Abstract

This chapter first shows how—given certain circumstances—valid inferences can be drawn from alethic to practical acceptability statements. For this, Grice tries to establish an acceptability statement of the form ‘it is acceptable that if A only if B, then one should A only if one should B’. He then turns to a discussion of the characteristics of practical thinking other than the application of means–ends reasoning. Such practical thinking, Grice suggests, includes the determination of antecedently indeterminate desires and intentions, contains systems of priorities, and often is revisionist and comparative.