Does persuasion really come at "the end of reasons"?

SALIS, PIETRO MARIA

2017-01-01

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Abstract

A famous philosophical image of persuasion is that provided by Wittgenstein’s On certainty (especially §§611-612). Here, Wittgenstein depicted persuasion as something almost difficult to reduce to reasons. In this paper I do not intend to deal with the hermeneutics of Wittgenstein’s texts and philosophy. What I intend to do is rather to try to develop certain philosophical consequences of this image. Reviewing these consequences leads to the acknowledgement of some problems. I then sketch the outline of a different idea of linguistic rational practice, Robert Brandom’s “giving and asking for reasons”, that will be useful to introduce more viable conceptions of persuasion (compatible with our reason-giving practices).