Aims and Norms: Reasoning

As part of the Aims and Norms project (see below), Philosophy at Southampton, in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature at Oslo, will host a one-day workshop on the aims and norms of reasoning. The workshop will take place at the University of Southampton on January 18th 2013.

Both theoretical and practical reasoning appear to be subject to norms.  One can reason correctly or incorrectly, rightly or wrongly, well or poorly. In turn, reasoning concludes in beliefs, actions, desires, intentions and the like, things which are themselves subject to norms. Does reasoning have an aim, which might explain the norms governing it?  Might those norms be akin to rules the following which leads to the satisfaction of that aim?  What is the relevant aim?  And how, if at all, is it related to the aims and norms of the acts and attitudes which the reasoning results in?

Presentations:

• Clayton Littlejohn (KCL) 'Another for the Knowledge Norm?' - Respondent: Tom Simpson (Cambridge)
• Sasha Mudd (Southampton), title tbc - Respondent - Felix Koch (Göttingen)
• Anders Nes (CSMN Oslo) 'Basing Relations Aim At Normative Reasons' - Respondent: Guy Fletcher (Edinburgh)
• Kieran Setiya (Pittsburgh), 'Epistemic Agency: Some Doubts' - Respondent: Sophie Edwards (Southampton)

Registration

A limited number of places are available at this workshop. Please contact Jonathan Way ([email protected]) to register.

Aims and Norms Project

The above event is the fourth in a series of workshops hosted by Philosophy at Southampton investigating the prospects of so-called 'teleological' accounts of normativity. The previous workshops in the series are:

Aims and Norms: Belief, September 2011
Presenters: Anandi Hattiangadi (Oxford); Andrew Reisner (McGill); Bart Streumer (Reading); Daniel Whiting (Southampton)

Aims and Norms: Action, January 2012
Presenters: Maria Alvarez (KCL); Matthew Chrisman (Edinburgh); Nishi Shah (Amherst); Conor McHugh (Southampton);

Aim and Norms: Emotions and Other Attitudes, March 2012
Presenters: Michael Brady (Glasgow); Pamela Hieronymi (UCLA); Jonas Olson (Stockholm); Jonathan Way (Southampton).

Theme:

Actions, beliefs, and emotions are subject to norms-they can be right or wrong, justified or unjustified, appropriate or inappropriate. But while judgments of this type are familiar, there remain pressing philosophical questions about the nature of norms and their grip on us. When is a belief, action, or emotion right or wrong, justified or unjustified? What makes this the case? And how are we able to respond to norms? In tackling such questions, philosophers typically treat norms of action quite separately from those of belief, and pay little attention to norms of other attitudes. This series of workshops will explore the possibility of a unified treatment of norms in all these domains. The workshops will focus on the hypothesis that belief and action have aims-e.g. that belief aims at truth, and that action aims at the good. Given this proposal, norms for belief and action can be understood as rules which help to achieve these aims. However, while suggestive, these ideas remain elusive. Despite an explosion of interest in these issues in the recent literature, there is little consensus on what it might be for belief and action to have aims, or on what these aims might be. This makes adequately evaluating the proposal impossible. Moreover, it is surprising that almost no attempt has been made to consider whether the approach can be extended to account for the norms of emotions. The workshop series will provide a forum for innovative new research on these issues.

Project website: 

http://www.soton.ac.uk/philosophy/news/2011/07/06_aims_and_norms.page

Workshop website: