Abstract
Does the ideal of practical reason have a philosophic import or must we place it on a purely technical level, concerned with the ordering of means to an end? We call ‘prudence’ the virtue which guides us in the choice of the most efficacious and fruitful means, which teaches us to avoid the painfully surmountable obstacles and to reject enterprises that are too hazardous. Prudence, however, doesn’t allow us to appreciate the goal of our acts; at most we can claim that it presupposes a thoughtful egoism. If it is the individual’s interest which must implicitly provide the final criterion in matters of conduct, then prudence does not tell us if it is our concrete I, which is the judge of our interests, or if it is the reasonable I inspired by an ideal of wisdom or justice which has this responsibility. In the first case, reason is subordinated to sentiments, governed entirely by irrational, individual and social forces. Practical reason remains faithful to the ideal of Western philosophy when it proposes ends for our conduct, contributes a model of the sage and just man, and provides objective criteria to judge the value of our actions.
Le Champ de l’Argumentation (Bruxelles, 1970), pp. 171–182.
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References
G. Grua, Jurisprudence universelle et Théodicde selon Leibniz, (Paris, 1953), p. 507.
R. Popkin, ‘The Sceptical Crisis and the Rise of Modern Philosophy’ The Review of Metaphysics, 1953–1954, Vol. VII, pp. 132–151, 307–322, 499–510.
Treatise of Human Nature, Book III, sect. 1 in V. C. Chappell (ed.) Philosophy of David Hume, (New York, 1963), p. 237.
Ibid., p. 227, “Reason is and ought to be the slave of passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.”
Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans, by N. K. Smith, (New York, 1950), A 547, B 575.
Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, trans, by L. W. Beck, (Indianapolis, 1956), Preface, 4, note 1.
Ibid., ‘Of the Idea of a Critique of Practical Reason’, pp. 15–18.
Ibid., ‘Analytic of Pure Practical Reason’, p. 19.
Ch. Perelman, ‘Value judgments, Justification and Argumentation’, Philosophy Today 6 (1961), pp. 45–51.
See the debate between Professor L. G. Miller and myself on moral scepticism and moral philosophy in Morale et Enseignement, bulletin of the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Brussels 11th year, 1962, fasc. 4., pp. 12–26, reprinted in Ch. Perelman, Droit, Morale et Philosophie, Paris, 1968, pp. 65–77.
Leibniz, Nouveaux Essais sur l’Entendement in Die philosophischen Schriften, ed. by C. J. Gerhardt, Vol. V, p. 500.
Perelman, The Rule of Justice in The Idea of Justice and the Problem of Argument (London, 1963), pp. 79–87.
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© 1979 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Perelman, C. (1979). Reflections on Practical Reason. In: The New Rhetoric and the Humanities. Synthese Library, vol 140. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9482-9_12
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