Guest Speaker: David Jenkins (Tel Aviv)

Title: 'Reasoning and Its Limits'

Reasoning and its limits

It is often argued that the extent to which it is not up to us how our reasoning unfolds undermines the natural idea that reasoning is a kind of action. I argue that the extent to which it is not up to us how our reasoning unfolds in fact fails to cast doubt on the idea that reasoning is a kind of action and instead reflects the kind of agential exercise which reasoning is. The limits to the extent to which it is up to us how our reasoning unfolds can in fact be explained via appeal to reasoning’s status as a kind of aim-directed action. This in turn paves the way for an explanation of how reasoning is a way for us to be active with respect to our attitudes.