Practical Reasoning and Practical Truth

Abstract

My chapter is primarily Aristotelian, and falls into three sections: in Section 3.1, I discuss the goal of practical inference, which is (as Anselm Müller has put it) “to consider which actions can promote one’s end, with a view to realizing this end by means of these actions” and its structure, which is rarely that of a deductive inference—and is none the worse for that. Section 3.2 discusses choice and wish, privileging contents that are not subject-predicate in form, but initially specify a goal, which is usually concrete (though behind it may lie a general aspiration to act well), and then derive an act of doing such and such. Section 3.3 discusses the concept of practical truth, doubting whether it is present in Aristotle, even within Nicomachean Ethics VI 2 where it has often been found, but arguing that, in Elizabeth Anscombe’s conception, which Müller has fully discussed recently, it is itself both defensible and fertile.