The justificandum of the human sciences: Collingwood on reasons for acting (original) (raw)
2017, Collingwood and British idealism Studies 2017, 23(1): 41-56.
Abstract: It is sometimes assumed that justification is factive. A negative implication of this claim is that reasons are not psychological entities such as believings or desirings. Another, positive, implication of this claim is that there is an important connection between justification and truth. If it is not raining, Paul is not justified in taking the umbrella not only because his believing it is raining is not the sort of thing which can play a justificatory role, but also because no action can be justified by something that is not the case. Elaborating on the work of Collingwood and Dray, this paper argues that there is a notion of justification at work in a hermeneutic context that is weaker than the one used in an epistemic context in so far as it severs the connection between justification and truth, but that it is nonetheless sufficiently robust to support the view that explanatory reasons are normative and that the explanation of action is a species of justification rather than causal explanation. Collingwood, Dray, action explanation, externalism, internalism, psychologism, causalism, anti-causalism, explanatory reasons.
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