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

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.

Consequentialist Reasons for Some Education Reforms

The reasons for education reforms – as a particular form of social reforms – are either consequentialist or non-consequentialist. However, the reasons for the education reforms that are briefly discussed from the perspective of the philosophy of education in the present paper are above all consequentialist. These are the reasons for proposed education reforms in EU countries whose strategic aim is equated with the enhancement of two values: creativity and innovation. It is supposed that these education reforms will have good effects and not that they are good in and of themselves. Therefore, although creativity and innovation might be seen as having intrinsic value, they are – in these education reforms – treated predominantly as instrumental values. It seems that the introduction of such education reforms can be understood as a decision founded not on causal explanation, but rather on the basis of a special type of teleological explanation, which has the logical form of a “practical syllogism”. In this case, the occurrence of an action is explained in terms of the goals and purposes of the agent; it shows that the agent did what s/he did because s/he tried to achieve a certain goal and believed that certain means were necessary or sufficient for achieving this goal.

Desire and Impulse in Epictetus and the Older Stoics

This article argues that Epictetus employs the terms orexis and hormê in the same manner as the older Stoics. It then shows, on the basis of this claim, that the older Stoics recognized a distinction between dispositional and occurrent forms of motivation. On this account of Stoic theory, intentional action is in each instance the product of two forms of cognition: a value ascription that attributes goodness or badness to some object, conceiving of its possession as beneficial or harmful to the agent, together with a situational judgment about appropriate action. The resulting interpretation suggests that the Stoic theory of motivation as a whole — and not merely the Stoic analysis of the pathê — has the basic shape of a practical syllogism, with more psychological depth than commentators have recognized.

The Role of Thought in Animal Voluntary Self-Locomotion

This contribution comments on Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium 7 (MA 7), in particular on the difficult passages that introduce the so-called ‘practical syllogism’; at this particular point of the treatise the practical syllogism is used as part of the answer to the question of why it is that an agent, by thinking, sometimes acts but sometimes does not act. The author argues that, according to the account given in MA 7, thought plays a twofold role in the initiation of action; it is an animal’s thought that connects its desire to an end, and that connects that end to a particular, here and now: i.e. to this action for it to do in furtherance of that end. Even if the immediate psychological cause of action is desire, that desire itself is by the thought that recognizes this as an instance of what its general desire is for.

Freedom and Praxis in Plotinus’s Ennead 6.8.1-6

In this paper, I argue that Plotinus does not limit the sphere of free human agency simply to intellectual contemplation, but rather extends it all the way to human praxis. Plotinus’s goal in the first six chapters of Ennead 6.8 is, accordingly, to demarcate the space of freedom within human practical actions. He ultimately concludes that our external actions are free whenever they actualize, in unhindered fashion, the moral principles derived from intellectual contemplation. This raises the question of how the freedom of practical actions might relate to the freedom of intellectual contemplation. After considering two previously offered models – a model of double activity, and an Aristotelian model of practical syllogism – I offer a third alternative, namely a model of moral attunement, according to which our rational desires assume a kind of ‘care of the soul’ through active supervision. Practical life is thus imbued with freedom to the extent that the soul supervises its actions to conform to its will and choice of the good.

The Practical Syllogism and Practical Cognition in Aristotle

Prevailing interpretations of Aristotle’s use of syllogistic language outside the Organon hold that he offers a single, comprehensive theory of the practical syllogism spanning his ethical and biological works. These comprehensive theories of the practical syllogism are plausible neither philosophically nor as interpretations of Aristotle. I argue for a multivocal account of the practical syllogism that distinguishes (1) Aristotle’s use of syllogistic language to explain aspects of his account of animal motion in MA from (2) his use of syllogistic language to explain aspects of his account of the distinctive practical cognition of the phronimos in EN. I offer a novel account of the role of syllogistic language in ethics, arguing that it elucidates a nuanced account of universals and particulars in ethics according to which acting virtuously requires an understanding of underlying universal values and a capacity to relate them to concrete, particular features of our circumstances.

Contractual Reconstructions

In the twilight of utilitarianism contract theorist sought to respond to the problems that utilitarianism had thrown up. How successful were they? Our review of contract theory has shown that it is not possible to base a contract theory on a utility theory of rationality, even though some have claimed that such a theory states the essential elements of rational behaviour. The axioms of utility theory are controversial in themselves, and do not give an account of prudence. To have an account of prudence, we need to turn to the deliberative account of rationality, and the idea of intelligibility. The practical syllogism will only take us so far, however, and will not deal with cases where interests conflict. There is no need to make a sharp distinction between contract theories in which there is a plurality of agents, without a veil of ignorance, and a single agent behind a veil of ignorance. The singular veil of ignorance construction can be regarded as a more abstract thought experiment in situation of moral perplexity. Similarly, the distinction between mutual advantage theories, which involve essential reference to a baseline of non-cooperation, and baseline independent theories is not clear, since much depends on the character of the baseline. The problem of obligation remains unresolved, but its lack of resolution underlines a conclusion of Hart to the effect that coercion is an essential element of a large-scale society.

Contractual Rationalities

Modern contract theories differ from one another along one principal dimension, namely the account of practical rationality that they employ. One class of theories draws upon modern expected utility theory; a second conceives of rationality in terms of deliberative reasoning. The purpose of this chapter is to offer an exposition of these two approaches. Modern utility theory is built upon the idea of imposing consistency conditions on the choices that agents make over alternatives. Utility is understood as a numerical representation of a consistent rank-ordering by individuals over alternatives. Utility theory been applied to studies of the interactions of individuals defined as rational in the required sense, in the form of game theory. Two types of game have been of particular interest to social contract theorist: positive sum bargaining games and the prisoner’s dilemma. By contrast with utility theory, there is no orthodox theory of deliberative rationality. However, there are some important formulations that shape the deliberative form of contract theory. One is the idea of the practical syllogism. Another is the distinction between agent-relative and agent-neutral reasons. A third is the distinction between internal and external reasons. Both utility theory and deliberative theory should be thought to be normative. The principle of universalizability offers a distinctive conception of practical rationality that contrasts with contract theory.

Veiled Deliberation

Rawls’s theory of justice has been the centre-point of modern social contract theory over decades. Given the breadth and extent of Rawls’s work, there are many problems in treating the arguments in limited space. However, points of comparison with other contract theorists are interesting and his theory is treated as being a continuous, if evolving, whole. Rawls seeks to achieve deductive rigour—a moral geometry—in the presentation of his principles of justice, which cover both the political liberties and the distribution of economic resources. Rawls hold that a maximin form or reasoning underlies his two principles of justice. That form of reasoning is reconstructed and it is shown that it is not as decisive in giving the deductive rigour to his conclusions as he requires. The basic liberties and their priority can be defended in broadly Rawlsian terms, assuming that the contracting parties use the practical syllogism of deliberative rationality. However, that form of reasoning cannot deal with cases where the liberties conflict, despite Rawls’s attempt to avoid a balancing test. Rawls’s argument for the difference principle fails outside of a simply two-group economy, and its failure reflects a deeper tension in his thinking between individualism and collectivism. There is a way of reconstructing his account of rational choice so as to be consistent with his collectivism, but it involves abandoning the claim that the rationality of the contracting parties should be consistent with the axioms of utility theory.

The Objectivity of the Concept

Chapter 6 explores the transition to “Objectivity,” continuing the investigation into the role of the Gattung as an objective universal. Hegel’s chapters on “Mechanism,” “Chemism,” and “Teleology,” establish the genus not only as an objective context of predication but also as the necessary context of objective existence, determining the degree to which self-determining activity can be realized. This chapter defends Hegel’s employment of the ontological proof and argues that the being or existence that can be inferred from the Concept is being as self-individuating activity. The processes of mechanism, chemism, and external purposiveness all fall short of self-determining activity, which is marked by descriptions of striving and violence. This chapter also discusses what Hegel calls “objective judgment,” and considers its relation to the practical syllogism. Hegel’s analysis reveals that there is an irreducible role for judgment as an act of self-determination and self-constitution, an activity that is immediately manifest in the activity of life.