Suppose I pointed to a piece of paper and said, to some one: “this colour I call ‘red’”. Afterwards I give him the order: “now paint me a red patch”. I then ask him: “why, in carrying out my order, did you paint just this colour?” His answer could then be: “This colour (pointing to the sample which I have given him) was called red; and the patch I have painted has, as you see, the colour of the sample”. He has now given me a reason for carrying out the order in the way he did. Giving a reason for something one did or said means showing a way which leads to this
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action. In some cases it means telling the way which one has gone oneself; in others it means describing a way which leads there and is in accordance with certain accepted rules. Thus when asked, “why did you carry out my order by painting just this colour?” the answer could have described the way the person had actually taken to arrive at this particular shade. This would have been so if, hearing the word “red”, he had taken up the sample I had given him, labelled “red”, and had copied that sample when painting the patch. On the other hand he might have painted it “automatically” or from a memory image; but when asked to give the reason he might still point to the sample and show that it matched the patch he had painted. In this latter case the reason given would have been of the second kind; i.e. a justification post hoc.