tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3949761534200395390.post6893549926732606939..comments2024-01-03T17:27:11.545+01:00Comments on The Space of Reasons: McDowell on Rational AnimalsAVERY ARCHERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14313322464414110953noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3949761534200395390.post-90923619861911975942010-04-26T14:35:21.636+00:002010-04-26T14:35:21.636+00:00Hey Adrian (we actually share our first names), Th...Hey Adrian (we actually share our first names), Thanks for the pointer. I'll have to check out Brandom's book.<br /><br />Ben, As always, thanks for the excellent feedback. I started typing up a reply in the comments section, but it was becoming much too long. So I've decided to respond to you in a separate blog post. You can find it <a href="http://thespaceofreasons.blogspot.com/2010/04/on-reasons-and-animals-my-response-to.html" rel="nofollow">here</a>.AVERY ARCHERhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14313322464414110953noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3949761534200395390.post-74345685213145710102010-04-22T22:55:39.622+00:002010-04-22T22:55:39.622+00:00I really like your thinking here. Robert Brandom ...I really like your thinking here. Robert Brandom (articulating reasons) stresses two approaches: one can begin with the similarities between us and other animals and struggle to articulate distinctions (Fodor). or one can begin by articulating the differences (for Brandom concepts through discursive practices)which you are then hard pressed to account for similarities.<br /><br />Particularly see, Brandom's Reason in Philosophy. The first few chapters express his notion or Reason as a distinguishing feature of humanity. Great book.Adrian Woodshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07434998725978328917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3949761534200395390.post-31922202475455934792010-04-22T17:40:10.796+00:002010-04-22T17:40:10.796+00:00Avery,
You make some nice points in this post. Bu...Avery,<br /><br />You make some nice points in this post. But I remain unconvinced. So let me advocate for the position that a creature without the relevant higher-order capacities cannot be provided with a justification for its beliefs based on any movement of thought. I will simply advocate for this position by challenging your claims about ordinary linguistic practice in this post.<br /><br />Your appeals to ordinary linguistic practices do not show what you take them to. Here is why. We quite often speak in ways that attribute agential capacities to objects that are clearly not agents. Consider: 'the knife cut me' or 'the sun rose'. In the first case, properly speaking, what I mean to express is that I cut myself with the knife. Our normal way of speaking allows me to attribute agency to the knife, but this need not mean that I think the knife is (in any way) an agent. In the second case, properly speaking (given my knowledge of the earth's rotation, etc.), what I mean to express is that the earth's rotation reached a point where the sun is now above the horizon (given my location on the earth's surface, etc.). Our normal way of speaking allows me to attribute agency to the sun, but again this need not mean that I actually believe that the sun moves (as opposed to the earth moving). So I do not think that the evidence you cite of our ordinary linguistic practices supports your claim that the relevant movements of thought are evidence that the non-rational creature/object has reasons.<br /><br />I think that a better way to understand what's happening is this. We attribute rational agency to non-rational animals (and even inanimate objects) because we think about the relevant behavior/events (in these, but not necessarily all cases) by adopting the animal's (or object's) perspective from within our own first-personal point of view. So when we look at the behavior of Hurley's monkey, we consider its situation as if we were deciding what to do in those circumstances. Since we take such-and-such considerations to be reasons (since certain behavior is intelligible to us on the basis of these considerations) we attribute these justifications to the monkey in making sense of what it does. And then we talk about the monkey in these terms. But this need not entail that we attribute agency to the monkey any more than talking about the knife or the sun does. (Nagel makes some remarks in "Moral Luck" about adopting the first-personal point of view when evaluating others' behavior that I draw on here.)<br /><br />The upshot is, I think, that the responsiveness to reasons and responsiveness to reasons as such distinction is apt, but that we make this distinction still from within the deliberative perspective we, as rational agents, take on the world. That is, we cannot infer from our use of the distinction, especially in ordinary linguistic practice, that the creature we talk about as responding to reasons really is doing so or has reasons to which to respond. Rather, what we can infer is that features of that creature's situation appear to us as helping to make sense of that creature's behavior. Perhaps we constrain our deliberative perspective enough to allow that the creature does not respond to these considerations as we would, that is, not as reasons. But the attribution of reasons-responsiveness may still be a projection.Ben M-Ynoreply@blogger.com