Reasons are States of Affairs

Eva Schmidt (TU Dortmund)

We are pleased to announce our monthly online talk series on "Inferences & Capacities."

Our next speaker is:

Eva Schmidt (TU Dortmund)
Reasons are States of Affairs

Oct 19: 11am (Buenos Aires), 10am (New York), 4pm (Berlin).

Abstract: Reasons have a double role, a normative role: they count in favor of belief or action; and an explanatory role: they provide a rational explanation of a subject’s beliefs or actions. These roles pull in different directions regarding the question of the metaphysical nature of reasons– are they states of affairs or (true) propositions? Here, we support the states of affairs view. We first present an argument starting from the particular case of reasons which are available to semantically unsophisticated subjects who do not possess any semantic concepts (such as “truth” or “reference”). We argue that the reasons to which such subjects respond are states of affairs, and that, by extension,  so are the reasons of more sophisticated subjects. Second, we undermine arguments for the claim that reasons are propositions – or specifically, fine-grained Fregean propositions. Such arguments appeal to specific cases in which epistemic justification or reason explanation differs in fine-grained ways, apparently corresponding to differences between the Fregean propositions that are the reasons in these cases. Further arguments appeal to the need of a content-relation between reasons and the supported responses, which apparently only Fregean propositions can explain and to the nature of (inferential) justification.

How to participate: Please, send an email to Alfredo Vernazzani at: 

alfredo-vernazzani AT protonmail.com

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• About Inferences & Capacities:

The series brings together work on inferential capacities, rationality, normativity, and cognition — across both human and non-human animals — with the aim of fostering discussion on the nature and limits of the cognitive sphere.  

2026 line-up:  

April 27: Angelica Kaufmann (University of Milan): "Mind Blanking as Mental Imagery." 

May 18: Federico Burdman (Universidad Alberto Hurtado) "Constrained choices: addiction, attention, and reasons-responsiveness." 

June 22: Susanna Schellenberg (Rutgers): TBA 

July 20: Cameron Buckner (University of Florida): "Chains-of-Thought, Inner Speech, and Artificial Epistemic Agency."

September 7: Ulf Hlobil (Concordia University): TBA  

October 19: Eva Schmidt (TU Dortmund): TBA 

November 16: Hans-Johann Glock (University of Zürich): "Is Ascribing Inferences to Brains or Non-human Animals a Fallacy?" 

December 14: Emma Borg (SAS, University of London): "Twitches, Fidgets, Habits, Skills: The Scope of Common-Sense Psychology." 

Each talk lasts c. 40 minutes followed by 40 minutes open Q&A.  

The series is co-organized by:

Mariela Aguilera (University of Córdoba)

Matías Osta-Vélez (Universidad de la República)

Alfredo Vernazzani (TU Dortmund; Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg).

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