the constitutive character of judgments such as (Plus) and (Circ) is conceptually primitive; a priori, they cannot be reduced to non-normative features, whether they are facts about previous use, phenomenal states, inclinations or dispositions. However, as Soames (1998) points out, this leaves open whether, a posteriori, those judgments must supervene on a linguistic competence or system of tacit knowledge, whose precise nature can only be known by taking into account concerns such as the Chomskyan one outlined above. Soames has in mind here the Kripkean distinction between metaphysical and epistemological determination, but, as Miller (2001) suggests following Wright (1989), perhaps the best model here would be to think of natural languages as response-dependent kinds. On the proposal I have made to understand those kinds (see García-Carpintero 2007), while only normative judgments such as (Plus) and (Circ) would be constitutive or essential to languages, the subvenient structures of tacit knowledge unveiled by empirical theorizing might still be metaphysically necessary for them. I will just give a suggestive analogy here. We might have good reasons to consider colours as response-dependent kinds. In addition, we have conceptual reasons (in the vicinity of the causal theory of perception) to consider the relevant responses – colour experiences and their phenomenal properties – to be causally produced in concrete situations by colour instances in the environment. Together with the relevant empirical facts, the causal requirements distilled a priori from these considerations might suffice to

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make the diverse categorical bases for chromatic properties metaphysically necessary for their instantiation. In order to transfer the preceding example to the case of language, something should play the role that the causal theory of perception plays there. What would that be? We need to distinguish, among entities defined by systems of constitutive rules such as games and, on the present view, languages, those that are “in force,” in fact providing normative reasons to actual beings, from those that are – as it were – mere abstract possibilities. Given a system of rules that correctly characterize a game actually played by people (and thus “in force”), by making variations on the rules we can easily construct alternative games that nobody has ever played or will play. What is it that enforces a given system of rules in a given population? I think that it is here that Lewisian conventions have a role to play; and, for the reasons mentioned in the previous section (i.e., the “meaning without use” problem), this would make room for the subpersonal mechanism of linguistic competence required to provide an explanatorily adequate account of compositionality, and thus to properly select which specific abstract language is spoken by a population, providing rules even for cases well beyond the constructions that have in fact been used in that population. I chose the example in (Circ) – a paradigm example of primary property – to conclude with this note: even if languages are in themselves response-dependent kinds, this does in no way imply that only secondary properties can be signified by their lexical items. The preceding considerations are, I think, fully compatible with the assumption that the norm (Circ) invokes a fully objective property. When elaborated, then, those considerations would provide a fully straight answer to Kripkenstein’s sceptic – one capable of salvaging what McDowell correctly considers the most worrying casualty of those sceptical considerations, what Wright had called “the contractual model”: The idea at risk is the idea of things being thus and so anyway, whether or not we choose to investigate the matter in question, and whatever the outcome of any such investigation. That idea requires the conception of how things could correctly be said to be anyway – whatever, if anything, we in fact go on to say about the matter; and this notion of correctness can only be the notion of how the pattern of application that we grasp, when we come to

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understand the concept in question, extends, independently of the actual outcome of any investigation, to the relevant case (McDowell 1984: 325).

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REASON AND LOGIC Carlo Cellucci*

Abstract. This paper discusses the approaches of Frege, Nagel, Hanna and Cooper to reason, logic and their relationship, it points out their limitations and outlines an alternative approach hopefully not subject to those limitations.

1. The Reduction of Reason to Logic The relation between reason and logic goes back at least to 1292-1075 BC, when the so-called Memphite Theology stated that the Memphis God Ptah created everything through his mind and by his word (see Memphite Theology: col. 53-58). This is the remotest origin of the dictum: “In the beginning was the logos” and “through it everything was made” (John: 1.1, 1.3). It is also the remotest origin of the relation between reason and logic. For, on the one hand, the Greek word logos was translated into Latin as “ratio,” which originated the Italian “ragione,” the French “raison” and then the English “reason.” On the other hand, logos is the root of “logic.” The relation between reason and logic has been widely discussed from Parmenides to Kant and beyond. Recent literature on the subject, however, is not copious, perhaps because many people consider Frege’s approach to be conclusive. In particular, Frege’s strongly anti-naturalistic and antievolutionistic approach has deeply influenced philosophy in the last century. An example is provided by Nagel and Hanna. One of the few dissenting voices is Cooper. In this section we will summarize their views. (1) According to Frege, “if beings were even found whose laws of thought flatly contradicted ours and therefore frequently led to contrary results even in practice,” then the psychologist logician would say: “Those laws hold for them, these laws hold for us.” Conversely, Frege would say: “We have here a hitherto unknown type of madness” (Frege 1964: 14). *

I thank Donald Gillies, Reuben Hersh, Andrea Reichenberger and Robert Thomas for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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Thus, for Frege, logic is constitutive of rationality. Humans are rational if they obey the laws of logic, irrational otherwise. There can be only one logic since there is only one truth, and the laws of logic are “laws of truth” (1964: 13). Logic is normative, for its laws “prescribe universally the way in which one ought to think if one is to think at all” (1964: 12). They “provide the norm for holding something to be true” (Frege 1979: 146). Moreover, logic is “independent of our sensation, intuition and imagination, and of all construction of mental pictures out of memories or earlier sensations” (Frege 1959: 36). For in logic we are concerned “with objects given directly to our reason and, as its nearest kin, utterly transparent to it” (1959: 115). Thus Frege reduces reason to logic, a logic whose laws are laws of truth, prescriptive, objective and independent of humans and of the world. Frege’s approach is strongly anti-naturalistic, and specifically antievolutionistic. He states that, “in these times when the theory of evolution is marching triumphantly through the sciences,” the question is likely to be asked whether the laws of logic have “always been valid” and will “always retain their validity,” since “man, like all other living creatures, has undergone a continuous process of evolution” (Frege 1979: 4). But, when such question is asked, “the laws of how men do in fact think are being confounded” with “the laws of valid inference” (Frege 1979: 4). They “are nothing other than the unfolding of the content of the word ‘true’” (1979: 3). If they depended on evolution, “there would be no science, no error and no correction of error; properly speaking, there would be nothing true in the normal sense of the word,” so “a dispute about the truth of something would be futile” (1979, 133). Everything would be “in continual flux,” there “would no longer be any possibility of getting to know anything about the world” (Frege 1959: vii). The laws of logic do not depend on evolution. They are “true and will continue to be so even if, as a result of biological evolution, human beings were to come” to deny them, for such laws are “independent of being thought by anyone and of the psychological makeup of anyone” (Frege 1979: 174). They “do not belong to the individual mind (they are not subjective), but are independent of our thinking” and “are only grasped by thinking” (1979: 148). They “are boundary stones set in an eternal foundation, which our thought can overflow, but never displace,” and “do not

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make explicit the nature of our human thinking and change as it changes” (Frege 1964: 13). (2) According to Nagel, “the idea that our rational capacity was the product of natural selection would render reasoning” unreliable, for then “there would be no reason to trust its results in mathematics and science, for example.” Unless “it is coupled with an independent basis for confidence in reason, the evolutionary hypothesis is threatening rather than reassuring” (Nagel 1997: 135). My belief that “I follow the rules of logic because they are correct” cannot be based merely on the statement that “I am biologically programmed to do so,” rather “I have to be justified independently in believing that they are correct.” Therefore, “the recognition of logical arguments as independently valid is a precondition of the acceptability of an evolutionary story about the source of that recognition. This means that the evolutionary hypothesis is acceptable only if reason does not need its support” (1997: 136). Contrary to what the evolutionary hypothesis suggests, the laws of logic are “independent of my mind, of my conceptual capacities,” and even “of my existence” (1997: 66). The “basic methods of reasoning we employ are not merely human but belong to a more general category of mind.” They “would have to be among the capacities of any species that had evolved to the level of thinking – even if there were no vertebrates, and a civilization of molluscs or arthropods ruled the earth” (1997: 140). (3) According to Hanna, reason is based on logic because “human rationality is essentially our cognitive capacity for logic” (Hanna 2006: 113). Thus logic is constitutive of rationality. All rational animals possess a “logic faculty.” The latter is “a cognitive faculty that is innately configured for representing logic and is the means by which all actual and possible logical systems are constructed.” Such faculty is innate because “it is an intrinsic part of the mind of a rational animal” (2006: 25). The logic faculty “is not necessarily restricted to humans,” indeed it “seems quite conceivable and thus logically possible that there could be Martian logicians” (2006: 25). Properly, however, the logic faculty belongs to humans. For, not only they can “cognize according to the princi-

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ples of some logic or another,” but are “also capable of explicitly or reflectively doing logic, that is, of self-consciously grasping the principles” of “logic” (2006: 112). Such principles are innate, “unrevisable and a priori” (2006: 30). The status of empirical laws is too weak to account for them, so naturalism is incapable of explaining and justifying the principles of logic. Indeed, “logic is a moral or ‘prescriptive’ science and not merely a factual or ‘descriptive’ one” (2006: xxii). We know the principles of logic by intuition. The latter “is a priori, which is to say that it is undetermined by inner, proprioceptive, and outer sensory experiences.” It is “authoritative, which is to say that” it “is intrinsically compelling” (2006: 171). It “is cognitively indispensable, which is to say that every process of reasoning” must “ultimately bottom out in an intuition of some logical principle of deductive inference,” otherwise “there would be a vicious infinite regress of deductive inferential justificatory groundings” (2006: 172). On the other hand, however, “intuition is fallible, which is to say that it is always possible for an intuition to be wrong” (2006: 172). (4) According to Cooper, “this thing called Reason, whatever it may be, is based on principles called Laws of Logic” (Cooper 2001: 3). Such laws “are not independent of biology but implicit in the very evolutionary processes that enforce them. The processes determine the laws.” Thus “logical rules have no separate status of their own but are theoretical constructs of evolutionary biology” (2001: 2). Therefore “logic is reducible to evolutionary theory.” The “commonly accepted systems of logic are branches of evolutionary biology. The foundations of logical theory are biological. The principles of pure Reason” are “in the final analysis propositions about evolutionary processes. Rules of reason evolve out of evolutionary law and nothing else” (2001: 2). Reason cannot “be addressed independently of evolutionary theory,” and “reasoning is different from all other adaptations in that the laws of logic are aspects of the laws of adaptations themselves. Nothing extra is needed to account for logic” (2001: 5). The laws of logic “are not just products of historic evolutionary processes, but are themselves formulable as part of the theory of those processes” (2001: 12).

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The reduction of logic to evolutionary theory can be carried out by showing that “from general evolutionary theory one can derive a special branch of population biology known as life-history strategy theory.” Such theory “in turn implies decision theory, which in turn implies inductive logic or probability theory, and so on up through deductive logic” (2001: 21). Although the approaches of Frege, Nagel, Hanna, on the one hand, and Cooper, on the other hand, are different, they are all inadequate, although for different reasons. To show this, we need consider the nature of reason and rationality. 2. Reason and the Relation Between Means and Ends As it has been already mentioned, “reason” derives from the Latin “ratio,” one of whose meanings is “relation.” In fact reason is a matter of the relation of means to some given ends, for it is the capability of choosing appropriate means for some given ends. Thus reason does not concern the choice of ends, but rather the choice of appropriate means for some given ends. Strictly related is the concept of rationality, since rationality is the exercise of reason. This concept of reason is not limited to human beings but extends to all organisms, since all organisms are capable of choosing appropriate means for some given ends. In particular, in so far as they survive, all organisms are capable of choosing appropriate means for the end of survival. It might be objected that the concept of reason as the capability of choosing appropriate means for some given ends is only a relative one, since it does not require that the ends themselves be appropriate. For example, Rescher states that “the pursuit of what we want is rational only in so far as we have sound reasons for deeming this to be wantdeserving” (1988: 99). If our ends “are themselves inappropriate,” we “are not being fully rational” (1988: 96). Thus “the rationality of ends is essential to rationality as such” (1988: 103). The “rationality of our actions hinges critically” not only “on the suitability of the means by which we pursue” our ends, but also “on the appropriateness of our ends.” Therefore “rationality consists in the intelligent pursuit of appropriate ends” (1988: 100). This objection, however, is unjustified because requiring that ends themselves be appropriate would lead to an infinite regress. For suppose

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we state that some given ends are appropriate. In order to state this, we must have some sound reasons for deeming them to be appropriate. The question then arises: Why are those reasons sound? If we answer that they are sound because we have some sound reasons for deeming them to be sound, the question arises: Why are those reasons sound? And so on, ad infinitum. So we cannot assert that some given ends are appropriate without falling into an infinite regress. Therefore reason cannot concern the choice of ends, but only the choice of appropriate means for some given ends. Indeed, already Aristotle warned that “we deliberate not about ends, but about means to ends” (Aristotle: Γ 3, 1112a 11-12). One might wonder whether the concept of reason might be made less relative by saying that reason is the capability of choosing appropriate means for ends which are conformable to human nature. To give an answer to this question we must consider what human nature is. 3. Human Nature Human nature is the result of two factors: biological and cultural evolution. In explaining what human nature is, biological evolution plays an important role, because our biological makeup has a basic importance in determining what we are. Many people deny that the essence of man consists in being an animal organism. In their view, cultural evolution has nothing to do with biological evolution, since our biological makeup has no importance in determining what we are. There is no biological basis of our most important behaviours, they are only a result of cultural evolution. This view depends on the belief that human beings are essentially different from all other organisms because they possess an immaterial mind – a variant of the immortal soul – which is the container of ideas. The latter form a separate world which is what is called “culture,” to which only human beings have access. This view, however, is unjustified. The claim that our biological makeup has no importance in determining what we are contrasts, for example, with the fact that identical twins, reared away from their co-twin, have

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about an equal chance of being similar to the co-twin in terms of personality, interests, attitudes as those who have been reared with their co-twin. Culture is not a separate world to which only human beings have access. It is rather a shared system of cognitions, beliefs and behaviours that organisms develop or acquire from others, and transmit to succeeding generations non-genetically. Systems of this kind do not belong to human beings only but to several animal species, which transmit behaviours from one generation to the other through a mix of imitation and social learning. That such systems do not belong to human beings only is an aspect of the fact that culture has a biological basis, since it depends on the biological makeup of organisms. Cultural evolution too depends on the biological makeup of organisms. It consists of the modifications or expansions that shared systems of cognitions, beliefs or behaviours undergo in the succeeding generations. Admittedly, cultural and biological evolution are distinct. The former does not reduce to the latter for at least two reasons. First, biological evolution is slow, it takes thousands of unfavourable mutations before a favourable one emerges. Cultural evolution is much faster, being a result of non-genetic interactions between billions of organism. Second, certain kinds of organism are capable of doing things that are not strictly necessary for survival. Such is the case of human beings who, in the course of biological evolution, have been confronted with situations which did not occur in their evolutionary past. The world changes continually and irregularly, so human beings have to deal all the time with new situations. If their problem-solving resources were always strained to the limit, they might easily fail when certain critical situations occurred, and if such failure had frequently occurred in our evolutionary past, we would not be here to tell. To be able to cope with vital issues during times of peak demand, human beings must have excess capacity to spare for other issues at slack times. Thanks to it, in normal times they may engage in activities that are not directly useful for survival. Such things are a result of cultural evolution. But, even if cultural and biological evolution are distinct and the former does not reduce to the latter, cultural evolution depends on the biological makeup of organisms, thus it develops on the basis of biological

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evolution. So between cultural and biological evolution there is no opposition but rather continuity. In view of this, it is unjustified to say that cultural evolution has nothing to do with biological evolution since our biological makeup has no importance in determining what we are. This overlooks that the subject of cultural evolution is an organism which is a result of biological evolution. We may now give an answer to the question whether the concept of reason might be made less relative by saying that reason is the capability of choosing appropriate means for ends which are conformable to human nature. The answer must be a negative one. Since human nature is the result of biological and cultural evolution, there is no fixed invariable human nature. Ends conformable to human nature are relative to human nature at the present stage of evolution. Biological evolution does not work by design: it has gone this way but could have gone otherwise. Nature may be an engineer, but not one proceeding according to a preconceived design, rather one proceeding without prior goals. Therefore the concept of reason is relative to the contingent character of human nature, which is a contingent result of biological and cultural evolution. Even survival is only a relative end. It is an end for most human beings, not for all of them, and there is no ultimate reason why it should be absolutely preferable. After all, survival is an ultimately impossible end for the species. All animal species arise and die out and there is no evidence that the human species might be an exception. Hume even states: “It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger” (Hume 1978: 416). An end would be absolutely preferable only if there existed an ultimate purpose of the world. Some religions claim that such an ultimate purpose exists, but this is an unproven assumption, so it all boils down to a matter of faith. 4. Logic and Nature The approach to reason outlined in the previous sections entails that there is a strict relation between logic and evolution.

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If reason is the capability of choosing appropriate means for some given ends, logic may be expected to have a strict connection with reason, indeed to be an important part of it. For logic is that reasoning faculty which permits to choose appropriate means for some given ends. The connection between logic and reason, however, cannot be explained in terms of the view of Parmenides, Plato and Aristotle that the world is intrinsically rational since it has been ordered by a divine mind, and logic is ultimately based on this fact. There is no evidence for this. The connection can be explained only in terms of the fact that logic and reason are both a result of biological evolution, which has endowed humans with them. Actually, biological evolution has endowed not only human beings but, to a certain extent, all organisms with reason and logic. Reason has been traditionally viewed as a higher faculty belonging to human beings only, which permits them to overcome the limitations of their biological makeup – limitations within which other animals are instead constrained. Logic has been viewed as the organon of reason meant as such higher faculty. But it is not so. For without a reasoning faculty no organism could survive, so reason and logic must belong to all organisms. To say that reason is a higher faculty belonging to human beings only is to misjudge the nature of reason. Logic can be said to be the organ of reason only if reason is intended not as a higher faculty belonging to human beings only, but as the capability of choosing appropriate means for some given ends, starting from survival, a capability which is the result of biological evolution. Logic implements that capability by providing means to put it into act. That logic is a capability which is the result of biological evolution entails that there is a strict relation of logic with nature. Biological evolution is the basis of this relation. Logic meant as a capability which is the result of biological evolution may be called “natural logic.” Such logic belongs to all organisms. In addition to natural logic, however, there is also an “artificial logic,” which consists of that set of problem solving techniques that some organisms have as a result of cultural evolution. Both natural and artificial logic are essential for survival. All organisms acquire knowledge about the environment, thanks to which they as-

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sume behaviours that, when successful, ensure their survival. Now, in order to acquire such knowledge, they must make hypotheses about the environment. They make them by means of their natural logic and, in the case of human beings, of their artificial logic as well. Therefore logic, natural or artificial, is the organon of reason in acquiring knowledge. Natural and artificial logic are distinct, and the latter cannot be reduced to the former, since they are a result of biological and cultural evolution, respectively, and cultural evolution cannot be reduced to the biological one. That natural and artificial logic are distinct does not mean, however, that they are opposed: between biological and cultural evolution there is no opposition but rather continuity. While artificial logic is a comparatively recent business, human beings had problem solving capabilities already hundred thousand years ago, and such capabilities were essential for their survival. Even artificial logic ultimately depends on those problem solving capabilities. 5. Logic and Language Against the continuity between natural and artificial logic, those who deny that the essence of man consists in being an animal organism argue that, through cultural evolution, human beings have made a qualitative leap. The deciding factor in such qualitative leap has been language, which is then the key factor in the superiority of human beings over non-human animals. In particular, logic requires language, so it belongs to human beings only. This, however, is unjustified. The thoughts human beings think are those that are made possible by their biological makeup. As computers can only run the software their hardware permits them to run, so human beings can only think the thoughts their biological makeup permits them to think. They can think human thoughts just because they have human brains, which give them the urge to think and the competence to succeed. Language is simply a piece of the biological makeup of human beings. The superiority of the latter over non-human animals is only an anthropocentric prejudice. As non-human animals can do things human beings cannot do, so human beings can do things non-human animals cannot do. Specifically, as regards language, there is abundant evidence that preverbal infants and non-human animals have logical capabilities which do

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not depend on language. They can make inferences about space, time, number etc. Pre-verbal infants have a naive theory of the world, by means of which they can predict movements of objects by gravity. Some nonhuman animals can represent the geometric structure of the environment to themselves. Numerical abilities in infants and in a variety of non-human animals provide evidence for the existence of language-independent representations of numerosity. Thus pre-verbal infants and non-human animals show logical capabilities although they do not possess a language. 6. Biological and Cultural Role of Knowledge We have said that reason is the capability of choosing appropriate means for some given ends. Obviously, the primary end of all organisms is survival, since without that end no other end could possibly exist. Now, organisms may survive only if they use the energy sources present in the environment and avoid the dangers which could destroy them. To do so they must acquire knowledge about the environment. All organisms acquire such knowledge, thanks to which they assume behaviours that, when successful, ensure their survival. Being essential for survival, knowledge is a natural phenomenon which occurs in all organisms. All organisms are cognitive systems, and life itself owes its existence and preservation to a cognitive process. Serving to solve the problem of survival, knowledge plays a biological role. It plays such role not only with respect to single organisms but also with respect to whole species. The function of knowledge is not only to avoid short-term menaces to the survival of single organisms. The latter, at any rate, can be ensured only for a limited time span: all organisms eventually die. The case of genes is different. They hold the information to build and maintain cells and pass genetic traits to offspring. With respect to species, the function of knowledge is to provide such information. This is the biological role of knowledge with respect to species. Knowledge, however, plays not only a biological role but also a cultural one. This is implicit in the very concept of culture which, as we have already stated, consists of a shared system of cognitions, beliefs and behav-

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iours that organism develop or acquire from others and transmit to succeeding generations non-genetically. Thus culture is a system of knowledge. The cultural role of knowledge does not reduce to the biological one because it is not confined to survival. This does not mean that the cultural role of knowledge is opposed to the biological one. On the contrary, it is continuous with it. It is a development and strengthening of the biological role, and cannot exist without it. The continuity between them appears, for example, from the fact that, even in its cultural role, knowledge can affect biological evolution. The system of knowledge of which a culture consists enables organisms to modify the environment making it more suitable to them, and to develop tools for survival. These changes in the environment may determine changes in the evolution process. That, even in its cultural role, knowledge can affect biological evolution, holds not only of the human species but also of other species. Some of them are capable of modifying the environment by means of the artefacts they produce. Others, though incapable of modifying the environment, choose an environment which can affect biological evolution. Thus cultural evolution can shape biological evolution as well as the other way round. Therefore, even in its cultural role, knowledge plays a biological role since it serves to solve the problem of survival. Generally, both in its biological and cultural role, knowledge is a problem-solving activity that develops in sustained interaction between organisms and their environment, since it is oriented towards the solution of problems, starting from that of survival. 7. Biological Evolution and Cultural Evolution In the human species, in addition to the cultural role of knowledge, there is also cultural evolution: in successive generations non-genetically transmitted knowledge can be modified and expanded. Just as the cultural role of knowledge is not opposed to the biological one but is simply a development and strengthening of it, the same holds of cultural and biological evolution. Between them there is no opposition but rather continuity, for the subject of cultural evolution is the same as that of biological evolution.

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On the other hand, this does not mean that cultural evolution reduces to biological evolution. As we have already pointed out, the world changes continually and irregularly, so organisms are confronted all the time with new situations. The means derived from biological evolution are not enough to cope with them, more powerful means are needed. These are provided by cultural evolution. Cultural evolution determines a significant difference between human beings and the simplest organisms. While the latter have little control upon their environment, thanks to cultural evolution human beings may exert a considerable control upon it. Admittedly, for most of their evolutionary process, they have been in a condition not too dissimilar from that of the simplest organisms, and hence have been forced to devote most of their efforts to survival. Afterward, however, thanks to cultural evolution the situation has changed, and today human beings may devote only a comparatively limited part of their efforts to survival. Nevertheless, in order to survive, they must continue to modify the environment and develop tools to that end. Thus survival is a primary end of knowledge also in its cultural role. 8. Scientific Knowledge and Evolution That the cultural role of knowledge is not opposed to the biological one but continuous with it also holds of natural science. The latter is a cultural artefact with a biological role since it contributes to solve the survival problem. In this respect natural science can be viewed as an extension of the activities by means which our oldest ancestors solved their survival problem. Such activities and those underlying natural science depend on somewhat similar cognitive processes. Our hunting ancestors solved their survival problem, for example, by making hypotheses about the location of predators or prey on the ground of hints they found in the environment – crushed or bent grass and vegetation, bent or broken branches or twigs, mud displaced from streams, and so on. Much in the same way scientists solve problems by making hypotheses on the ground of hints they find in nature.

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9. Logic and Reason We have said that logic may be expected to have a strict connection with reason, and indeed to be an important part of it. This raises the question whether logic is only a proper part of reason or the whole of it. In the last century there has been an increasing tendency to consider logic as the whole of reason, and hence as identical to it, or at least as its defining character. Specifically, the concept of reason to which logic has been considered identical is that of a higher faculty which belongs to humans only and permits them to overcome the limitations of their biological makeup. Considering logic as the whole of reason, however, results into an impoverished concept of reason which excludes emotions, feelings or any biologically or culturally specific codes from the sphere of rationality. In that perspective, any human act influenced by these factors will be termed irrational. This is in conflict with the results of the neurosciences, which show that no human act is ever totally independent of all these factors, except perhaps in people with a damaged ventromedial prefrontal cortex. What is more, the factors in question play an essential role in rationality. Thus the notion of rationality suggested by the view that logic is the whole of reason does not suit human beings, and, on the other hand, does not account for the positive role emotions, feelings or any biologically or culturally specific codes play in rationality. 10. Natural and Artificial Logic We have distinguished between natural and artificial logic, but have also stressed that they are not opposed since there is continuity between biological and cultural evolution on which these two logics depend. Then Frege’s and Nagel’s claim that they are sharply separated is unjustified. In particular, the claim that the laws of logic are independent of being thought by anyone and of the psychological makeup of anyone, overlooks that our rational capacity is a product of biological evolution. The laws of logic are a product of organisms which are an outcome of biological evolu-

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tion, and so depend on the neural makeup with which evolution has endowed them. Moreover, the claim that the idea that our rational capacity was the product of natural selection would render reasoning unreliable – since then there would be no reason to trust its results in mathematics and science – is based on the decision: I want mathematics and science to be absolutely reliable. Such decision is only an expression of a wish, in fact an impossible one. For mathematics and science cannot be more reliable than the hypotheses on which they are based, and those hypotheses cannot be absolutely reliable. They can only be plausible, namely compatible with the existing data, and could very well turn out to be incompatible with the future ones. Finally, the claim that the truth of the laws of logic is something independent of my mind, of my conceptual capacities, and even of my existence, is a flight into the supernatural. Simply, there is no evidence for it. 11. The Role of Logic What is the role of logic, either natural and artificial, in human and nonhuman organisms? As we have already stated, to survive all organisms must acquire knowledge about the environment. To that aim they must make hypotheses about the environment, and they make such hypotheses by means of logic, either natural or artificial. The primary role of logic is then to find hypotheses about the environment to the end of survival. Specifically, all organisms survive making hypotheses about the environment essentially by the analytic method. (On the latter, see Cellucci 2008.) For example, as we have already mentioned, our hunting ancestors solved their survival problem by making hypotheses about the location of predators or prey on the basis of hints they found in the environment. Some of the hypotheses about the environment are incorporated in the cognitive architectures of organisms. Biological evolution has hardwired organisms to perform certain operations, building some logical structure in several features of their biological makeup. Such operations are essential to escape from danger, search for food, seek out mates. Thus all organisms have some innate capabilities that have a biological function, and are a result of biological evolution.

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“All organisms” includes the most elementary ones, even prokaryotes, the unicellular organisms which were the first form of life on the earth. Through their rudimentary sense organ, prokaryotes got data about different states of the environment, such data were memorized in their genome, they were inherited and used by prokaryotes of successive generations to regulate their behaviour in accordance with the state of the environment. That the primary role of logic is to find hypotheses about the environment to the end of survival means that there is a strict connection between logic and the search of means for survival, and that, since generally all organisms seek survival, logic does not belong to human beings only but to all organisms. 12. Logic and Evolution That logic belongs to all organisms does not mean that non-human organisms choose appropriate means for some given ends on the basis of learned logical cognitions. Even several human beings too do not choose such means on that basis. They use logical means such as induction, the causeeffect relation, the identity principle, and generally make inferences, without having attended any logic course. They can do so because biological evolution has designed them to do so. Of course, “designed” not in the sense “directed toward a goal.” While an ice cream machine is directed toward the goal of producing ice creams since it has been designed for that goal, biological evolution is not directed toward the goal of survival. Indeed, it is not directed toward any goal at all. Not only biological evolution has designed human beings to use logical means, but natural logic is itself a result of biological evolution. On average, the natural logic we have inherited increases the possibility of surviving and reproducing in the environment in which our remotest ancestors evolved. Then the first and deepest origin of reason and logic is biological evolution, which has provided human beings with the capabilities that have permitted them to survive. This means that reason and logic depend on the world, indeed they are somehow forced by it. Thus logic is not an arbitrary creation but reflects facts and properties of the world.

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The importance of reason and logic derives from the fact that the world changes continually and irregularly, so organisms are confronted all the time with the need to adapt to new situations. To deal with them they need logic, which helps them to cope with them, thus increasing their overall adaptive value. The logic useful to this end is not only natural but also artificial logic, though an artificial logic including not only deductive propositional inferences but also non-deductive non-propositional ones. Biological evolution has incorporated in organisms information concerning their evolutionary past. It has also incorporated in them certain kinds of capabilities and behaviours, by which they may cope with situations similar to those that already occurred in their evolutionary past. Moreover, they can cope with them automatically, namely, with no need for the single organism to reinvent the means to cope with them. To that end, natural logic is enough. But, since the world changes continually and irregularly, it presents situations dissimilar from those that already occurred in the evolutionary past of organisms. To cope with them, the means incorporated in organisms by biological evolution are generally insufficient, new means are necessary. To provide them is the task of artificial logic, a logic which, like natural logic, is based on the analytic method and includes non-deductive and non-propositional inferences, but is essentially richer than natural logic since it includes more refined kinds of inference. 13. Limitations of Current Approaches From what we have said it is clear why the approaches by Frege, Nagel, Hanna, Cooper are inadequate. (1) Frege and Nagel claim that the laws of logic are independent of our thinking. But this contrasts with the fact that logic, both natural and artificial, is a result of biological evolution. Thus logic essentially depends on the world and the cognitive architectures with which biological evolution has endowed humans. Therefore logic is not objective in the sense that it is independent of us, but only in the sense that it depends on what the world is, including us in it.

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(2) Hanna claims that there exists a non-empirical logic faculty involving principles which are innate, unrevisable and a priori. But there is no evidence for this. He himself admits that “the logic faculty thesis is an ambitious and controversial doctrine that is not likely to be demonstrated decisively by any single line of argument” (Hanna 2006: 47). Such doctrine is in conflict with the fact that, being innate, logical principles are a result of biological evolution. Moreover, founding our knowledge of such principles on intuition amounts to explaining obscura per obscurius, and considering intuition both authoritative and fallible seems incoherent. (3) Cooper claims that artificial logic is reducible to evolutionary theory, but this depends on the assumption that inductive logic can be identified with probability theory. Such assumption is unwarranted because there are conclusions obtained by induction which are plausible although they have probability zero. Such is the case, for example, of all general laws of physics. References Aristotle c. mid 4th century BCE. Nicomachean Ethics. Cellucci C. 2008. Why Proof? What is a Proof? In G. Corsi and R. Lupacchini (eds.), Deduction, Computation, Experiment. Exploring the Effectiveness of Proof, 1-27. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Cooper W.S. 2001. The Evolution of Reason. Logic as a Branch of Biology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Frege G. 1964. The Basic Laws of Arithmetic. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Frege G. 1979. Posthumous Writings. Oxford: Blackwell. Frege G. 1984. Collected Papers on Mathematics, Logic, and Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell. Hanna R. 2006. Rationality and Logic. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hume D. 1978. A Treatise of Human Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hume D. 2007. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and Other Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nagel T. 1997. The Last Word. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Rescher N. 1988. Rationality. A Philosophical Inquiry into the Nature and the Rationale of Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

REASON AND METAPHYSICS Andrea Bottani

Abstract. After a short historical overview of the relationships between reason and metaphysics, the paper criticizes a popular idea according to which metaphysics, widely conceived, consists of two parts: an account of what there is, often called “ontology,” and an account of what it is, often called “metaphysics” in a narrow sense. It is argued that metaphysics begins when one wonders how to bring unity, order and coherence to a chaotic congeries of existential commitments coming from common sense and sciences (not from metaphysics itself). The task is accomplished by saying (prescriptively, not descriptively) what the entities we are pre-metaphysically committed necessarily are, which classifies them into a limited number of highest ontological categories (metaphysics can deny their existence only if they are such that they could not exist or coexist with others, which explains the rather limited role that experience plays in metaphysics). So conceived, metaphysics has much to do with systematization, where the epistemic dynamic of systematization is much more coherentist than foundationalist.

1. Paradigms of Rationality For centuries, metaphysics was seen as the central core of the rational enterprise of understanding reality and our place in it. According to Aristotle, “first philosophy” (his name for metaphysics) was at once science of being qua being, science of first causes and science of God – and, as such, a deep rational inquiry into what unifies reality, what explains reality and the nature of its most fundamental components. Indeed, one outstanding aspect of the metaphysical discourse such as one finds in the works of philosophers like Aristotle, Plato and Aquinas, is that it contains arguments, and very often these arguments are purported to be sound regardless of what experience seems to tell us about the world. Even when they do not aim to deny what experience seems to tell us, as Parmenides paradigmatically did, they are very often purported to be a priori. Thus, metaphysics seems to have to do with reason both in a wide and in a narrow sense of “reason.” It aims to make assertions that are rational in a wide sense insofar as they are supported by evidence and in no way arbitrary, but are also rational in a

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narrow sense insofar as they are very often grounded more in abstract reason than in experience. It was especially the rise of modern science that laid the bases for discrediting metaphysics by rapidly changing the standards of rationality. Empiricists were particularly radical in decreeing the death of metaphysics and Hume’s verdict at the end of the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding became rightly famous: If we take in our hand any volume – of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance – let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion (Hume 1988: § 12, pt. 3).

From Hume’s times onwards, this kind of attack on metaphysics has never disappeared. Though a variety of defences have been proposed against it, this sort of attack reappears in different garbs in positivism, logical empiricism and Quine’s “naturalized epistemology.” In the closing paragraph of “Ifs and Cans,” J. L. Austin picturesquely states the same point regarding philosophy in general, wishing for the birth of a new “science of language”: In the history of human inquiry, philosophy has the place of the initial central sun, seminal and tumultuous: from time to time, it throws off some portion of itself to take station as a science, a planet, cool and well regulated, progressing steadily towards a distant final state. This happened long ago at the birth of mathematics, and again at the birth of physics. ... Is it not possible that the next century may see the birth ... of a true ad comprehensive science of language? Then, we shall have rid ourselves of one more part of philosophy (there will still be plenty left) in the only way we ever can get rid of philosophy, by kicking it upstairs (Austin 1956: 132).

Since the birth of modern science, vindicating metaphysics as a rational enterprise calls for an argument to the effect that there is some important family of questions about reality that metaphysics but not science can address, and these questions can be investigated, at least in principle, by methods that deserve to be regarded as rational. The modern pressure to demarcate the domain of metaphysics from that of science, however, was not without consequences for the very idea of metaphysics, having as a

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main outcome a new conception according to which metaphysics is not only a discourse of reason but also, in a sense, a discourse about reason. The idea that reason is not only the standard of metaphysics, but also, in a sense, its subject matter, vindicates the tie between metaphysics and reason at a cost of weakening the tie between metaphysics and reality. The paradigm of this conception, which is ultimately incompatible with the Aristotelian notion of a first philosophy, is the Kantian idea of metaphysics as a sort of rational inquiry about the general physiology of reason, which brings metaphysics nearer to a sort of “meta-reason” or a basic theory of knowledge. The idealistic tendency to identify reason with reality strengthened the tie between metaphysics and reality without giving up the idea that metaphysics is about reason. The Kantian conception of metaphysics never disappeared, but gradually evolved over the last century into the idea that metaphysics is about language rather than strictly or directly about reason. In the shift from reason to language, metaphysics lost absoluteness, after having lost immediate touch with reality. Reason was conceived by Kant and Hegel as one. But languages and conceptual schemes are many and metaphysically variable. They do not seem to speak of the world quite the same way. Sometimes they seem to speak, in Kuhn’s terms, of “different worlds.” In 1950s, Strawson invited us to distinguish descriptive from revisionary metaphysics, where “descriptive metaphysics is content to describe the actual structure of our thought about the world,” while revisionary metaphysics “is concerned to produce a better structure” (Strawson 1959: 9). Since both forms of metaphysics are conceived of as concerned with the structure of our thought rather than with the actual structure of reality, the approach is essentially Kantian, which also explains why, according to Strawson, descriptive metaphysics has priority over revisionary metaphysics (one cannot wonder how our thought might have a better structure if one has no theory of the structure it actually has). Strawson’s interest in the analysis of ordinary language, however, makes both descriptive and revisionary metaphysics come very near to a kind of linguistic analysis. In the same years and in a similar but more radical perspective, Carnap (1947) argued that questions about what there is can either be decided by the rules internal to a language or be regarded as entirely meaningless, unless they are interpreted as practical questions concerning the adoption of a cer-

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tain form of language, which makes them neither true nor false. Putnam’s idea of a conceptual relativity and Hirsch’s idea of a quantifier variance are different ways of making the same general point (see Putnam 1987; Hirsch 2002). The conception of metaphysics as a kind of linguistic analysis is mirrored both in Dummett’s idea of a “logical basis of metaphysics” and in Davidson’s idea of a “method of truth in metaphysics.” According to Dummett, embracing realism about some domain of discourse (for example quanta or entities that existed in the far past) is a matter of semantics – that is, a matter of accepting for this discourse a theory of meaning that assigns to its sentences truth conditions reflecting a commitment to the law of bivalence (see Dummett 1991). And, according to Davidson, “In sharing a language, in whatever sense this is required for communication, we share a picture of the world that must, in its large features, be true. It follows that in making manifest the large features of our language, we make manifest the large features of reality” (Davidson 1977: 199). Another way to ground the conception of metaphysics as a sort of linguistic analysis relies on the idea that there are no objects with natural boundaries (see Sidelle 1989; Varzi 2009). If the way in which we structure, divide or carve up the world into objects and types does not depend on natural, mind-independent boundaries but is grounded in our cognitive and linguistic abilities and interests, both the fundamental structure of our world and the composition of its furniture are a mere idiosyncratic, minddependent construction, and metaphysics can only be ultimately seen as a logico-semantic inquiry into the structure of our conventions and of the cognitive and linguistic abilities that ground them. Very often versions of conventionalism about the everyday ontology of ordinary objects and kinds are combined with realist orientations concerning the ontology of hard sciences, or parts of it. In such cases what we have is more a form of realist reverence for the ontology of science than a genuine version of ontological conventionalism. Sometimes, however, what we apparently have is something more radical, roughly expressed by the metaphor of reality as an “amorphous lump,” where our concepts are like “cookie-cutters” able to carve up the amorphous lump into fairly distinct objects. Although still flourishing, the idea that metaphysics is about something that is itself about reality (reason, languages, conceptual schemes, conventions) rather than about reality itself is not without rivals. In the

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1950s, indeed, something very important occurred that made possible the revival of a discipline comparable to Aristotle’s “first philosophy” in methods, aims and structure, restoring immediate touch between metaphysics and reality without embracing idealism. It was especially Kripke’s semantics for quantified modal logic that grounded arguments aimed at fully legitimating the notions of de re possibility (necessity) and essential (contingent) property – see especially Plantinga 1974; Kripke 1980. The Quinean label “Aristotelian essentialism” under which the whole family of issues was discussed shows to what degree it was immediately clear that what was at stake was a return to an ancient and venerable way of doing metaphysics. As regards metaphysics, Aristotelian essentialism yields two important results. In the first place, it allows metaphysicians to ask questions about the essential nature of objects themselves, rather than about our ways of conceptualizing them. Such notions as those of individual, property, relation, kind, part, existence, substance, instantiation, possibility, necessity and so on can then be interpreted as categories of being rather than as categories of thought. In the second place, Aristotelian essentialism allows one to keep the problem of how reality is fairly separate from the problem of how reality could have been, a level that cannot be attained by natural sciences and so delimits a domain that is irreducibly metaphysical. According to Lowe, one of the main defenders of this idea of metaphysics as a science of the possible, the application of ontological categories to reality cannot be decided a priori, only their possible application (that is, their applicability) can. For example, one cannot establish a priori whether any substances exist, but only whether they could have existed (see Lowe 1999: chapter 1). To sum up, the relationships between reason and metaphysics are problematic in more than one respect. One family of issues concerns the method of metaphysics. To what extent and in what ways is metaphysics rational? What roles do experience and a priori reasoning play in metaphysics? What relationships are there, if any, between logic and metaphysics and between semantics and metaphysics? Another family of issues concerns the subject-matter of metaphysics. To what extent metaphysics is about the fundamental structure of our rational knowledge of reality rather than about reality itself? And to what extent can it be conceived of as a

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chapter in the theory of knowledge or language and to what extent, on the contrary, legitimacy should be recognized to revisionary metaphysics? Problems of one family are not completely independent from those of the other. To make just an example, one can most naturally think that if metaphysics is about reason, then it cannot fail to be entirely a priori (even though perhaps synthetic, as it was according to Kant). I shall address these questions in the only way they can, that is, moving from a certain idea of what kind of discourse metaphysics is. 2. What There Is and What It Is It is a widely shared idea that no accurate account can be given of metaphysics that does not distinguish the theory of what there is (an sit) from the theory of what it is (quid sit): to say what exists is one thing, to specify the nature of what exists is quite another. There is a sort of lexical muddle here, for the word “metaphysics” has sometimes been used to name the theory of what there is (Ingarden 1974, who calls “ontology” the theory of what it is), sometimes the theory of what it is (Varzi 2009, who calls “ontology” the theory of what there is) and sometimes a general account that includes both (van Inwagen 1998; Le Poidevin 2009), a use to which I shall conform here. Be that as it may, the distinction is relevant here, because empirical and a priori arguments can in principle play very different roles and have very different weights in the two theories. And, at least in principle, one may be fairly realist concerning one theory and non-realist concerning the other. However important the distinction may be, it seems to be susceptible of different interpretations and questionable in many of them, if not all. To begin with, no equivalent distinction seems to apply either to formal or to empirical sciences. For example, it does not seem to make much sense to distinguish within physics (or biology, or set theory) a discourse aimed at saying what physical (or biological or set-theoretical) objects exist from another discourse aimed at saying what they are. Generally, in both empirical and formal sciences assumptions of both types occur fairly mixed in the same discourse, and very often are embedded in the meaning of one and the same sentence. Take systematic botany, the general theory of what taxa of plants exist somehow as ontology is, according to some authors, a

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general theory of what kinds of entities there are (think of Broad’s metaphor of ontology as an “inventory of the world”). What a botanical taxonomy tells us (say) of the species Rhododendron lutescens is not just that some specimens of the species exist, nor just what they are, but both things together, and it would be very difficult to figure out what botanical interest the theory might have otherwise. How could the information that entities of a certain kind exist have any ontological interest in the absence of any information about what these entities are (that is, about what distinguishes them from entities of other kinds)? Perhaps, the distinction should not be conceived of as being applied to different discourses, theories or accounts, but more charitably to different kinds of information mixed up in the same discourse, theory or account, even though in principle independent and distinguishable – like different colour threads in the same cloth. This requires that the assumptions concerning what there is and those concerning what it is are logically independent, that is, that assumptions of the former kind do not pre-empt those of the latter kind (and so can remain unchanged even when those of the latter kind change), and vice-versa. So, can one say what there is without entailing or presupposing what it is or vice-versa? According to a popular view, one can have a theory of what there is without entailing or presupposing a theory of what it is. The theory of direct reference seems to lend at least some support to this idea. If Kripke is right, indeed, one can succeed in referring to Aristotle even if one knows nothing about Aristotle (not even that he is something different from a city, a dog or a lake). And one can succeed in referring to gold even if one knows nothing about gold – not even that gold is something different from a drink, is precious and is solid at normal temperatures and pressures. (This is the case if someone who has never seen gold and has never heard anybody naming gold hears for the first time an utterance of “gold is most wanted by people” and asks “what is gold?”). If one is able to refer to gold, one can utter meaningfully the sentence “gold exists.” So, one can say that gold exists even if one knows nothing about gold. Therefore, a fortiori, the bare idea that gold exists entails or presupposes nothing about what is gold. If one knows nothing at all about gold, however, one can hardly express or understand something chemically informative by uttering or hearing the sentence “gold exists.” And, mutatis mutandis, one cannot say or under-

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stand anything ontologically informative by producing or hearing an utterance of the sentence “artefacts exist” if one knows absolutely nothing about artefacts (not even that they are something different from horses, or places, or times). It can be conceded that nothing ontologically informative can be said by uttering the sentence “gold exists” unless one knows at least something about gold. Perhaps, however, one can know something about gold without knowing what is gold. If so, one can tell something ontologically informative by saying that gold exists even if one is ignorant of what is gold. A twofold distinction between what there is and what it is has now been replaced by a threefold distinction between what there is, how it is and what it is. And the idea is that we must distinguish between how something is and what it is in order to distinguish between what there is and what it is. For certainly one is required to know at least something about how gold is in order to tell (or understand) something ontologically informative by saying (or hearing) that gold exists. Given that gold exists, however, the question of what it is remains open, and can be answered one way or another. This is exactly what seems to be happened in human history: for millennia people have believed that gold exists, but ideas about what it is have evolved in important ways. The distinction between how something is and what it is raises problems of its own. What kind of information must be given about some x in order to tell what it is instead than merely how it is? One can hardly believe that any grammatically correct response to the question “what is x?” would be enough, for this would apparently make it impossible to know how something is without knowing what it is (consider “x is a red thing,” which answers grammatically to the question “what is x?” but does not seem either to include or to entail a specification of what x is). The notion of what something is is traditionally associated with the idea that objects have a nature, and what they are consists in the nature they have. Very often, natures are treated as essences and conceived of as common to all things of the same kind (to all horses, for example, or to all samples of gold). They are often explained in terms of conditions of identity specifying what it is for objects of some sort to be the same (a common example concerning sets treats sets as identical just in case they have the same members). So, “Ribot is a horse” says what is Ribot and “horses are ani-

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mals” says what are horses, but “Ribot is brown” and “horses are big” just say how Ribot is and how horses are, for not all brown things and not all big things have the same nature, and there is no general condition that brown things or big things have to satisfy in order to be the same. Anti-essentialist philosophers may deny that common nouns (either sortal terms like “horse” or mass nouns like “gold”) have any special role in specifying the nature of what exists. They may think that there are plenty of objects that do not fall within the extension of any common nouns – the material contents of certain spacetime regions can easily be, for example, partly gold and partly water, and so neither (entirely) gold nor (entirely) water. And they may think that even uniformly golden contents of spacetime regions are not essentially gold. But the emphasis on identity criteria may still be retained, in accordance with the Quinean dictum “no entity without identity.” Material objects of any sort can be thought to be the same just in case the spacetime region they occupy are the same. So we may tentatively make the following assumption: to tell what are the members of some category F (for example horses, or even material objects) amounts to telling what it is for members of F to be the same. And the question becomes: can one say that the Fs exist without entailing or presupposing what it is for things that are F to be the same? 2.1. First What There Is? One can wonder why not. Indeed, philosophers and even ordinary people can disagree, for example, about what it is to be the same person while apparently assigning exactly the same meaning to the sentence “persons exist.” It should be noted, however, that the theory of what there is is not purported to be a confused list of existential statements – a sort of “chaotic enumeration” à la Borges1 – but rather a systematic classification of what exists. A systematic classification must satisfy certain formal constraints, 1

See Borges (1952), where “a certain Chinese Encyclopaedia,” is described in which it is written that animals are divided into: those that belong to the Emperor, embalmed ones, those that are trained, suckling pigs, mermaids, fabulous ones, stray dogs, those included in the present classification, those that tremble as if they were mad, innumerable ones, those drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, others, those that have just broken a flower vase, those that from a long way off look like flies.

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among which completeness (nothing should be left outside all categories) and disjointness (nothing should be put in different categories unless one category is included in the other, as the category of horses is included in the category of animals). A further constraint is uniformity: no ontological category is admissible unless the entities belonging to it have the same conditions of identity, which entails that there must be a uniform (perhaps unknown) answer to the question “what are Fs?” (for example: “horses are animals”). Uniformity seems to follow from disjointness: if some category contained entities of different natures – that is, entities having different conditions of identity – something would belong to different categories neither of which includes the other, which violates disjointness. Given these formal constraints, any commitment to the existence of entities of some category cannot fail to say a lot about their conditions of identity, and so about what they are. There is a positive number of categories (one or more) that do not restrict other categories. They are such that different entities have the same conditions of identity just in case they belong to the same category and different conditions of identity just in case they belong to different categories. Some of these “highest” categories can be divided into a number of subcategories some of which can be subdivided into a number of sub-subcategories (and so on). Each restricting category inherits its conditions of identity from the restricted category. At each level of restriction, categories are disjoint. Can a system of classification of such a kind fail to say or entail what are the entities belonging to some of its categories (i.e., their identity conditions)? More precisely, can a system of classification incorporate a category of entities that have no clear conditions of identity and no clear nature? And – which is not equivalent – can one modify the theory of what the entities of some category are while leaving unchanged the system of categories, i.e. the theory of what there is? A purported example concerning numbers is mentioned in Varzi (2009). Someone who is ontologically committed to numbers is perfectly free to see them either as abstract individuals encoding the properties that follow from certain axioms (Zalta 1999) or as cumulative sets, conceived of either à la Zermelo or à la von Neumann. The mere idea that numbers exist leaves perfectly open the choice among many different approaches to their ultimate nature. Thus, so far as numbers are concerned, the theory of

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what there is does not pre-empt the theory of what it is: the latter can change while leaving the former wholly unaltered. One can doubt that the example succeeds in showing what is wanted. If friends of Zalta’s theory and friends of Zermelo’s theory completely agree on what there is, indeed, it is far from clear that they disagree about the ultimate nature of something. According to both, there are abstract entities and there are sets, and numbers are nothing over and above the entities that fall in these categories, so the only way they can disagree about the nature of something is by disagreeing about the nature of sets or about the nature of abstract entities. Is this the case? It may be so. If the friend of Zalta’s theory says that sets are entities of a kind F and the friend of Zermelo’s theory says that they are entities of a kind G, it may be that they disagree about the nature of sets, and so about the nature of numbers. But it may not be so. For, since they completely agree on what there is, they agree that there are Fs and there are Gs and sets are nothing over and above Fs and Gs. So, the only way they can disagree about what something is is by disagreeing about what Fs are or about what Gs are. Do they? It may be so, but it may not be so. And so on. What the argument shows is that, as long as there is a total agreement on what exists, no apparent disagreement on the nature of the entities belonging to some category counts as a real disagreement about the ultimate nature of something, provided there is total agreement on what are the entities belonging to the highest categories, those that restrict no other category. Any commitment to the ultimate nature of what there is is to be localized at the highest taxonomical level. One may be left unconvinced by this argument. If the disagreement about the nature of numbers is neither about what there is nor about what it is, what kind of disagreement is it? After all, it might be objected, there is something on which friends of Zalta’s approach and friends of Zermelo’s disagree: they disagree about numbers! I agree that they disagree and I agree that what they disagree about has to do with numbers. They disagree on the reference of numerical expressions like “2,” “0,” “1900” and so on (according to Zalta such expressions refer to abstract entities satisfying certain axioms, while according to Zermelo they refer to certain cumulative sets) and disagree about which entities satisfy the predicate “number” (according to Zalta abstract entities of the mentioned sort, according to Zer-

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melo cumulative sets). So their disagreement has nothing metaphysical to it. Be careful not to confuse metaphysics with semantics! A similar case concerns the disagreement on ordinary objects between an orthodox perdurantism à la Lewis and a stage view à la Sider (see Lewis 1986; Sider 2001). Both Lewis and Sider think that both worms and stages exist and they do not substantially disagree about their nature. Sider and Lewis, however, disagree about ordinary objects (for example, cats). According to Lewis, cats are spatiotemporal worms while according to Sider they are instantaneous stages. But the disagreement is semantical rather than metaphysical. It concerns the extension of ordinary predicates like “cat” and the reference of ordinary names like “Barack Obama” – that is, how the words of our everyday language can best be mapped onto the fixed items of a shared ontology. I said that any commitment to the ultimate nature of what there is is to be localized at the highest taxonomical level. So, suppose F, H and G are the highest categories of some ontological taxonomy. Can one change one’s theory of what Fs, Hs or Gs are while leaving unaltered one’s ideas about what there is? There are a couple of distinct possibilities here. First, one can discover that either F, H and G have different extensions – some members of one category (perhaps all) can be moved to another. Second, one can leave F, H and G extensionally unaltered while discovering that Gs have criteria of identity different from those previously recognized. In both cases, it seems hardly believable that nothing has changed in the theory of what there is. First, to move entities from one category to another amounts to reducing entities of one category to entities of another. Where there were two entities, now there is just one. How might one’s ontological commitments have remained unchanged? Second, if the conditions that Fs must satisfy in order to be identical change, it cannot be that the set of Fs remains the same. I conclude that an account of what there is, unless it is a “chaotic enumeration” à la Borges, cannot be separated from an account of what it is. The proviso, however, is not wholly uncontroversial. It is especially Varzi who has recently put in question the current idea of ontology as having to do with a general classification (an “inventory”) of what there is (see especially Varzi 2009). Varzi contrasts ontology as a theory with ontology as a sphere of inquiry. Conceived of as a sphere of inquiry, ontology is con-

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cerned with what there is just in the sense of evaluating the truth value of a wide, disordered mass of existential vague sentences like those that typically figure in a chaotic enumeration. As long as there is agreement on the truth value of every existential sentence of the list, there is all the ontological agreement that there may be. If both “statues exist” and “lumps of matter exist” are contained in the list and two philosophers agree that every sentence in the list is true but one thinks that statues are identical with lumps of matter while the other does not, their disagreement does not concern what there is, but only what it is (in Varzi’s terms, it is “metaphysical” rather than “ontological”). The distinction between ontology as a theory and ontology as a sphere of inquiry is far from clear. First, spheres of inquiry are currently conceived of as sets of questions, problems or issues rather than sets of assertions, while ontology (however conceived) consists of assertions. Second, ontological assertions are most reasonably thought of as supported, or at least supportable, by arguments. And arguments for the existence of entities of some sorts are most often grounded on their identity with or difference from entities of other sorts (e.g., numbers exist because are identical with cumulative sets and cumulative sets exist). Third, the only reason why a disagreement on the identity of statues with lumps of matter is thought of as having no ontological import is that the list of existential sentences that is supposed to be under evaluation does not include existential sentences like “entities that occupy the same place as a statue at some time and preexist that statue exist.” To disagree about the identity of statues with lumps of matter amounts to disagreeing about the truth of such sentences. Generalizing the example, one might conclude that every metaphysical disagreement can be reduced to an ontological disagreement (in Varzi’s sense of “ontology” and “metaphysics”) simply by enlarging the non-systematic list of existential sentences that is under ontological analysis. So, the idea of ontology as a “sphere of inquiry” does not succeed in making the account of what there is independent of the account of what it is. 2.2. Metaphysics and Systematization Seen in another perspective, however, the idea of ontology as a “sphere of inquiry” touches on a very important point, that has to do with the crucial

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role that chaotic enumerations play in ontology. What I want to suggest is that ontology has no way to begin ex nihilo the game of saying what there is. We already play this game in ordinary language and science – indeed in anything we say. If we list some of the things we are or seem to be (preontologically) committed in any of the different domains that are for us of some interest, we have a chaotic enumeration. This is in no way a product of ontology but a preliminary input for ontological analysis. Ontology begins when one wonders how to turn a chaotic enumeration into a systematic theory of what there is – that is, how order, coherence, unity, precision and completeness might be brought into a confused congeries of disconnected existential commitments. Interestingly enough, the general structure of the process confirms the strong tie between the theory of what there is and the theory of what it is (or ontology and metaphysics, to use the favoured terminology of so many authors). For it is only by saying what are the entities mentioned in the list that the whole process can be implemented, whatever its details may be. The outcome is at once a systematic taxonomy of what there is and an account of the ultimate structure of reality. To take just a few examples, it is only once it has been argued that elementary particles are objects that they can be put into the same highest category as cats and trees (say, individual substances); it is only once it has been argued that stones, animals and chairs are events that they can be put in the same category as wars, lives and football matches (the same, mutatis mutandis, for mental states and neurophysiological states); and it is only once it has been shown that entities of disjoint categories (say, animals, angels, artificial systems and so on) can or could have been persons that the category of persons can be cancelled from an ontological taxonomy, however important the property of being a person may be. The whole process is oriented to the individuation and characterization of the highest categories that all the other categories restrict (they may reduce to just one, for example, tropes). For any entity, indeed, the question “what is it?” is in the last analysis answered by reference to the highest category it belongs to. The items of a chaotic enumeration will, as a rule, leave no trace in an ontological taxonomy (this is generally the case, for example, of “red things”). To cancel the category of red things is not to deny the existence of red things, although even the existence of things

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listed under some category in a chaotic enumeration is sometimes denied, like the existence of tables in a taxonomy à la van Inwagen (see van Inwagen 1990). Even in such cases, however, the exclusion from existence of some entities is not grounded on empirical bases, but only on the impossibility of putting them in any of the admissible categories (they can fit no acceptable taxonomy, a claim that can only be justified by an analysis of what they are). In any case, a systematic taxonomy according to which nothing or a tiny minority exists of what is thought to be existent by ordinary people and scientists would be hardly acceptable. An ontological taxonomy, indeed, is in turn evaluable in terms of its efficacy in giving a structure, order and unity to a wide number of existential commitments widely acceptable in ordinary language and sciences. This yields two important consequences. First, so conceived, metaphysics has much to do with systematization, an idea that one can find clearly stated by David Lewis as regards both metaphysics and philosophy in general. One comes to philosophy already endowed with a stock of opinions. It is not the business of philosophy either to undermine or to justify these preexisting opinions to any great extent but only to try to think of ways of expanding them into an orderly system. A metaphysician’s analysis of mind is an attempt of systematizing our opinions about mind. It succeeds to the extent that 1) it is systematic; and 2) respects those of our pre-philosophical opinions to which we are firmly attached. ... So it is throughout metaphysics and so it is with my doctrine about possible worlds (Lewis 1973: 88; on the role of systematization in metaphysics see also Rescher 1997).

The existential commitments that are relevant for metaphysics come from a number of different languages or discourses, of varying degrees of artificiality. Metaphysics accounts for the nature of entities belonging to a number of heterogeneous domains and classifies them according to their purported nature. Second, metaphysics is more a theory of the way reality could or could not have been than a theory of the way it actually is. As I said above, indeed, metaphysics says nothing about the existence of entities of this or that category, unless they are such that they could not have existed. For any category of entities, it says what is their necessary nature, and so what

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they actually are only provided they exist. This idea of metaphysics as a science of the possible has been recently defended in a number of works by E. J. Lowe (see especially Lowe 1999). According to Lowe, the application of ontological categories to reality cannot be decided a priori, only their possible application can. For example, one cannot establish a priori whether any substances exist, but only whether they could have existed. I accept this with two qualifications. In the first place, as I argued above, the individuation and characterization of ontological categories can only move from our current pre-metaphysical existential assumptions, both ordinary and scientific, in no way from an existentially neutral tabula rasa. Secondly, one-category ontologies are most naturally committed to the existence of entities of the highest category. The reason is that, if everything is nothing over and above (say) tropes and no tropes exist, then nothing exists. When just one highest category is admitted, commitment to entities of that category is simpliciter commitment to the existence of something. 2.3. Rational Standards of Metaphysical Acceptability: Experience vs. Abstract Reason In the formal sciences, rational standards of acceptability have essentially to do with derivability from axioms. In the empirical sciences, they have essentially to do with empirical adequacy – the ability to foresee and explain observed facts. However problematic these notions may be, there is nothing so quick and direct in the case of metaphysics. In metaphysics there are neither axioms (even if metaphysics requires arguments and metaphysical arguments are often grounded in intuitions) nor empirical falsifications (even if experience does not seem to be always irrelevant for the evaluation of metaphysical claims). When the evaluation of rival metaphysical theories is in question, the best one can appeal to is very often considerations of ontological economy, versions of Ockam’s razor, cognitive simplicity and elegance, capacity to preserve current intuitions, coherence with science or common sense, and so on. Experimenta crucis are hardly available in metaphysics and in general the only rational ground to choose between rival solutions is to weigh their pros and cons. To make just a few examples, this seems to be the case of endurantism versus per-

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durantism, of A-theories versus B-theories of time and of universalist versus particularist versions of bundle theory. What can seem prima facie surprising, if one remembers that metaphysics was so long considered a paradigm of rational rigour, is indeed a direct consequence of its nature. If metaphysics has to put order, unity, coherence etc. into a heap of heterogeneous existential commitments to entities referred to in ordinary language and in the sciences, by saying what these entities are if they exist at all, then it has much to do with systematization. And the epistemic dynamic of systematization is much more coherentist than foundationalist. Despite venerable efforts to construct metaphysical systems more geometrico, what on earth could be the basic or foundational metaphysical assumptions from which any other metaphysical claim should derive its justification? Where are we to find the hard rock on which one might construct metaphysics like a building, brick upon brick? The mere observation of the recent and less recent metaphysical debate cannot but confirm that the epistemic structure of metaphysical knowledge is rather that of a raft where many planks support each other. This also explains why confirmation of metaphysical theses is so often a matter of weighing pros and cons under a wide number of parameters. That metaphysical theories have the epistemic structure of a raft at the overall level does not mean however that they cannot have a deductive structure at a local level, even less that demonstration does not play any role in them. It only means that metaphysical theories face epistemic evaluation in their entirety rather than bit by bit. To take just one example, consider modal realism. It is often claimed that modal realism makes it easier to treat properties as sets, since it makes more tractable the so-called “coextension difficulty.” If so, class nominalism about properties and realism about possible worlds mutually support each other and are thus more or less justified according to the metaphysical environment in which they are located. Epistemic evaluation at a more global level prevails over epistemic evaluation at a more local level. 2.4. Just a Work of Reason or Also a Work on Reason? I have said that metaphysics classifies the many things we speak of in a heterogeneous number of contexts by clarifying their necessary nature, that

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is, by saying what they necessarily are (and so what they actually are if they exist). To what extent can this process be evaluative or revisionary rather than merely descriptive? The idea that metaphysics can only start from our current existential commitments might seem to push toward a descriptive conception of metaphysics, one according to which metaphysics is ultimately a kind of conceptual analysis. But this is far from clear, for the analysis of our current existential assumptions is for the metaphysician just a way of putting a foot in the door and not the end of the whole story. In general, metaphysicians say not only what are the entities we are committed to, but also what they are not. As a consequence, the accepted ontological taxonomy can in principle contain categories of entities we are in no way committed to (categories that contain nothing that we currently consider as existent). Secondly, the more general an ontological category is, the less its characterization depends on the specific features of the entities we are ontologically committed to. The highest ontological categories are such that everything possible belongs to them, regardless of its specific nature and kind. So, metaphysics is not pre-empted by the analysis of our current existential commitments. Metaphysics moves from them, but it is not in virtue of this that metaphysics can be said to be essentially descriptive rather than prescriptive or revisionary. There might, however, be other reasons to treat metaphysics as a general theory of the way we conceptualize and know reality rather than of reality itself. An anti-realistic attitude is widely shared according to which both the objects we speak of and their fundamental nature are a product of the organizing activity of our minds. This orientation has a long history and is still maintained in a number of different varieties. What we can have is either some version of idealism (the idea that an objective world that is not of our own making is, to use Rorty’s famous words, a “world well lost”) or the less radical idea that it is just our everyday ontology of ordinary objects and kinds that is mind-dependent, an opinion which is often combined with a realist attitude concerning the fundamental ontology of hard sciences, or parts of it. Sidelle’s ontological conventionalism seems to be rather of the first sort. The world of individual objects we are familiar with is taken to be the cooperative product of two factors: a “pure stuff” which is not by itself divided up into individuals (although it is divisible), and some organizing ac-

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tivity (conventions, stipulations, conceptual schemes or the like) that divides the substratum up into our familiar individual objects. The image, however, is problematic, not to say obscure. For example, what is it meant by saying that it is not “by nature” that the pure stuff is divided up into objects? If what is meant is that stars and planets exist, but would not exist had only no intelligent being have existed, the idea would seem to be extremely implausible. On the other hand, it is hard to understand how something (say, a cake) can be divided or “articulated” into parts that it does not already have. Either the parts into which the pure stuff is divided by our carving activity already existed before the carving (perhaps nonmanifestly) or they do not exist even after the carving has taken place. Or so it seems, for I do not know of any way of creating ex nihilo parts of something that has none. Varzi arrives to a similar conventional idea starting from Smith’s distinction between fiat and bona fide objects (see Smith 1995; the distinction has been successively developed by Smith and Varzi in a number of coauthored papers). Something is a bona fide object just in case its boundaries are mind-independent, while it is a fiat object just in case it is not bona fide, that is, just in case its boundaries are artificial, depending on our interests, organizing activity, conceptual schemes, conventions and the like. Examples of bona fide objects include planets and tennis balls, while oceans and nations are instead of the fiat variety. According to Varzi 2008, ordinary objects are without exception fiat objects, but this does not, or not necessarily, mean that there are no bona fide, perfectly non-conventional objects (the material contents of spatiotemporal regions might after all be such, as well as it might be the case that the only bona fide boundaries are offered by geometry). Contrary to Sidelle, Varzi concedes that reality might after all reveal an objectual structure, but denies that this can be the structure of our everyday world. It is the very idea of a fiat entity that stands in need of close scrutiny. For either a fiat entity is something reference to which depends on our conventions, conceptual schemes, organizing activity and so on, or it is something whose existence depends on all these. In the former case, everything is a fiat entity, for the simple reason that there is no definite description without a descriptive meaning, no function without a body and no counting that is not under a concept. In the latter case, however, one can

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doubt that there is anything that is really fiat. Not the equator, in any case, not the Pacific Ocean, unless what is intended is that, since the boundaries of those entities cannot easily be perceived (there are no physical discontinuities, no gaps, no remarkable qualitative differences), then they do not exist in re. But this seems to be far from clear, for they can be described with the same precision with which we can refer to places and times, and this is not to invent them (on the other hand, entities that in no way can be precisely described – for example, elementary particles – are far from being everyday objects). Maybe other people speaking other languages and having other concepts can only refer to objects we are not able to refer to. Maybe people with different powers of perceptual resolution can only see things we are in no way able to see. But I do not see how one fact can be used to argue that what we speak of does not exist, any more than the other can be used to argue that what we see does not exist at all. The idea that our familiar, everyday objects are a product of our organizing activity, conceptual schemes, conventions or the like faces a difficulty that is seldom fully clear to its proponents. Conventions, concepts and so on are an important piece of our everyday, familiar, commonsensical ontology. They are a wide piece of it, since conventions cannot exist without persons, mental states, words, society, actions, intentions, an external world in which actions take place and persons have social interactions. And so on. Is all this conventional? If so, even conventions are the product of conventions and so scheme-relative, no less than the Pacific Ocean or the equator. Conventions are among the entities in which we articulate reality, but they might have been not. In such a case, conventions would not exist and conventionalism would not be true. That everyday objects depend on conventions is therefore at best true by convention. But I suspect this is not what the conventionalist means. She means that the dependence of our ordinary ontology on our conventions is an external, objective truth that is not scheme-relative. Only, I doubt she has any coherent way to say this. References Austin J. 1956. Ifs and Cans. Proceedings of The British Academy, 42: 107-32

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Borges J.L. 1952. El idioma analitico de John Wilkins. In his Otras Inquisiciones, Buenos Aires: SUR. Carnap R. 1947. Meaning and Necessity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956. Davidson D. 1977. The Method of Truth in Metaphysics. In P.A. French et al. (eds.), Midwest Studies in Philsophy, 2: Studies in Philosophy of Language. Morris: University of Minnesota Press; repr. In Truth and Interpretation, 199-214. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984. Dummett M. 1991. The Logical Basis of Metaphysics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996. Hirsch E. 2002. Quantifier Variance and Realism. In E. Sosa and E. Villanueva (eds.), Realism and Relativism, 52-73. Oxford: Blackwell. Hume D. 1988. Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, edited by A. Flew. Chicago: Open Court. Ingarden R. 1974. Der Streit um die Existenz der Welt. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Kant I. 1929. Critique of Pure Reason. London: Macmillan. Kripke S. 1980. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Kuhn T. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970, 2nd edition, with postscript. Le Poidevin R. 2009. What is Metaphysics? In R.P. Cameron, R. Le Poidevin, et al. (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics, xviii-xxii. London: Routledge. Lewis D. 1973. Counterfactuals. Oxford: Blackwell. Lewis D. 1986. On the Plurality of Worlds. Oxford: Blackwell. Lowe J. 1999. The Possibility of Metaphysics. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Plantinga A. 1974. The Nature of Necessity. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Putnam H. 1987. The Many Faces of Realism. LaSalle: Open Court. Quine W.v.O. 1948. On what there is. Review of Metaphysics, 2: 21-38. Rescher N. 1997. Profitable Speculations. Essays on Current Philosophical Themes. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Rorty R. 1972. The World Well Lost. Journal of Philosophy, 69 (19): 649-665.

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Sidelle A. 1989. Necessity, Essence, and Individuation: A Defence of Conventionalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Sider T. 2001. Four-Dimensionalism. An Ontology of Persistence and Time. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Smith B. 1995. On Drawing Lines on a Map. In A.U. Frank, W. Kuhn, and D.M. Mark (eds.), Spatial Information Theory. Proceedings of COSIT 1995, 475484. Berlin: Springer. Strawson P. 1959. Individuals. Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics. London: Methuen. van Inwagen P. 1990. Material Beings. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. van Inwagen P. 1998. The Nature of Metaphysics. In S. Laurence and C. Macdonald (eds.), Contemporary Readings in the Foundations of Metaphysics, 11-21. Oxford: Blackwell. Varzi A. 2008. Boundaries, Conventions and Realism. Paper presented at the 11th Inland Northwest Philosophy Conference, “Carving Nature at Its Joints”, Moscow (Idaho), March 15, 2008. Varzi A. 2009. On Doing Ontology without Metaphysics. Paper presented at the Conference on Ontology, Raleigh (North Carolina), September 26, 2009. Zalta E.N. 1999. Natural Numbers and Natural Cardinals as Abstract Objects: A Partial Reconstruction of Frege’s Grundgesetze in Object Theory. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 28. 619-660.

CONTRIBUTORS

Carla Bagnoli, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy. Lynne Rudder Baker, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA. Andrea Bottani, University of Bergamo, Italy. Carlo Cellucci, University of Rome “La Sapienza,” Italy. Lorraine Code, York University, Canada. Pascal Engel, University of Geneva, Switzerland. Susan L. Feagin, Temple University, Philadelphia, USA. Manuel García-Carpintero, University of Barcelona, Spain. Stathis Psillos, University of Athens, Greece. Liz Sperling , Liverpool John Moores University, UK.

NAME INDEX

Adorno, T., 86 Alcoff, L., 76, 82, 85 Alston, W., 56, 59, 62, 66, 136, 174, 188, 190, 191 Amoretti, M.C., 9, 15 Anderson, J.R., 11 Aquinas, 133, 219 Aristotle, 9, 13, 82, 149, 153, 159, 171, 204, 207, 219, 223, 225 Armstrong, D., 58 Audi, R., 11, 56, 118 Austin, J., 188, 189, 220 Bach, K., 174, 189 Baehr, A.R., 96, 103 Bagnoli, C., 21, 111, 119 Baier, A., 80, 81, 83 Baier, K., 112 Baker, L.R., 23, 129, 130, 136 Baker, M., 179 Bar On, B.-A., 84 Barnes, J., 129 Barnett, C., 99, 101 Barry, B., 97 Bayes, T., 38 Beardsley, M., 150, 151, 152, 153 Bekoff, M., 13 Bennett, C., 96, 97, 103 Bergmann, M., 132 Bergson, H., 15 Bermúdez, J., 11, 14 Bernecker, S., 65 Bickerton, D., 177 Biderman, S., 11 Blackburn, S., 117, 118 Boettcher, J.W., 95, 96, 97, 102

Boghossian, P., 62, 64 BonJour, L., 13, 53, 55, 56, 66 Borges, J.L., 183, 227, 230 Bosser, T., 14 Bottani, A., 27, 219 Brady, E., 157 Braithwaite, R.B., 42 Brandom, R., 14, 62 Brittan, G.G., 14 Broad, C.D., 36, 225 Broome, J., 117 Budd, M., 164, 165 Burge, T., 63 Calvin, 133 Carnap, R., 35, 37, 38, 48, 221 Carroll, L., 62 Carroll, N., 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 158, 160, 162 Casullo, A., 64 Cellucci, C., 26, 199, 213 Chater, N., 11 Chomsky, N., 25, 171, 173, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 182, 192 Clark, M., 57 Clarke, N., 104 Clifford, W.K., 131 Code, L., 19, 71, 78, 81 Cohen, L.J., 9 Cohen, T., 157 Conee, E., 62 Cooper, W.S., 11, 26, 199, 202, 203, 215, 216 Cosmides, L., 15 Cowie, F., 178 Craig, D.M., 96, 97, 103

244 Craig, E., 88 Crain, S., 178 Crisp, R., 118 Cruz, J., 64, 65 Dancy, J., 114, 116, 117 Davidson, D., 14, 176, 180, 181, 182, 222 Davies, M., 193 Davis, W.A., 172 Dawkins, R., 143, 144 de Gouges, O., 74 Dennett, D., 14, 129, 136, 143, 144 DeRose, K., 56 Descartes, R., 15, 19, 57, 72 Dever, J., 177 Devitt, M., 174 Dickie, G., 152, 157 Dickinson, E., 9 Dreier, J., 12 Dryzek, J.S., 98, 104 Duhem, P., 47, 48 Dummett, M., 43, 174, 188, 222 Dutant, J., 58 Earman, J., 40 Elster, J., 10 Engel, P., 18, 53, 65, 66 Enoch, D., 116 Fales, E., 136 Falk, W.D., 114 Feagin, S.L., 24, 149 Feldman, R., 62, 131, 134, 135, 137, 138, 139, 140 Ferguson, A., 84 Ferrero, L., 116 Feyerabend, P., 16 Fodor, J., 176 Foley, R., 13 Foot, P., 115, 119

Forrest, P., 22 Foucault, M., 73 Frankena, W.K., 114 Frankfurt, H., 115 Fraser, N., 104 Frege, G., 25, 26, 171, 173, 176, 180, 199, 200, 203, 212, 215 Freud, S., 130 Fricker, M., 88 Garavaso, P., 16 García-Carpintero, M., 25, 171, 183, 190, 192, 193 Gaus, G.F., 95, 97, 98 Gaut, B., 158 Gettier, E., 55, 57 Gibbard, A., 116 Glüer, K., 186, 187 Goldman, A.H., 158, 159, 161 Goldman, A.I., 56, 58 Gopnik, A., 177 Greco, J., 59 Green, M., 190 Grice, P., 183, 191 Halpin, D., 95 Han, L.C., 97 Hanna, R., 26, 199, 201, 203, 215, 216 Harding, S., 78 Harman, G., 12 Harnish, R.M., 174, 189 Harris, S., 143 Hasker, W., 135, 146 Haslanger, S., 80 Hayek, F., 99 Heikes, D., 16 Heldman, C., 97 Hilbert, M., 105 Hindriks, F., 189 Hintikka, M., 78 Hirsch, E., 222

245 Hitchcock, A., 165 Hitchens, C., 143 Hobbes, T., 93, 100, 171 Hollis, M., 11 Horkheimer, M., 86 Housman, A., 132 Howard-Snyder, D., 132 Howson, C., 39 Hume, D., 15, 24, 33, 34, 35, 162, 206, 220 Hurley, S., 14 Ingarden, R., 224 Iseminger, G., 152 Isenberg, A., 150, 152, 155, 159, 163, 166 Jacoby, F., 15 James, W., 145 Jeffrey, R., 40 Jensen, J.L., 105, 106 Jensen, M.J., 105 Johnson, M., 16 Johnson-Laird, P.N., 10 Jones, K., 16, 81, 87 Kahneman, D., 10, 12 Kant, I., 12, 15, 19, 24, 34, 35, 37, 71, 72, 73, 85, 149, 164, 199, 221, 224 Kaplan, D., 191 Katz, J.J., 174 Kaufman, D.A., 155, 162 Keay, D., 99 Kelly, J., 75 Keynes, J.M., 36, 37, 38, 41 Kierkegaard, S., 15 Kolmogorov, A.N., 39 Kolodny, N., 120 Kolsaker, A., 103, 104, 105 Korcz, K.A., 59

Korsgaard, C., 114, 116, 119, 120, 123, 124 Kripke, S., 186, 193, 223, 225 Kuhn, T., 16, 17, 45, 46, 49, 221 Lackey, J., 188 Lakoff, G., 16 Lance, M., 184 Lange, M., 45 Larmore, C., 95, 96, 97 Laurence, S., 53, 173, 178 Le Poidevin, R., 224 Lee-Kelley, L., 103, 105 Lehrer, K., 10, 56 Leite, A., 61, 63 Lenman, J., 12 Lepore, E., 174, 182 Levine, D.P., 99, 101 Levinson, J., 157, 161 Lewis, D., 174, 183, 184, 185, 230, 233 Lister, A., 96 Lloyd, G., 72, 75, 77 Loar, B., 185 Locke, J., 93, 171 Lopez McAlister, L., 74 Lowe, J., 223, 234 Ludwig, K., 83, 174, 182 MacIntyre, A., 16, 114 Madame de Stael, 74 Marx, K., 130 Matthews, G.M., 130 McDowell, J., 194, 195 McFarland, D., 14 McLaverty, P., 95 McMullin, E., 48 Mele, A.R., 11, 12 Michelman, F.I., 98 Mill, J.S., 35, 41 Millar, A., 11 Miller, A., 193

246 Moore, J., 173, 190 Moran, R., 113 Mulligan, K., 64 Nagel, T., 26, 114, 116, 199, 201, 203, 212, 215 Neal, P., 97 Nietzsche, F., 15, 73, 130 Nozick, R., 9, 58, 93, 99, 101, 102 Nye, A., 74

Rawling, P., 11, 12 Rawls, J., 21, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 102, 104, 119, 189, 190 Reid, T., 24 Rescher, N., 203, 233 Rooney, P., 77 Rorty, R., 236 Rose, N., 102 Rousseau, J.J., 73, 74 Rowe, W., 132 Russell, B., 36, 173

Oaksford, M., 11 Pagin, P., 177 Papineau, D., 11, 42 Parfit, D., 116, 117 Pargetter, R., 135 Parmenides, 197, 199, 207, 219 Pascal, B., 15, 48 Peacocke, C., 63, 66, 188 Piero della Francesca, 165 Pietroski, P., 178, 182, 192 Pinker, S., 177 Plantinga, A., 60, 131, 133, 134, 135, 223 Plato, 12, 19, 25, 159, 171, 173, 174, 175, 176, 178, 182, 184, 207, 219 Plumwood, V., 71, 84, 85, 86 Poincaré, H., 47 Pollock, J., 64, 65 Prinz, J., 115, 118 Pritchard, D., 55, 59 Pryor, J., 63 Psillos, S., 17, 33, 41, 42, 46 Putnam, H., 16, 222 Quine, W.V.O., 16, 43, 182, 220 Quinn, P., 135 Quinn, W., 116, 119 Ramsey, F., 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 44

Samuels, R., 12, 13 Scanlon, T., 61, 116, 117 Scharfstein, B.-A., 11 Schellekens, E., 162 Schelling, F., 15 Schiffer, S., 184, 185, 186 Schneewind, J.B., 124 Schopenhauer, A., 15 Schroeder, M., 115, 118 Sclafani, R., 152 Searle, J., 188 Sellars, W., 54, 55 Setiya, K., 172 Shah, N., 65 Sibley, F., 150, 157, 161, 162, 163, 165 Sidelle, A., 222, 236, 237 Sider, T., 230 Simon, H.A., 13 Sinhababu, N., 173 Skyrms, B., 11, 39 Smith, B., 237 Smith, M., 115 Soames, S., 173, 174, 175, 177, 178, 193 Sosa, E., 55, 56, 58, 59 Sperling, L., 20, 93, 103 Stecker, R., 161 Stein, E., 10, 11 Stich, S., 12

247 Strawson, P., 221 Street, J., 104, 105 Street, S., 116, 122 Sutton, J., 55, 58 Svendsen, L., 97, 100, 101 Szabó, Z., 177 Tarski, A., 180, 181 Taylor, C., 82 Teller, P., 40 Thompson, J.B., 103 Tomasello, M., 14 Tooby, J., 15 Tooley, M., 135 Trigg, R., 17 van Cleve, J., 42 van Inwagen, P., 131, 224, 233 Varzi, A., 222, 224, 228, 230, 231, 237 Vassallo, N., 9, 16, 25 Venn, J., 36 Vlach, F., 190 von Neumann, J., 228

Wallace, R.J., 11 Walton, K.L., 150, 152, 153, 156, 166 Wason, P., 10 Watson, L., 95, 96 Weber, M., 13 Weedon, C., 97 Weiner, M., 188 Westerståhl, D., 177 Wikforss, Å., 186, 187 Williams, B., 72, 114, 115 Williamson, T., 55, 58, 59, 60, 188, 189, 190 Wittgenstein, L., 83, 173, 176, 186, 193 Wolf, S., 114 Wollstonecraft, M., 74 Wong, D., 116, 122 Wright, C., 63, 66, 193, 194 Wright, F.L., 154 Wright, S., 104, 105 Zagzebski, L., 135 Zalta, E.N., 228, 229 Zermelo, E., 228, 229

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