Barry Stroud
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195370423
- eISBN:
- 9780199851980
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195370423.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This introductory chapter examines the kind of thinking man engages in when he deliberates and assesses alternatives and decide what to do and then do it. It notes that proper understanding of these ...
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This introductory chapter examines the kind of thinking man engages in when he deliberates and assesses alternatives and decide what to do and then do it. It notes that proper understanding of these ways of thinking can actually help man discover what he needs to do or what is right or wrong in his everyday social and political life. It explains that when man believes that he ought to do a certain thing, he is really expressing his plans or his planning attitude toward a certain course of action; the same is true of assessing the actions of others. It also discusses the arguments presented by three commentators which are focused on the author's account of practical thought. This chapter also investigates whether and how people's different aims or different conceptions of what is good can be acknowledged and accommodated within this kind of communal planning.Less
This introductory chapter examines the kind of thinking man engages in when he deliberates and assesses alternatives and decide what to do and then do it. It notes that proper understanding of these ways of thinking can actually help man discover what he needs to do or what is right or wrong in his everyday social and political life. It explains that when man believes that he ought to do a certain thing, he is really expressing his plans or his planning attitude toward a certain course of action; the same is true of assessing the actions of others. It also discusses the arguments presented by three commentators which are focused on the author's account of practical thought. This chapter also investigates whether and how people's different aims or different conceptions of what is good can be acknowledged and accommodated within this kind of communal planning.
W.F.R. Hardie
- Published in print:
- 1980
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198246329
- eISBN:
- 9780191680953
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198246329.003.0012
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Ancient Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
The expression ‘practical syllogism’ is used by commentators on Aristotle as a name for a process in which a rule is applied to a concrete situation, the application consisting in the thinker's doing ...
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The expression ‘practical syllogism’ is used by commentators on Aristotle as a name for a process in which a rule is applied to a concrete situation, the application consisting in the thinker's doing something, actually performing as an agent or producer. The rule prescribes things which should be done in specified types of situation; its verbal expression requires the use of an evaluative word like ‘good’ or ‘useful’ or of a prescriptive word like ‘should’ or ‘ought’. In terms of Aristotle's doctrine of the theoretical syllogism, as expounded in the Prior and Posterior Analytics, the thinking which precedes, or accompanies, practical rule-keeping can be expressed in the verbal form of a first-figure syllogism of the minor.Less
The expression ‘practical syllogism’ is used by commentators on Aristotle as a name for a process in which a rule is applied to a concrete situation, the application consisting in the thinker's doing something, actually performing as an agent or producer. The rule prescribes things which should be done in specified types of situation; its verbal expression requires the use of an evaluative word like ‘good’ or ‘useful’ or of a prescriptive word like ‘should’ or ‘ought’. In terms of Aristotle's doctrine of the theoretical syllogism, as expounded in the Prior and Posterior Analytics, the thinking which precedes, or accompanies, practical rule-keeping can be expressed in the verbal form of a first-figure syllogism of the minor.
Paul Grice
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198242529
- eISBN:
- 9780191597534
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198242522.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter first shows how—given certain circumstances—valid inferences can be drawn from alethic to practical acceptability statements. For this, Grice tries to establish an acceptability ...
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This chapter first shows how—given certain circumstances—valid inferences can be drawn from alethic to practical acceptability statements. For this, Grice tries to establish an acceptability statement of the form ‘it is acceptable that if (on the alethic side) A only if B, then (on the practical side) one should A only if one should B’. He then turns to a discussion of the characteristics of practical thinking other than the application of means–ends reasoning. Such practical thinking, Grice suggests, includes the determination of antecedently indeterminate desires and intentions, contains systems of priorities, and often is revisionist and comparative.Less
This chapter first shows how—given certain circumstances—valid inferences can be drawn from alethic to practical acceptability statements. For this, Grice tries to establish an acceptability statement of the form ‘it is acceptable that if (on the alethic side) A only if B, then (on the practical side) one should A only if one should B’. He then turns to a discussion of the characteristics of practical thinking other than the application of means–ends reasoning. Such practical thinking, Grice suggests, includes the determination of antecedently indeterminate desires and intentions, contains systems of priorities, and often is revisionist and comparative.
Sebastian R ödl
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780195395686
- eISBN:
- 9780199979295
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195395686.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, Political Philosophy
In his famous presentation of the fact of reason, Kant asserts that, recognizing that I must do something, I know that I can. Knowing that the moral law requires that I act in a certain way, I know ...
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In his famous presentation of the fact of reason, Kant asserts that, recognizing that I must do something, I know that I can. Knowing that the moral law requires that I act in a certain way, I know that I have the power to act according to my knowledge. I shall seek to explain why this is true. The contemporary literature on Kant has failed to that bring out this truth, I think, because for the most part contemporary moral philosophy lacks the concept of a practical thought. As the thought "I must do this" represents an unconditional necessity, reason is its origin. This shows that reason is practical because the thought is a practical thought. This is something Kant presupposes and the meaning and significance of which fails to be appreciated in the current empiricist environment.Less
In his famous presentation of the fact of reason, Kant asserts that, recognizing that I must do something, I know that I can. Knowing that the moral law requires that I act in a certain way, I know that I have the power to act according to my knowledge. I shall seek to explain why this is true. The contemporary literature on Kant has failed to that bring out this truth, I think, because for the most part contemporary moral philosophy lacks the concept of a practical thought. As the thought "I must do this" represents an unconditional necessity, reason is its origin. This shows that reason is practical because the thought is a practical thought. This is something Kant presupposes and the meaning and significance of which fails to be appreciated in the current empiricist environment.
Morana Alač
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262015684
- eISBN:
- 9780262295475
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262015684.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
The results of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scanning require extensive analysis in the laboratory. This book shows that fMRI researchers do not sit passively staring at computer ...
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The results of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scanning require extensive analysis in the laboratory. This book shows that fMRI researchers do not sit passively staring at computer screens but actively involve their bodies in laboratory practice. Discussing fMRI visuals with colleagues, scientists animate the scans with gestures and speak as they work with computers. The author argues that to understand how digital scientific visuals take on meaning, we must consider their dynamic coordination with gesture, speech, and working hands—multimodal actions, which, she suggests, are an essential component of digital scientific visuals. A semiotician who was trained in cognitive science, she grounds her discussion in concepts from Peirce's semiotics and her methodology in ethnography and multimodal conversation analysis. Basing her observations on videotaped recordings of activities in three fMRI research labs, the author describes scientists' manual engagement with digital visuals of the human brain, and then turns her attention to the issue of practical thinking. The book argues that although fMRI technology directs scientists to consider human thinking in terms of an individual brain, scientific practices in the fMRI lab demonstrate thinking that engages the whole body and the world in which the body is situated. The turn toward the digital does not bring with it abstraction but a manual and embodied engagement. The practical and multimodal engagement with digital brains in the laboratory challenges certain assumptions behind fMRI technology; it suggests our hands are essential to learning and the making of meaning.Less
The results of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scanning require extensive analysis in the laboratory. This book shows that fMRI researchers do not sit passively staring at computer screens but actively involve their bodies in laboratory practice. Discussing fMRI visuals with colleagues, scientists animate the scans with gestures and speak as they work with computers. The author argues that to understand how digital scientific visuals take on meaning, we must consider their dynamic coordination with gesture, speech, and working hands—multimodal actions, which, she suggests, are an essential component of digital scientific visuals. A semiotician who was trained in cognitive science, she grounds her discussion in concepts from Peirce's semiotics and her methodology in ethnography and multimodal conversation analysis. Basing her observations on videotaped recordings of activities in three fMRI research labs, the author describes scientists' manual engagement with digital visuals of the human brain, and then turns her attention to the issue of practical thinking. The book argues that although fMRI technology directs scientists to consider human thinking in terms of an individual brain, scientific practices in the fMRI lab demonstrate thinking that engages the whole body and the world in which the body is situated. The turn toward the digital does not bring with it abstraction but a manual and embodied engagement. The practical and multimodal engagement with digital brains in the laboratory challenges certain assumptions behind fMRI technology; it suggests our hands are essential to learning and the making of meaning.
Marc Gasser-Wingate
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- July 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780197567456
- eISBN:
- 9780197567487
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780197567456.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Ancient Philosophy
How do Aristotle’s empiricist views bear on the role perception plays for the virtuous? Do they point towards a certain kind of ethical particularism, according to which universal rules could never ...
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How do Aristotle’s empiricist views bear on the role perception plays for the virtuous? Do they point towards a certain kind of ethical particularism, according to which universal rules could never adequately codify virtuous behavior? I argue they do not. Virtuous agents always need perception to determine what to do, and it is inexpedient for them to articulate general rules of conduct, but this is not because it is in principle impossible to do so, or because virtuous conduct does not admit of theoretical treatment. Still, perception and experience do play an indispensable role in the development and deployment of practical wisdom. For our learning to be virtuous depends on first-hand, personal experience that theoretical modes of thought could not provide. I end by considering what a practically-oriented treatment of virtuous conduct would look like, and how we might conceive of its ethical significance.Less
How do Aristotle’s empiricist views bear on the role perception plays for the virtuous? Do they point towards a certain kind of ethical particularism, according to which universal rules could never adequately codify virtuous behavior? I argue they do not. Virtuous agents always need perception to determine what to do, and it is inexpedient for them to articulate general rules of conduct, but this is not because it is in principle impossible to do so, or because virtuous conduct does not admit of theoretical treatment. Still, perception and experience do play an indispensable role in the development and deployment of practical wisdom. For our learning to be virtuous depends on first-hand, personal experience that theoretical modes of thought could not provide. I end by considering what a practically-oriented treatment of virtuous conduct would look like, and how we might conceive of its ethical significance.
Emily Corran
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- October 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198828884
- eISBN:
- 9780191867354
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198828884.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
Thought about lying and perjury became increasingly practical from the end of the twelfth century in Western Europe. At this time, a distinctive way of thinking about deception and false oaths ...
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Thought about lying and perjury became increasingly practical from the end of the twelfth century in Western Europe. At this time, a distinctive way of thinking about deception and false oaths appeared, which dealt with moral dilemmas and the application of moral rules in exceptional cases. It first emerged in the schools of Paris and Bologna, most notably in the Summa de Sacramentis et Animae Consiliis of Peter the Chanter. The tradition continued in pastoral writings of the thirteenth century, the practical moral questions addressed by theologians in universities in the second half of the thirteenth century, and in the Summae de Casibus Conscientiae of the late Middle Ages. This book argues that medieval practical ethics of this sort can usefully be described as casuistry—a term for the discipline of moral theology that became famous during the Counter-Reformation. This can be seen in the medieval origins of the concept of equivocation, an idea that was explored in medieval literature with varying degrees of moral ambiguity. From the turn of the thirteenth century, the concept was adopted by canon lawyers and theologians, as a means of exploring questions about exceptional situations in ethics. It has been assumed in the past that equivocation and the casuistry of lying was an academic discourse invented in the sixteenth century in order to evade moral obligations. This study reveals that casuistry in the Middle Ages was developed in ecclesiastical thought as part of an effort to explain how to follow moral rules in ambiguous and perplexing cases.Less
Thought about lying and perjury became increasingly practical from the end of the twelfth century in Western Europe. At this time, a distinctive way of thinking about deception and false oaths appeared, which dealt with moral dilemmas and the application of moral rules in exceptional cases. It first emerged in the schools of Paris and Bologna, most notably in the Summa de Sacramentis et Animae Consiliis of Peter the Chanter. The tradition continued in pastoral writings of the thirteenth century, the practical moral questions addressed by theologians in universities in the second half of the thirteenth century, and in the Summae de Casibus Conscientiae of the late Middle Ages. This book argues that medieval practical ethics of this sort can usefully be described as casuistry—a term for the discipline of moral theology that became famous during the Counter-Reformation. This can be seen in the medieval origins of the concept of equivocation, an idea that was explored in medieval literature with varying degrees of moral ambiguity. From the turn of the thirteenth century, the concept was adopted by canon lawyers and theologians, as a means of exploring questions about exceptional situations in ethics. It has been assumed in the past that equivocation and the casuistry of lying was an academic discourse invented in the sixteenth century in order to evade moral obligations. This study reveals that casuistry in the Middle Ages was developed in ecclesiastical thought as part of an effort to explain how to follow moral rules in ambiguous and perplexing cases.
David Charles
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- April 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780198869566
- eISBN:
- 9780191912337
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198869566.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Aristotle, it is argued, applied the style of account he developed for perception of sounds, colours, and tastes to the perception of objects, their size and movement, and to imagination and ...
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Aristotle, it is argued, applied the style of account he developed for perception of sounds, colours, and tastes to the perception of objects, their size and movement, and to imagination and practical thought. His discussion of these topics is best understood, in line with the Impure Form Interpretation, as presenting them as, in the way explained, inextricably psycho-physical. It constitutes his attempt to develop an integrated picture of how perception leads to desire and to bodily action in unified, essentially and inextricably embodied human subjects. This discussion provides the basis for an understanding of his account of the distinctively human soul and its characteristic activities.Less
Aristotle, it is argued, applied the style of account he developed for perception of sounds, colours, and tastes to the perception of objects, their size and movement, and to imagination and practical thought. His discussion of these topics is best understood, in line with the Impure Form Interpretation, as presenting them as, in the way explained, inextricably psycho-physical. It constitutes his attempt to develop an integrated picture of how perception leads to desire and to bodily action in unified, essentially and inextricably embodied human subjects. This discussion provides the basis for an understanding of his account of the distinctively human soul and its characteristic activities.
