Judging the quality of audiences and narrative rationality

Walter R. Fisher

pp. 85-103

in: James L. Golden, Joseph J. Pilotta (eds), Practical reasoning in human affairs, Berlin, Springer, 1986

Abstract

that the practical reasoning involved in choice or decision making can always be expressed in the form of theoretical reasoning by introducing additional premises. But what is gained by such a move? The reasoning by which new premises are introduced is merely concealed, and resort to these premises appears entirely arbitrary, although in reality it too is the outcome of a decision that can be justified only in an argumentative, and not in a demonstrative, manner.1