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Paper   IPM / Philosophy / 17359
School of Analytic Philosophy
  Title:   Reasoning and Commitment
  Author(s):  Alireza Kazemi
  Status:   Published
  Journal: Synthese
  No.:  91
  Vol.:  202
  Year:  2023
  Pages:   1-21
  Supported by:  IPM
  Abstract:
I argue for a commitment-discharging condition of reasoning, according to which to engage in reasoning is to discharge the theoretical and practical commitments one has undertaken. I highlight the ways in which this condition is distinct from other proposals, particularly the Taking Condition, and argue that it can explain certain intuitions about reasoning that otherwise remain elusive. In particular, I argue that the commitment-discharging condition can provide a unified account of attitude-formation and premise-discharging reasoning as well as practical and theoretical reasoning. It also provides a novel way to evade the regress that bedevils many accounts of inference.

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