PHILOSOPHY

REASONING IN TRANSITIONS: CHARLES TAYLOR AND THE GOOD SAMARITAN

Speaker: Martin Warner, University of Warwick, on 6 April 1999

This material is part of an investigation into the `aesthetics of argument', with particular reference to the ways in which the modes of argument and imagination are interdependent. More narrowly, it is an element in that aspect of the wider enquiry which is concerned with the relation between narrative and rationality.

A number of contemporary philosophers have been concerned to explore to what extent rational debate is possible between rival traditions of enquiry, or between apparently rival theoretical, scientific, religious or ethical outlooks or `paradigms', where the divergent traditions or outlooks differ as to what considerations provide the test of their truth, some of the crucial concepts seem not to be fully intertranslatable, and no absolute standpoint providing criteria for what is to count as the "facts" of the matter appears to be available.

Attempts to show that it is reasonable to move from one such outlook to another have been characterised by Charles Taylor as `reasoning in transitions' (see `Explanation and Practical Reason' in his Philosophical Arguments [Harvard University Press 1995] and Chapter 3 of his `The Sources of the Self' [Cambridge University Press 1989]). He identifies three argument forms whereby, he argues, we may under certain circumstances give a convincing narrative account of the passage from one to another as a step from a less good to a better understanding of the phenomena in question, showing such a transition to be a gain rather than a loss.

Taylor uses as his primary example the move from Renaissance sub-Aristotelian to Galilean theories of motion. I wish to consider what happens when we consider these three argument forms in the context of moral and religious outlooks. Facilitating such transitions is arguably a primary role of Biblical parable; consider Nathan's dramatic "Thou art the man!" to King David (2 Samuel I 2: 7). For the purposes of this talk I intend to use as my example the New Testament parable of Good Samaritan understood as attempting to motivate a change in outlook. Parables such as this provide not only instances where the modes of argument and imagination are interdependent but also unlike Nathan's seek to encourage their hearers to transcend the limits of their ordinary conceptual vocabulary _ to grasp a new concept.

First argument form: We may look at the relative capacity of the two outlooks (etc.) to make sense of the relation of the two outlooks to each other.

Second argument form: We may take account of the way that human life is not typically lived within closed explicit systems; thus to the extent that there are human constants they may legitimately play a role in arbitrating transitions.

Third argument form: We may identify the transition directly as the overcoming of an error or confusion; in such cases, making the transition is constituted by coming to recognise the error or comparative lack of grasp in the former stance.

Exploring these three argument forms in the New Testament context raises the questions of whether the different strands lend support to each other and, indeed, whether we have one or three transitions; it also provides a clue to the tendency of parable to generate receding ambiguities.

Martin Warner