Contextuality in Practical Reason [Hardcover]

A. W. Price explores the varying ways in which context is relevant to our reasoning about what to do. He investigates the role of context in our interpretation and assessment of practical inferences (especially from one intention to another), practical judgements (especially involving the term ought ), inferences from conditional ought -judgements, and the ascription to agents of reasons for action. Practical inferences are subject not to a special logic, but to a teleology that they share with action itself. Their inherent purpose is to forward an end of action, and not to be logically valid. Practical judgments are commonly to be understood relatively to an implicit context of goals and circumstances. Apparently conflicting or imprudent oughts can show up as true once they are interpreted contextually, with an eye to different ends, and different aspects of a situation. This makes acceptable certain patterns of inference that would otherwise license counter-intuitive conclusions. What reasons for action are ascribable to an agent depends both on the context of action, and on the deliberative context. Facts tell in favor of actions against a background of particular circumstances, and in ways whose relevance to an ascription to an agent of a reason for action depends upon the perspective within which the ascription is made.

Introductory Overview
1. Practical Inferences
2. Practical Judgements
3. Reasoning with Conditionals
4. Reasons for Action

...brings together the flourishing philosophical topics of context sensitivity and reasoning, and in doing so it provides deep and far-reaching insights into the nature of practical rationality.... the ideas in this book are bound to fascinate anyone working in the field, and to give direction to future research that will certainly prove to be most exciting. It is these stimulating ideas that make this book a very rewarding read. --Tim Henning,Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews