The alethic and other modes: the disimplicatures

Speranza

The present paper identifies a challenge for a certain view of practical reasons, according to which practical reasons (both normative and motivating) are worldly facts. In particular, the challenge has been taken to affect the particular ontological conception of practical reasons that has been defended by Jonathan Dancy. The problem is that Dancy seems forced to maintain both a) that the contents of beliefs are facts and b) that the view according to which the contents of beliefs are facts is outlandish. The suggestion is put forward that, by distinguishing the content of a belief (as a proposition) from its object (as a fact), the conflict between a) and b) can be neutralised. Since our proposal assumes only the basics of Dancy’s theory of reasons, it is available to all those theorists who share his conviction that practical reasons are facts and are ready to embrace the object/content distinction.