ABSTRACT
The search for reasons is not the same as finding them. For the stately progress of argument from reasons to conclusions is performed on the neutral stage of the public sphere, where an argument carries by its force, its persuasiveness, its necessity; but the search for reasons is a practice, a rehearsal conducted in private, away from the interrogatory glare of public examination. Such a search may draw on all available resources: customs, techniques, traditions, inventiveness, discipline, morality. It may express material interests, or the interests of class, gender, race and ‘creed’. It may even be conducted with piety or impiety.
