Practical Nous in the Nicomachean Ethics

2020 ◽  
pp. 219-248
Author(s):  
Benjamin Morison
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Know How ◽  
Cognitive States ◽  
Theoretical Reasoning ◽  
Deliberative Reasoning

The paper presses an analogy between Aristotle’s conception of practical reasoning and theoretical reasoning. It argues that theoretical reasoning has two optimal cognitive states associated with it, episteme and (theoretical) nous, and that practical reasoning has two counterpart states, phronēsis and (practical) nous. Theoretical nous is an expertise which enables those who have it to understand principles as principles, i.e. among other things, to know how to use them to derive other truths in their domain. It is a cognitively demanding state, which only experts have. Aristotelian practical nous is structurally similar to theoretical nous in that it requires the agent not only to know certain everyday truths, but also to know how and when to use them in deliberative reasoning. It is also a cognitively demanding notion, and only moral experts will have it.

The Inference to the Best Means1

1976 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen L. Darwall
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Logical Structure ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Theoretical Reasoning

Some recent writers on practical reasoning have had it that reasoning about what to do differs in logical structure from theoretical reasoning. In particular, Anthony Kenny and G.E.M. Anscombe have argued that there are permissible inferences in practical reasoning which lack analogues in theoretical reasoning. Such discussions seem inevitably to draw their impetus from what Aristotle had to say on the topic, both in the Nicomachean Ethics and elsewhere.

Taking Stock

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Dancy
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
A Value ◽  
Theoretical Reasoning ◽  
Similar Explanation

This chapter considers some general issues about the nature of the account that is emerging. It asks whether moral reasoning should have been treated as it was in Chapter 5. It also askes whether an explanation of practical reasons by appeal to value could be mirrored by a similar explanation of theoretical reasoning if one thinks of truth as a value. One might also think of the probability of a belief as a respect in which it is of value. The chapter ends by introducing the idea of a focalist account, and maintains that the account offered of practical reasoning is focalist.

scholarly journals Truth in Practical Reason: Practical and Assertoric Truth in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michail Pantoulias ◽  
Vasiliki Vergouli ◽  
Panagiotis Thanassas
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Controversial Subject ◽  
Practical Syllogism ◽  
The Subject ◽  
De Interpretatione

Truth has always been a controversial subject in Aristotelian scholarship. In most cases, including some well-known passages in the Categories, De Interpretatione and Metaphysics, Aristotle uses the predicate ‘true’ for assertions, although exceptions are many and impossible to ignore. One of the most complicated cases is the concept of practical truth in the sixth book of Nicomachean Ethics: its entanglement with action and desire raises doubts about the possibility of its inclusion to the propositional model of truth. Nevertheless, in one of the most extensive studies on the subject, C. Olfert has tried to show that this is not only possible but also necessary. In this paper, we explain why trying to fit practical truth into the propositional model comes with insurmount­able problems. In order to overcome these problems, we focus on multiple aspects of practical syllogism and correlate them with Aristo­tle’s account of desire, happiness and the good. Identifying the role of such concepts in the specific steps of practical reasoning, we reach the conclusion that practical truth is best explained as the culmination of a well-executed practical syllogism taken as a whole, which ultimately explains why this type of syllogism demands a different approach and a different kind of truth than the theoretical one.

scholarly journals Distinguishing Practical and Theoretical Reasoning: A Critique of Deanna Kuhn's Theory of Informal Argument

1996 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Wilks Keefer
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Theoretical Reasoning ◽  
Informal Argumentation ◽  
Evidence Model ◽  
Adequate Evidence ◽  
Practical Arguments

Deanna Kuhn's theory of informal argumentation (1991) evaluates arguments according to a theory/evidence model where subjects first articulate a theory and then must provide critical testing of alternatives on the basis of evidence. Using this model, Kuhn reports that many subjects fail to supply adequate evidence for their 'theories' and are often unable or unwilling to generate alternatives. In this paper an account of practical reasoning is provided that suggests an alternate interpretation for Kuhn's subjects' poor perfonnance. It is argued that treating practical arguments as failed theoretical justifications causes Kuhn to misrepresent the contribution of many of her subjects' arguments.

scholarly journals Diskursus Akhlak dalam Filsafat Mulla Sadra

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 78
Author(s):  
Thuba Kermani
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Short Discussion ◽  
Moral Science ◽  
Mulla Sadra ◽  
The World ◽  
Theoretical Reasoning ◽  
Moral Ethics ◽  
Human Psyche ◽  
Moral Questions

<div><p><strong>Abstract :</strong> In Mulla Sadra’s system of thought, the discussion of  philosophy of  moral (ethics), morality, the nature of morality and matters related, that is the soul (nafs) and the spirit, is not a short discussion. All forms of action and the nature of malakah imprinted in the human psyche that will participate in the world hereafter. Therefore, some of the matters of the soul is a postulate of science of moral. Yet despite the differences in the ethics’s school of thoughts, it can be said that almost Muslim philosophers agree to the connection of moral with the perfection of soul. And the foundation of moral questions rests on the principle of perfection of the soul and the effects of the moral act. Without them, there will be no perfect rational and philosophical explanations of the good and bad character. However, in understanding how the process of perfection of the soul through moral acts, it is necessary to understand the perfection of the soul and make it a goal for human.</p><p><em>Keywords : philosophy of moral, science of moral, theoretical reasoning, practical reasoning, intuition, meta-ethics. </em></p><p><em><br /></em></p><p><strong>Abstrak :</strong> Dalam  struktur  pemikiran Mulla Sadra pembahasan  filsafat  akhlak,  akhlak,  sifat-sifat akhlak dan  hal yang berkaitan  dengannya,  yaitu  jiwa  (nafs) dan ruh, bukan  pembahasan  yang  ringkas. Segala bentuk tindakan dan sifat malakah yang terpatri dalam jiwa manusia akan menyertainya di alam akhirat kelak. Oleh karena itu  sebagian  dari  persoalan-persoalan  jiwa  merupakan  postulat  ilmu  akhlak.  Namun  meskipun  terdapat perbedaan dalam aliran-aliran pemikiran filsafat akhlak, dapat dikatakan hampir semua filsuf Islam sepakat bahwa akhlak berkaitan dengan kesempurnaan jiwa. Dan fondasi persoalan-persoalan akhlak bersandar pada prinsip kesempurnaan jiwa dan pengaruh dari perbuatan akhlak. Tanpa hal itu, penjelasan rasional dan filosofis atas kebaikan dan keburukan akhlak tidak akan sempurna. Bagaimanapun juga, dalam memahami bagaimana proses kesempurnaan jiwa melalui perbuatan-perbuatan akhlak, perlu untuk memahami kesempurnaan jiwa dan menjadikannya sebagai tujuan bagi diri manusia.</p><p><em>Kata-kata Kunci : filsafat akhlak, ilmu akhlak, akal teori, akal praktis, jiwa, intuisi, meta-etika.</em></p></div>

Agent Technology

2011 ◽  
pp. 83-87
Author(s):  
J.J. Ch. Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Intelligent Systems ◽  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Agent Technology ◽  
Autonomous Agent ◽  
Philosophical Theory ◽  
Rational Agents ◽  
Practical Syllogism ◽  
Theoretical Reasoning

Agent technology is a rapidly growing subdiscipline of computer science on the borderline of artificial intelligence and software engineering that studies the construction of intelligent systems. It is centered around the concept of an (intelligent/rational/autonomous) agent. An agent is a software entity that displays some degree of autonomy; it performs actions in its environment on behalf of its user but in a relatively independent way, taking initiatives to perform actions on its own by deliberating its options to achieve its goal(s). The field of agent technology emerged out of philosophical considerations about how to reason about courses of action, and human action, in particular. In analytical philosophy there is an area occupied with so-called practical reasoning, in which one studies so-called practical syllogisms, that constitute patterns of inference regarding actions. By way of an example, a practical syllogism may have the following form (Audi, 1999, p. 728): Would that I exercise. Jogging is exercise. Therefore, I shall go jogging. Although this has the form of a deductive syllogism in the familiar Aristotelian tradition of “theoretical reasoning,” on closer inspection it appears that this syllogism does not express a purely logical deduction. (The conclusion does not follow logically from the premises.) It rather constitutes a representation of a decision of the agent (going to jog), where this decision is based on mental attitudes of the agent, namely, his/her beliefs (“jogging is exercise”) and his/her desires or goals (“would that I exercise”). So, practical reasoning is “reasoning directed toward action—the process of figuring out what to do,” as Wooldridge (2000, p. 21) puts it. The process of reasoning about what to do next on the basis of mental states such as beliefs and desires is called deliberation (see Figure 1). The philosopher Michael Bratman has argued that humans (and more generally, resource-bounded agents) also use the notion of an intention when deliberating their next action (Bratman, 1987). An intention is a desire that the agent is committed to and will try to fulfill till it believes it has achieved it or has some other rational reason to abandon it. Thus, we could say that agents, given their beliefs and desires, choose some desire as their intention, and “go for it.” This philosophical theory has been formalized through several studies, in particular the work of Cohen and Levesque (1990); Rao and Georgeff (1991); and Van der Hoek, Van Linder, and Meyer (1998), and has led to the so-called Belief- Desire-Intention (BDI) model of intelligent or rational agents (Rao & Georgeff, 1991). Since the beginning of the 1990s researchers have turned to the problem of realizing artificial agents. We will return to this hereafter.

A Linking Belief is Not Essential for Reasoning

Reasoning ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 32-43
Author(s):  
John Broome
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Essential Feature ◽  
Theoretical Reasoning

In reasoning, you acquire a new conclusion attitude on the basis of premise attitudes. It is commonly thought that an essential feature of reasoning is that you have a linking belief, which is a belief that the premises imply the conclusion. This chapter shows that a linking belief is not essential for reasoning. A genuinely essential feature of reasoning is that you acquire the conclusion attitude by following a rule. A linking belief may be a necessary feature of theoretical reasoning, because it may be a consequence of having the disposition to follow a rule. But it is not essential for reasoning, which is to say that it does not contribute to making the process reasoning. For other sorts of reasoning including practical reasoning, a linking belief is not even necessary.

scholarly journals Experimental Evidence for the Existence of an External World

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 564-582
Author(s):  
ERIC SCHWITZGEBEL ◽  
ALAN T. MOORE
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
External World ◽  
Digit Number ◽  
The Third ◽  
Theoretical Reasoning ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Straightforward Interpretation

ABSTRACT:In this essay I attempt to refute radical solipsism by means of a series of empirical experiments. In the first experiment, I exhibit unreliable judgment about the primeness or divisibility of four-digit numbers, in contrast to a seeming Excel program. In the second experiment, I exhibit an imperfect memory for seemingly arbitrary three-digit number and letter combinations, in contrast to my seeming collaborator with seemingly hidden notes. In the third experiment, I seem to suffer repeated defeats at chess. In all three experiments, the most straightforward interpretation of the experiential evidence is that something exists in the universe that is superior in the relevant respects—theoretical reasoning (about primes), memorial retention (for digits and letters), or practical reasoning (at chess)—to my own solipsistically conceived self.

A Constructivist Solution to the Problem of Induction

Dialogue ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Byeong D. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Justification ◽  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Wilfrid Sellars ◽  
Problem Of Induction ◽  
Constructivist View ◽  
Wide Acceptance ◽  
Theoretical Reasoning ◽  
Instrumental Principle

ABSTRACT: Ever since Hume raised the problem of induction, many philosophers have tried to solve this problem; however, there still is no solution that has won wide acceptance among philosophers. According to Wilfrid Sellars, the reason is mainly that these philosophers have tried to justify induction by theoretical reasoning rather than by practical reasoning. In this paper I offer a sort of Sellarsian proposal. On the basis of the instrumental principle and the constructivist view of the concept of epistemic justification, I argue that it is reasonable to accept induction.

scholarly journals Aristotle's Illicit Quantifier Shift: Is He Guilty or Innocent

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Jack Green
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
First Passage ◽  
Secondary Literature

In accusing Aristotle of committing an illicit quantifier shift, some scholars point to I.i.1094a1-3 of the Nicomachean Ethics and others point to I.ii.1094a18-22. The author of this paper analyses the logical translations of both passages in order to determine the success of the cases for and against Aristotle. Wading through the various translations found in the secondary literature and also analysing the primary text, the author of this paper argues that the correct logical translation of both passages frees Aristotle from the accusation of an illicit quantifier shift. The first passage does not present an argument, but a description of practical reasoning. The second passage is a hypothetical argument that stipulates the conditions of the final end: eudaimonia. The author concludes that one cannot accuse Aristotle of committing the fallacy of the quantifier shift.

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