Dance if It Rains

Abstract

Vranas (2008; 2010; 2011) had adopted a non-reductionist approach that denies translation of command sentences into declarative ones. Imperative arguments may be pure or mixed-premise arguments including cross-species ones. In the present article, I intend to concentrate upon only the last variety that combines imperatives with declaratives. It is better to follow Vranas (2016) in defining an argument as an ordered pair. The first coordinate of this pair (the premise/s) is a non-empty set of propositions or prescriptions. It may also be a non-empty set of both propositions and prescriptions. The second coordinate, which is the conclusion, is either a proposition or a prescription. An imperative argument is one which has prescription as a conclusion, as Since the last two decades of 20th century, logic of imperatives has been given a commendable shape as an independent system of logic. The present paper attempts to focus on some areas concerning validity of imperative arguments with special reference to the writings of Peter B. M. Vranas. Peter B. M. Vranas has written extensively about the foundations of imperative logic. Validity of imperatives is arguably defined by him in terms of meriting endorsement. But it is hard to endorse the general definition of argument validity applied in the case of imperative arguments as suggested by Vranas, though I consider it good to start with its suggested interpretation. As I have some reservation regarding the interpretation, I intend to show that the process of arriving at it can be more direct. The different senses of the criterion of validity have been discussed in this present essay. A note of dissent is expressed regarding the necessary condition of the said validity. Another point to note is that, though there are different types of imperative arguments, viz. pure and mixed-premise arguments including cross-species ones, this present essay will focus only on the last variety which is a combination of imperatives and declaratives in an argument. In this venture, I have taken help from some counterexamples to suggest some amendments ultimately in his definition of validity for imperative arguments.