Thomas Gil Libri

Human beings have always some reason to do the things they do. Their own needs, interests, and goals motivate them to do what they do. Moreover, human beings use frequently the reasons they have to perform certain acts as arguments in practical reasonings in which they get involved in order to justify what they do, or in order to find out what they should reasonably do, taking into consideration all the relevant variables implied in the concrete contexts and situations, in which they have to act. The reasons human beings have to perform different acts, and the way they use such reasons in practical inferences and reasonings are the subject matter of this essay in which I intend to clarify how the limited, „bounded“ rationality characteristic of human beings functions in different fields of action and practical deliberation.

The following essays are about what it is to believe something, how we make up our minds and decide, what it means that conflicts and disagreements are not eliminable, and the fact that new technological developments are substantially changing the way we live.

Believing could be considered to be, following Frank P. Ramsey´s recommendation, a sort of betting behaviour that manifests what we take things to be, and what we expect to happen.

In what we say subjective meaning intentions come together with meaning structures our natural languages provide.

We need causation, time, and truth in order to know how things in the broadest sense of the term hang together in the broadest sense of the term. The essays try to say something clarifying about those three classical questions of traditional metaphysics. Not dogmatic answers are offered, but guiding perspectives and possible justifiable ways of dealing with such fundamental matters.

Leading a good life, acting according to rational principles, and doing the right, beneficial thing are three different forms of being good traditional ethical theory focused upon.

Individual things, qualities, facts and classes are for many philosophers the basic entities that make up reality. Answering the ontological question on what there really is, means saying precisely what those entities actually are.

Whenever we try to master the tasks in front of us, in daily life or in science, we apply several thinking devices available to us: we use concepts, we assert things, we make inferences, we make comparisons and classifications, we make assumptions, we form rational expectations concerning the future, we test our beliefs, and we critically assess the results of our own actions and doings.

There are specific kinds of arguments reasoning scientists preferentially use. In this essay I describe the most typical ones. My classificatory list is not exhaustive but, I hope, representative enough.