The Departmental Colloquium

David Jenkins

(Tel Aviv University)

 

  Reasoning, Agency and Control

 

Reasoning is naturally understood as something which we can actively do and in turn as apt to amount to the exercise of doxastic agency. Reasoning can amount to active self-determination with respect to what doxastic attitudes one holds, the thought is. It is common to doubt that this suggestion can be reconciled with the extent to which we lack control over how our reasoning unfolds. I bring out how this challenge trades on an independently problematic conception of agency. What it is to exercise agency should not be characterised in terms of control. Reflection on what it is to reason with a given aim suggests an alternative on which reasoning of one’s can amount to an exercise of agency in virtue of the way in which it depends upon one’s knowledge of it as the pursuit of an aim.

 

 

Tuesday, 14 January 2020 | 12:30-14:00

LLCC/CogSci seminar room, Australia Complex, Mt. Scopus