Practical Problems and Practical Directives

Abstract

Practical directives may be treated as answers to specific questions. A directive which recommends appropriate action relative to a certain goal and specified conditions is in fact an answer to the question: what must be done to attain that goal under given conditions ? Of course this does not mean that every time a person formulates a practical directive consciously he poses a question of this kind and answers it in the form of the appropriate directive. The problem emerges clearly only when the mode of action must be searched for and appropriately adjusted to the conditions and the goal. In most cases the choice of action simply imposes itself, and this is why such questions are not posed explicitly. But if we wish to construct an ideal model of behaviour in formulating practical directives we must require the posing of a question regarding the choice of action to be the initial stage of the process of formulating the appropriate directive.

Notes

First published in Dyrektywy Praktyczne, PWN, Warszawa, 1971. Translated by O. Wojtasiewicz.