COMM 2273 Lecture Notes - Lecture 46: Practical Reason, Begging The Question, Martin Heidegger

• School: University of Arkansas-Monticello
• Department: Communication
• Course: COMM 2273
• Professor: Key

Document Summary

First, the principle of reason is question begging because there is no reason to have the principle in the first place. Indeed the principle of reason is, as a principle, not nothing. Therefore, according to what the principle itself tells us, it is the sort of thing that must have a reason. The principle itself behooves us to ask this question. On the one hand we bristle at continuing to question in this way because it seems to be a twisted and caviling question in contradistinction to the simple principle of reason. On the other hand we see that the principle of reason itself compels us, in a manner apropos of the principle of reason, to ask about reasons even in relation to the principle of reason. We are faced by two possibilities, both of which equally provoke our thinking.