Where is the word reason from

Where does the word reason come from?

The origin of the word reason is found in the Latin verb reri, which means to think.

What do you mean good reasons?

If people think you show good reason, or are reasonable, it means you think things through. If people think you have a good reason for doing something, it means you have a motive that makes sense.

What is reason example?

Reason is the cause for something to happen or the power of your brain to think, understand and engage in logical thought. An example of reason is when you are late because your car ran out of gas. An example of reason is the ability to think logically. noun.

Is for good reason?

It’s a shortening (of sorts) of “for a good reason”, so it means there’s a good reason that something happened. For example, imagine if you were complaining that a friend wasn’t talking to you anymore. The person you’re speaking to might say “And for good reason!

What is a synonym for have a good reason?

The quality of being justifiable by reason. logic. reason. sense. rationale.

How do you use and for good reason?

How to use ‘and for good reason ‘ in a sentence

1. …
2. We treat noncompliance with disdain, and for good reason.
3. … debilitating illnesses.
4. …
5. The belief in skinwalkers, common among so many Navajos, is the one that bothers him most and for good reason.
6. Thorvald Solberg was the first and longest serving Register of Copyrights.

What is another name for good?

What is another word for good?

excellent	exceptional
nice	pleasant
positive	satisfactory
satisfying	superb
wonderful	acceptable

What makes something good or bad?

Good, in this context, is anything that is morally admirable and thus the opposite, which is evil, would be morally condemnatory. Determining if something is good or bad is a decision, a verdict. Looking at this, we can say that part of deciding whether something is good or bad is comparison.

Is changes good or bad?

Change is not always a good thing. It may force us out of tired habits and impose better ones upon us, but it can also be stressful, costly and even destructive. What’s important about change is how we anticipate it and react to it.

What makes an evil man?

To be truly evil, someone must have sought to do harm by planning to commit some morally wrong action with no prompting from others (whether this person successfully executes his or her plan is beside the point).

What are the 3 types of evil?

According to Leibniz, there are three forms of evil in the world: moral, physical, and metaphysical.

What does God say about wickedness?

Proverbs 11:5 KJV. The righteousness of the perfect shall direct his way: but the wicked shall fall by his own wickedness.

What is the biblical definition of wickedness?

The International Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE) gives this definition of wicked according to the Bible: “The state of being wicked; a mental disregard for justice, righteousness, truth, honor, virtue; evil in thought and life; depravity; sinfulness; criminality.”

What is the meaning of wickedness?

1 : the quality or state of being wicked. 2 : something wicked.

Is wickedness a sin?

Wickedness is generally considered a synonym for evil or sinfulness. As characterized by Martin Buber in his 1952 work Bilder von Gut und Böse (translated as Good and Evil: Two Interpretations), “The first stage of evil is ‘sin,’ occasional directionlessness.

What defines an evil person?

1. Morally bad or wrong; wicked: an evil tyrant. 2. Causing ruin, injury, or pain; harmful: the evil effects of a poor diet.

What is the difference between wickedness and evil?

The difference between Evil and Wicked. When used as nouns, evil means moral badness, whereas wicked means people who are wicked. When used as adjectives, evil means intending to harm, whereas wicked means evil or mischievous by nature. Wicked is also adverb with the meaning: very, extremely.

Is Sin same as evil?

Christian hamartiology describes sin as an act of offense against God by despising his persons and Christian biblical law, and by injuring others. In Christian views it is an evil human act, which violates the rational nature of man as well as God’s nature and his eternal law.

Can we overcome sin?

We cannot become holy on our own. God gives us his spirit to help us obey his word. He gives us the power to overcome sin. In Hebrews 12:14, we are told, “Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness, no one will see the Lord.”

How does God view sin?

Scripture clearly indicates that God does view sin differently and that He proscribed a different punishment for sin depending upon its severity. “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God” (Hebrews 10:12 ESV).

Why is adultery a sin?

Adultery is viewed not only as a sin between an individual and God but as an injustice that reverberates through society by harming its fundamental unit, the family: Adultery is an injustice. He who commits adultery fails in his commitment.

This article is about the human faculty of reason and rationality. For other uses, see Reason (disambiguation).

Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth.^[1][2] It is closely^[how?] associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, mathematics, and art, and is normally considered to be a distinguishing ability possessed by humans.^[3] Reason is sometimes referred to as rationality.^[4]

Reasoning is associated with the acts of thinking and cognition, and involves the use of one’s intellect. The field of logic studies the ways in which humans can use formal reasoning to produce logically valid arguments.^[5] Reasoning may be subdivided into forms of logical reasoning, such as deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning, and abductive reasoning. Aristotle drew a distinction between logical discursive reasoning (reason proper), and intuitive reasoning,^[6] in which the reasoning process through intuition—however valid—may tend toward the personal and the subjectively opaque. In some social and political settings logical and intuitive modes of reasoning may clash, while in other contexts intuition and formal reason are seen as complementary rather than adversarial. For example, in mathematics, intuition is often necessary for the creative processes involved with arriving at a formal proof, arguably the most difficult of formal reasoning tasks.

Reasoning, like habit or intuition, is one of the ways by which thinking moves from one idea to a related idea. For example, reasoning is the means by which rational individuals understand sensory information from their environments, or conceptualize abstract dichotomies such as cause and effect, truth and falsehood, or ideas regarding notions of good or evil. Reasoning, as a part of executive decision making, is also closely identified with the ability to self-consciously change, in terms of goals, beliefs, attitudes, traditions, and institutions, and therefore with the capacity for freedom and self-determination.^[7]

In contrast to the use of «reason» as an abstract noun, a reason is a consideration given which either explains or justifies events, phenomena, or behavior.^[8] Reasons justify decisions, reasons support explanations of natural phenomena; reasons can be given to explain the actions (conduct) of individuals.

Using reason, or reasoning, can also be described more plainly as providing good, or the best, reasons. For example, when evaluating a moral decision, «morality is, at the very least, the effort to guide one’s conduct by reason—that is, doing what there are the best reasons for doing—while giving equal [and impartial] weight to the interests of all those affected by what one does.»^[9]

Psychologists and cognitive scientists have attempted to study and explain how people reason, e.g. which cognitive and neural processes are engaged, and how cultural factors affect the inferences that people draw. The field of automated reasoning studies how reasoning may or may not be modeled computationally. Animal psychology considers the question of whether animals other than humans can reason.

Etymology and related words[edit]

In the English language and other modern European languages, «reason», and related words, represent words which have always been used to translate Latin and classical Greek terms in the sense of their philosophical usage.

• The original Greek term was «λόγος» logos, the root of the modern English word «logic» but also a word which could mean for example «speech» or «explanation» or an «account» (of money handled).^[10]
• As a philosophical term logos was translated in its non-linguistic senses in Latin as ratio. This was originally not just a translation used for philosophy, but was also commonly a translation for logos in the sense of an account of money.^[11]
• French raison is derived directly from Latin, and this is the direct source of the English word «reason».^[8]

The earliest major philosophers to publish in English, such as Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke also routinely wrote in Latin and French, and compared their terms to Greek, treating the words «logos«, «ratio«, «raison» and «reason» as interchangeable. The meaning of the word «reason» in senses such as «human reason» also overlaps to a large extent with «rationality» and the adjective of «reason» in philosophical contexts is normally «rational», rather than «reasoned» or «reasonable».^[12] Some philosophers, Thomas Hobbes for example, also used the word ratiocination as a synonym for «reasoning».

Philosophical history[edit]

The proposal that reason gives humanity a special position in nature has been argued to be a defining characteristic of western philosophy and later western modern science, starting with classical Greece. Philosophy can be described as a way of life based upon reason, and in the other direction, reason has been one of the major subjects of philosophical discussion since ancient times. Reason is often said to be reflexive, or «self-correcting», and the critique of reason has been a persistent theme in philosophy.^[13] It has been defined in different ways, at different times, by different thinkers about human nature.

Classical philosophy[edit]

For many classical philosophers, nature was understood teleologically, meaning that every type of thing had a definitive purpose that fit within a natural order that was itself understood to have aims. Perhaps starting with Pythagoras or Heraclitus, the cosmos is even said to have reason.^[14] Reason, by this account, is not just one characteristic that humans happen to have, and that influences happiness amongst other characteristics. Reason was considered of higher stature than other characteristics of human nature, such as sociability, because it is something humans share with nature itself, linking an apparently immortal part of the human mind with the divine order of the cosmos itself. Within the human mind or soul (psyche), reason was described by Plato as being the natural monarch which should rule over the other parts, such as spiritedness (thumos) and the passions. Aristotle, Plato’s student, defined human beings as rational animals, emphasizing reason as a characteristic of human nature. He defined the highest human happiness or well being (eudaimonia) as a life which is lived consistently, excellently, and completely in accordance with reason.^[15]

The conclusions to be drawn from the discussions of Aristotle and Plato on this matter are amongst the most debated in the history of philosophy.^[16] But teleological accounts such as Aristotle’s were highly influential for those who attempt to explain reason in a way that is consistent with monotheism and the immortality and divinity of the human soul. For example, in the neoplatonist account of Plotinus, the cosmos has one soul, which is the seat of all reason, and the souls of all individual humans are part of this soul. Reason is for Plotinus both the provider of form to material things, and the light which brings individuals souls back into line with their source.^[17]

Christian and Islamic philosophy[edit]

The classical view of reason, like many important Neoplatonic and Stoic ideas, was readily adopted by the early Church ^[18] as the Church Fathers saw Greek Philosophy as an indispensable instrument given to mankind so that we may understand revelation.^[19] For example, the greatest among the early saint Church Fathers and Doctors of the Church such as Augustine of Hippo, Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa were as much Neoplatonic philosophers as they were Christian theologians and adopted the Neoplatonic view of human reason together with the associated implications for our relationship to creation, to ourselves and to God. Such Neoplatonist accounts of the rational part of the human soul were also standard amongst medieval Islamic philosophers and remain important in Iranian philosophy.^[16] As European intellectualism recovered from the post-Roman Dark Ages, the Christian Patristic heritage and the influence of the great Islamic scholars such as Averroes and Avicenna produced the Scholastic (see Scholasticism) view of reason from which our modern idea of this concept has developed.^[20] Among the Scholastics who relied on the classical concept of reason for the development of their doctrines, none were more influential than Saint Thomas Aquinas, who put this concept at the heart of his Natural Law. In this doctrine, Thomas concludes that because humans have reason and because reason is a spark of the divine, every single human life is invaluable, all humans are equal and every human is born with an intrinsic and permanent set of basic rights.^[21] On this foundation, the idea of human rights would later be constructed by Spanish theologians at the School of Salamanca. Other Scholastics, such as Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus, following the example of Islamic scholars such as Alhazen, emphasised reason an intrinsic human ability to decode the created order and the structures that underlie our experienced physical reality. This interpretation of reason was instrumental to the development of the scientific method in the early Universities of the high Middle Ages.^[22]

Subject-centred reason in early modern philosophy[edit]

The early modern era was marked by a number of significant changes in the understanding of reason, starting in Europe. One of the most important of these changes involved a change in the metaphysical understanding of human beings. Scientists and philosophers began to question the teleological understanding of the world.^[23] Nature was no longer assumed to be human-like, with its own aims or reason, and human nature was no longer assumed to work according to anything other than the same «laws of nature» which affect inanimate things. This new understanding eventually displaced the previous world view that derived from a spiritual understanding of the universe.

Accordingly, in the 17th century, René Descartes explicitly rejected the traditional notion of humans as «rational animals», suggesting instead that they are nothing more than «thinking things» along the lines of other «things» in nature. Any grounds of knowledge outside that understanding was, therefore, subject to doubt.

In his search for a foundation of all possible knowledge, Descartes deliberately decided to throw into doubt all knowledge – except that of the mind itself in the process of thinking:

At this time I admit nothing that is not necessarily true. I am therefore precisely nothing but a thinking thing; that is a mind, or intellect, or understanding, or reason – words of whose meanings I was previously ignorant.^[24]

This eventually became known as epistemological or «subject-centred» reason, because it is based on the knowing subject, who perceives the rest of the world and itself as a set of objects to be studied, and successfully mastered by applying the knowledge accumulated through such study. Breaking with tradition and many thinkers after him, Descartes explicitly did not divide the incorporeal soul into parts, such as reason and intellect, describing them as one indivisible incorporeal entity.

A contemporary of Descartes, Thomas Hobbes described reason as a broader version of «addition and subtraction» which is not limited to numbers.^[25] This understanding of reason is sometimes termed «calculative» reason. Similar to Descartes, Hobbes asserted that «No discourse whatsoever, can end in absolute knowledge of fact, past, or to come» but that «sense and memory» is absolute knowledge.^[26]

In the late 17th century, through the 18th century, John Locke and David Hume developed Descartes’s line of thought still further. Hume took it in an especially skeptical direction, proposing that there could be no possibility of deducing relationships of cause and effect, and therefore no knowledge is based on reasoning alone, even if it seems otherwise.^[27][28]

Hume famously remarked that, «We speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.»^[29] Hume also took his definition of reason to unorthodox extremes by arguing, unlike his predecessors, that human reason is not qualitatively different from either simply conceiving individual ideas, or from judgments associating two ideas,^[30] and that «reason is nothing but a wonderful and unintelligible instinct in our souls, which carries us along a certain train of ideas, and endows them with particular qualities, according to their particular situations and relations.»^[31] It followed from this that animals have reason, only much less complex than human reason.

In the 18th century, Immanuel Kant attempted to show that Hume was wrong by demonstrating that a «transcendental» self, or «I», was a necessary condition of all experience. Therefore, suggested Kant, on the basis of such a self, it is in fact possible to reason both about the conditions and limits of human knowledge. And so long as these limits are respected, reason can be the vehicle of morality, justice, aesthetics, theories of knowledge (epistemology), and understanding.

Substantive and formal reason[edit]

In the formulation of Kant, who wrote some of the most influential modern treatises on the subject, the great achievement of reason (German: Vernunft) is that it is able to exercise a kind of universal law-making. Kant was able therefore to reformulate the basis of moral-practical, theoretical and aesthetic reasoning, on «universal» laws.

Here practical reasoning is the self-legislating or self-governing formulation of universal norms, and theoretical reasoning the way humans posit universal laws of nature.^[32]

Under practical reason, the moral autonomy or freedom of human beings depends on their ability to behave according to laws that are given to them by the proper exercise of that reason. This contrasted with earlier forms of morality, which depended on religious understanding and interpretation, or nature for their substance.^[33]

According to Kant, in a free society each individual must be able to pursue their goals however they see fit, so long as their actions conform to principles given by reason. He formulated such a principle, called the «categorical imperative», which would justify an action only if it could be universalized:

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.^[34]

In contrast to Hume then, Kant insists that reason itself (German Vernunft) has natural ends, the solution to the metaphysical problems, especially the discovery of the foundations of morality. Kant claimed that this problem could be solved with his «transcendental logic» which unlike normal logic is not just an instrument, which can be used indifferently, as it was for Aristotle, but a theoretical science in its own right and the basis of all the others.^[35]

According to Jürgen Habermas, the «substantive unity» of reason has dissolved in modern times, such that it can no longer answer the question «How should I live?» Instead, the unity of reason has to be strictly formal, or «procedural». He thus described reason as a group of three autonomous spheres (on the model of Kant’s three critiques):

1. Cognitive–instrumental reason is the kind of reason employed by the sciences. It is used to observe events, to predict and control outcomes, and to intervene in the world on the basis of its hypotheses;
2. Moral–practical reason is what we use to deliberate and discuss issues in the moral and political realm, according to universalizable procedures (similar to Kant’s categorical imperative); and
3. Aesthetic reason is typically found in works of art and literature, and encompasses the novel ways of seeing the world and interpreting things that those practices embody.

For Habermas, these three spheres are the domain of experts, and therefore need to be mediated with the «lifeworld» by philosophers. In drawing such a picture of reason, Habermas hoped to demonstrate that the substantive unity of reason, which in pre-modern societies had been able to answer questions about the good life, could be made up for by the unity of reason’s formalizable procedures.^[36]

The critique of reason[edit]

Hamann, Herder, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Rorty, and many other philosophers have contributed to a debate about what reason means, or ought to mean. Some, like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Rorty, are skeptical about subject-centred, universal, or instrumental reason, and even skeptical toward reason as a whole. Others, including Hegel, believe that it has obscured the importance of intersubjectivity, or «spirit» in human life, and attempt to reconstruct a model of what reason should be.

Some thinkers, e.g. Foucault, believe there are other forms of reason, neglected but essential to modern life, and to our understanding of what it means to live a life according to reason.^[13]

In the last several decades, a number of proposals have been made to «re-orient» this critique of reason, or to recognize the «other voices» or «new departments» of reason:

For example, in opposition to subject-centred reason, Habermas has proposed a model of communicative reason that sees it as an essentially cooperative activity, based on the fact of linguistic intersubjectivity.^[37]

Nikolas Kompridis has proposed a widely encompassing view of reason as «that ensemble of practices that contributes to the opening and preserving of openness» in human affairs, and a focus on reason’s possibilities for social change.^[38]

The philosopher Charles Taylor, influenced by the 20th century German philosopher Martin Heidegger, has proposed that reason ought to include the faculty of disclosure, which is tied to the way we make sense of things in everyday life, as a new «department» of reason.^[39]

In the essay «What is Enlightenment?», Michel Foucault proposed a concept of critique based on Kant’s distinction between «private» and «public» uses of reason. This distinction, as suggested, has two dimensions:

• Private reason is the reason that is used when an individual is «a cog in a machine» or when one «has a role to play in society and jobs to do: to be a soldier, to have taxes to pay, to be in charge of a parish, to be a civil servant».
• Public reason is the reason used «when one is reasoning as a reasonable being (and not as a cog in a machine), when one is reasoning as a member of reasonable humanity». In these circumstances, «the use of reason must be free and public.»^[40]

[edit]

Compared to logic[edit]

The terms logic or logical are sometimes used as if they were identical with the term reason or with the concept of being rational, or sometimes logic is seen as the most pure or the defining form of reason: «Logic is about reasoning—about going from premises to a conclusion. … When you do logic, you try to clarify reasoning and separate good from bad reasoning.»^[41] In modern economics, rational choice is assumed to equate to logically consistent choice.^[42]

Reason and logic can however be thought of as distinct, although logic is one important aspect of reason. Author Douglas Hofstadter, in Gödel, Escher, Bach, characterizes the distinction in this way: Logic is done inside a system while reason is done outside the system by such methods as skipping steps, working backward, drawing diagrams, looking at examples, or seeing what happens if you change the rules of the system.^[43] Psychologists Mark H. Bickard and Robert L. Campbell argued that «rationality cannot be simply assimilated to logicality»; they noted that «human knowledge of logic and logical systems has developed» over time through reasoning, and logical systems «can’t construct new logical systems more powerful than themselves», so reasoning and rationality must involve more than a system of logic.^[44][45] Psychologist David Moshman, citing Bickhard and Campbell, argued for a «metacognitive conception of rationality» in which a person’s development of reason «involves increasing consciousness and control of logical and other inferences».^[45][46]

Reason is a type of thought, and logic involves the attempt to describe a system of formal rules or norms of appropriate reasoning.^[45] The oldest surviving writing to explicitly consider the rules by which reason operates are the works of the Greek philosopher Aristotle, especially Prior Analysis and Posterior Analysis.^{[47][non-primary source needed]} Although the Ancient Greeks had no separate word for logic as distinct from language and reason, Aristotle’s newly coined word «syllogism» (syllogismos) identified logic clearly for the first time as a distinct field of study.^[48] When Aristotle referred to «the logical» (hē logikē), he was referring more broadly to rational thought.^[49]

Reason compared to cause-and-effect thinking, and symbolic thinking[edit]

As pointed out by philosophers such as Hobbes, Locke and Hume, some animals are also clearly capable of a type of «associative thinking», even to the extent of associating causes and effects. A dog once kicked, can learn how to recognize the warning signs and avoid being kicked in the future, but this does not mean the dog has reason in any strict sense of the word. It also does not mean that humans acting on the basis of experience or habit are using their reason.^[50]

Human reason requires more than being able to associate two ideas, even if those two ideas might be described by a reasoning human as a cause and an effect, perceptions of smoke, for example, and memories of fire. For reason to be involved, the association of smoke and the fire would have to be thought through in a way which can be explained, for example as cause and effect. In the explanation of Locke, for example, reason requires the mental use of a third idea in order to make this comparison by use of syllogism.^[51]

More generally, reason in the strict sense requires the ability to create and manipulate a system of symbols, as well as indices and icons, according to Charles Sanders Peirce, the symbols having only a nominal, though habitual, connection to either smoke or fire.^[52] One example of such a system of artificial symbols and signs is language.

The connection of reason to symbolic thinking has been expressed in different ways by philosophers. Thomas Hobbes described the creation of «Markes, or Notes of remembrance» (Leviathan Ch. 4) as speech. He used the word speech as an English version of the Greek word logos so that speech did not need to be communicated.^[53] When communicated, such speech becomes language, and the marks or notes or remembrance are called «Signes» by Hobbes. Going further back, although Aristotle is a source of the idea that only humans have reason (logos), he does mention that animals with imagination, for whom sense perceptions can persist, come closest to having something like reasoning and nous, and even uses the word «logos» in one place to describe the distinctions which animals can perceive in such cases.^[54]

Reason, imagination, mimesis, and memory[edit]

Reason and imagination rely on similar mental processes.^[55] Imagination is not only found in humans. Aristotle, for example, stated that phantasia (imagination: that which can hold images or phantasmata) and phronein (a type of thinking that can judge and understand in some sense) also exist in some animals.^[56] According to him, both are related to the primary perceptive ability of animals, which gathers the perceptions of different senses and defines the order of the things that are perceived without distinguishing universals, and without deliberation or logos. But this is not yet reason, because human imagination is different.

The recent modern writings of Terrence Deacon and Merlin Donald, writing about the origin of language, also connect reason connected to not only language, but also mimesis.^[57] More specifically they describe the ability to create language as part of an internal modeling of reality specific to humankind. Other results are consciousness, and imagination or fantasy. In contrast, modern proponents of a genetic predisposition to language itself include Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker, to whom Donald and Deacon can be contrasted.

As reason is symbolic thinking, and peculiarly human, then this implies that humans have a special ability to maintain a clear consciousness of the distinctness of «icons» or images and the real things they represent. Starting with a modern author, Merlin Donald writes^[58]

A dog might perceive the «meaning» of a fight that was realistically play-acted by humans, but it could not reconstruct the message or distinguish the representation from its referent (a real fight). […] Trained apes are able to make this distinction; young children make this distinction early – hence, their effortless distinction between play-acting an event and the event itself

In classical descriptions, an equivalent description of this mental faculty is eikasia, in the philosophy of Plato.^[59] This is the ability to perceive whether a perception is an image of something else, related somehow but not the same, and therefore allows humans to perceive that a dream or memory or a reflection in a mirror is not reality as such. What Klein refers to as dianoetic eikasia is the eikasia concerned specifically with thinking and mental images, such as those mental symbols, icons, signes, and marks discussed above as definitive of reason. Explaining reason from this direction: human thinking is special in the way that we often understand visible things as if they were themselves images of our intelligible «objects of thought» as «foundations» (hypothēses in Ancient Greek). This thinking (dianoia) is «…an activity which consists in making the vast and diffuse jungle of the visible world depend on a plurality of more ‘precise’ noēta«.^[60]

Both Merlin Donald and the Socratic authors such as Plato and Aristotle emphasize the importance of mimesis, often translated as imitation or representation. Donald writes^[61]

Imitation is found especially in monkeys and apes [… but …] Mimesis is fundamentally different from imitation and mimicry in that it involves the invention of intentional representations. […] Mimesis is not absolutely tied to external communication.

Mimēsis is a concept, now popular again in academic discussion, that was particularly prevalent in Plato’s works, and within Aristotle, it is discussed mainly in the Poetics. In Michael Davis’s account of the theory of man in this work.^[62]

It is the distinctive feature of human action, that whenever we choose what we do, we imagine an action for ourselves as though we were inspecting it from the outside. Intentions are nothing more than imagined actions, internalizings of the external. All action is therefore imitation of action; it is poetic…^[63]

Donald like Plato (and Aristotle, especially in On Memory and Recollection), emphasizes the peculiarity in humans of voluntary initiation of a search through one’s mental world. The ancient Greek anamnēsis, normally translated as «recollection» was opposed to mneme or memory. Memory, shared with some animals,^[64] requires a consciousness not only of what happened in the past, but also that something happened in the past, which is in other words a kind of eikasia^[65] «…but nothing except man is able to recollect.»^[66] Recollection is a deliberate effort to search for and recapture something once known. Klein writes that, «To become aware of our having forgotten something means to begin recollecting.»^[67] Donald calls the same thing autocueing, which he explains as follows:^[68] «Mimetic acts are reproducible on the basis of internal, self-generated cues. This permits voluntary recall of mimetic representations, without the aid of external cues – probably the earliest form of representational thinking.»

In a celebrated paper in modern times, the fantasy author and philologist J.R.R. Tolkien wrote in his essay «On Fairy Stories» that the terms «fantasy» and «enchantment» are connected to not only «….the satisfaction of certain primordial human desires….» but also «…the origin of language and of the mind».

Logical reasoning methods and argumentation[edit]

A subdivision of philosophy is logic. Logic is the study of reasoning. Looking at logical categorizations of different types of reasoning, the traditional main division made in philosophy is between deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning. Formal logic has been described as the science of deduction.^[69] The study of inductive reasoning is generally carried out within the field known as informal logic or critical thinking.

Deductive reasoning[edit]

Deduction is a form of reasoning in which a conclusion follows necessarily from the stated premises. A deduction is also the conclusion reached by a deductive reasoning process. One classic example of deductive reasoning is that found in syllogisms like the following:

• Premise 1: All humans are mortal.
• Premise 2: Socrates is a human.
• Conclusion: Socrates is mortal.

The reasoning in this argument is deductively valid because there is no way in which the premises, 1 and 2, could be true and the conclusion, 3, be false.

Inductive reasoning[edit]

Induction is a form of inference producing propositions about unobserved objects or types, either specifically or generally, based on previous observation. It is used to ascribe properties or relations to objects or types based on previous observations or experiences, or to formulate general statements or laws based on limited observations of recurring phenomenal patterns.

Inductive reasoning contrasts strongly with deductive reasoning in that, even in the best, or strongest, cases of inductive reasoning, the truth of the premises does not guarantee the truth of the conclusion. Instead, the conclusion of an inductive argument follows with some degree of probability. Relatedly, the conclusion of an inductive argument contains more information than is already contained in the premises. Thus, this method of reasoning is ampliative.

A classic example of inductive reasoning comes from the empiricist David Hume:

• Premise: The sun has risen in the east every morning up until now.
• Conclusion: The sun will also rise in the east tomorrow.

Analogical reasoning[edit]

Analogical reasoning is a form of inductive reasoning from a particular to a particular. It is often used in case-based reasoning, especially legal reasoning.^[70] An example follows:

• Premise 1: Socrates is human and mortal.
• Premise 2: Plato is human.
• Conclusion: Plato is mortal.

Analogical reasoning is a weaker form of inductive reasoning from a single example, because inductive reasoning typically uses a large number of examples to reason from the particular to the general.^[71] Analogical reasoning often leads to wrong conclusions. For example:

• Premise 1: Socrates is human and male.
• Premise 2: Ada Lovelace is human.
• Conclusion: Ada Lovelace is male.

Abductive reasoning[edit]

Abductive reasoning, or argument to the best explanation, is a form of reasoning that doesn’t fit in deductive or inductive, since it starts with incomplete set of observations and proceeds with likely possible explanations so the conclusion in an abductive argument does not follow with certainty from its premises and concerns something unobserved. What distinguishes abduction from the other forms of reasoning is an attempt to favour one conclusion above others, by subjective judgement or attempting to falsify alternative explanations or by demonstrating the likelihood of the favoured conclusion, given a set of more or less disputable assumptions. For example, when a patient displays certain symptoms, there might be various possible causes, but one of these is preferred above others as being more probable.

Fallacious reasoning[edit]

Flawed reasoning in arguments is known as fallacious reasoning. Bad reasoning within arguments can be because it commits either a formal fallacy or an informal fallacy.

Formal fallacies occur when there is a problem with the form, or structure, of the argument. The word «formal» refers to this link to the form of the argument. An argument that contains a formal fallacy will always be invalid.

An informal fallacy is an error in reasoning that occurs due to a problem with the content, rather than mere structure, of the argument.

Traditional problems raised concerning reason[edit]

Philosophy is sometimes described as a life of reason, with normal human reason pursued in a more consistent and dedicated way than usual. Two categories of problem concerning reason have long been discussed by philosophers concerning reason, essentially being reasonings about reasoning itself as a human aim, or philosophizing about philosophizing. The first question is concerning whether we can be confident that reason can achieve knowledge of truth better than other ways of trying to achieve such knowledge. The other question is whether a life of reason, a life that aims to be guided by reason, can be expected to achieve a happy life more so than other ways of life (whether such a life of reason results in knowledge or not).

Reason versus truth, and «first principles»[edit]

Since classical times a question has remained constant in philosophical debate (which is sometimes seen as a conflict between movements called Platonism and Aristotelianism) concerning the role of reason in confirming truth. People use logic, deduction, and induction, to reach conclusions they think are true. Conclusions reached in this way are considered, according to Aristotle, more certain than sense perceptions on their own.^[72] On the other hand, if such reasoned conclusions are only built originally upon a foundation of sense perceptions, then, our most logical conclusions can never be said to be certain because they are built upon the very same fallible perceptions they seek to better.^[73]

This leads to the question of what types of first principles, or starting points of reasoning, are available for someone seeking to come to true conclusions. In Greek, «first principles» are archai, «starting points»,^[74] and the faculty used to perceive them is sometimes referred to in Aristotle^[75] and Plato^[76] as nous which was close in meaning to awareness or consciousness.^[77]

Empiricism (sometimes associated with Aristotle^[78] but more correctly associated with British philosophers such as John Locke and David Hume, as well as their ancient equivalents such as Democritus) asserts that sensory impressions are the only available starting points for reasoning and attempting to attain truth. This approach always leads to the controversial conclusion that absolute knowledge is not attainable. Idealism, (associated with Plato and his school), claims that there is a «higher» reality, from which certain people can directly arrive at truth without needing to rely only upon the senses, and that this higher reality is therefore the primary source of truth.

Philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Al-Farabi, Avicenna, Averroes, Maimonides, Aquinas and Hegel are sometimes said to have argued that reason must be fixed and discoverable—perhaps by dialectic, analysis, or study. In the vision of these thinkers, reason is divine or at least has divine attributes. Such an approach allowed religious philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas and Étienne Gilson to try to show that reason and revelation are compatible. According to Hegel, «…the only thought which Philosophy brings with it to the contemplation of History, is the simple conception of reason; that reason is the Sovereign of the World; that the history of the world, therefore, presents us with a rational process.»^[79]

Since the 17th century rationalists, reason has often been taken to be a subjective faculty, or rather the unaided ability (pure reason) to form concepts. For Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, this was associated with mathematics. Kant attempted to show that pure reason could form concepts (time and space) that are the conditions of experience. Kant made his argument in opposition to Hume, who denied that reason had any role to play in experience.

Reason versus emotion or passion[edit]

After Plato and Aristotle, western literature often treated reason as being the faculty that trained the passions and appetites.^{[citation needed]} Stoic philosophy, by contrast, claimed most emotions were merely false judgements.^[80][81] According to the stoics the only good is virtue, and the only evil is vice, therefore emotions that judged things other than vice to be bad (such as fear or distress), or things other than virtue to be good (such as greed) were simply false judgements and should be discarded (though positive emotions based on true judgements, such as kindness, were acceptable).^[80][81][82] After the critiques of reason in the early Enlightenment the appetites were rarely discussed or conflated with the passions.^{[citation needed]} Some Enlightenment camps took after the Stoics to say Reason should oppose Passion rather than order it, while others like the Romantics believed that Passion displaces Reason, as in the maxim «follow your heart».^{[citation needed]}

Reason has been seen as cold, an «enemy of mystery and ambiguity»,^[83] a slave, or judge, of the passions, notably in the work of David Hume, and more recently of Freud.^{[citation needed]} Reasoning which claims that the object of a desire is demanded by logic alone is called rationalization.^{[citation needed]}

Rousseau first proposed, in his second Discourse, that reason and political life is not natural and possibly harmful to mankind.^[84] He asked what really can be said about what is natural to mankind. What, other than reason and civil society, «best suits his constitution»? Rousseau saw «two principles prior to reason» in human nature. First we hold an intense interest in our own well-being. Secondly we object to the suffering or death of any sentient being, especially one like ourselves.^[85] These two passions lead us to desire more than we could achieve. We become dependent upon each other, and on relationships of authority and obedience. This effectively puts the human race into slavery. Rousseau says that he almost dares to assert that nature does not destine men to be healthy. According to Richard Velkley, «Rousseau outlines certain programs of rational self-correction, most notably the political legislation of the Contrat Social and the moral education in Émile. All the same, Rousseau understands such corrections to be only ameliorations of an essentially unsatisfactory condition, that of socially and intellectually corrupted humanity.»

This quandary presented by Rousseau led to Kant’s new way of justifying reason as freedom to create good and evil. These therefore are not to be blamed on nature or God. In various ways, German Idealism after Kant, and major later figures such Nietzsche, Bergson, Husserl, Scheler, and Heidegger, remain preoccupied with problems coming from the metaphysical demands or urges of reason.^[86] The influence of Rousseau and these later writers is also large upon art and politics. Many writers (such as Nikos Kazantzakis) extol passion and disparage reason. In politics modern nationalism comes from Rousseau’s argument that rationalist cosmopolitanism brings man ever further from his natural state.^[87]

Another view on reason and emotion was proposed in the 1994 book titled Descartes’ Error by Antonio Damasio. In it, Damasio presents the «Somatic Marker Hypothesis» which states that emotions guide behavior and decision-making. Damasio argues that these somatic markers (known collectively as «gut feelings») are «intuitive signals» that direct our decision making processes in a certain way that cannot be solved with rationality alone. Damasio further argues that rationality requires emotional input in order to function.

Reason versus faith or tradition[edit]

There are many religious traditions, some of which are explicitly fideist and others of which claim varying degrees of rationalism. Secular critics sometimes accuse all religious adherents of irrationality, since they claim such adherents are guilty of ignoring, suppressing, or forbidding some kinds of reasoning concerning some subjects (such as religious dogmas, moral taboos, etc.).^[88] Though the theologies and religions such as classical monotheism typically do not admit to be irrational, there is often a perceived conflict or tension between faith and tradition on the one hand, and reason on the other, as potentially competing sources of wisdom, law and truth.^[89][90]

Religious adherents sometimes respond by arguing that faith and reason can be reconciled, or have different non-overlapping domains, or that critics engage in a similar kind of irrationalism:

• Reconciliation: Philosopher Alvin Plantinga argues that there is no real conflict between reason and classical theism because classical theism explains (among other things) why the universe is intelligible and why reason can successfully grasp it.^[91][92]
• Non-overlapping magisteria: Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould argues that there need not be conflict between reason and religious belief because they are each authoritative in their own domain (or «magisterium»).^[93][94] If so, reason can work on those problems over which it has authority while other sources of knowledge or opinion can have authority on the big questions.^[95]
• Tu quoque: Philosophers Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor argue that those critics of traditional religion who are adherents of secular liberalism are also sometimes guilty of ignoring, suppressing, and forbidding some kinds of reasoning about subjects.^[96][97] Similarly, philosophers of science such as Paul Feyarabend argue that scientists sometimes ignore or suppress evidence contrary to the dominant paradigm.
• Unification: Theologian Joseph Ratzinger, later Benedict XVI, asserted that «Christianity has understood itself as the religion of the Logos, as the religion according to reason,» referring to John 1:Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, usually translated as «In the beginning was the Word (Logos).» Thus, he said that the Christian faith is «open to all that is truly rational», and that the rationality of Western Enlightenment «is of Christian origin».^[98]

Some commentators have claimed that Western civilization can be almost defined by its serious testing of the limits of tension between «unaided» reason and faith in «revealed» truths—figuratively summarized as Athens and Jerusalem, respectively.^[99][100] Leo Strauss spoke of a «Greater West» that included all areas under the influence of the tension between Greek rationalism and Abrahamic revelation, including the Muslim lands. He was particularly influenced by the great Muslim philosopher Al-Farabi. To consider to what extent Eastern philosophy might have partaken of these important tensions, Strauss thought it best to consider whether dharma or tao may be equivalent to Nature (by which we mean physis in Greek). According to Strauss the beginning of philosophy involved the «discovery or invention of nature» and the «pre-philosophical equivalent of nature» was supplied by «such notions as ‘custom’ or ‘ways‘«, which appear to be really universal in all times and places. The philosophical concept of nature or natures as a way of understanding archai (first principles of knowledge) brought about a peculiar tension between reasoning on the one hand, and tradition or faith on the other.^[101]

Although there is this special history of debate concerning reason and faith in the Islamic, Christian and Jewish traditions, the pursuit of reason is sometimes argued to be compatible with the other practice of other religions of a different nature, such as Hinduism, because they do not define their tenets in such an absolute way.^[102]

Reason in particular fields of study[edit]

Psychology and cognitive science[edit]

Scientific research into reasoning is carried out within the fields of psychology and cognitive science. Psychologists attempt to determine whether or not people are capable of rational thought in a number of different circumstances.

Assessing how well someone engages in reasoning is the project of determining the extent to which the person is rational or acts rationally. It is a key research question in the psychology of reasoning and cognitive science of reasoning. Rationality is often divided into its respective theoretical and practical counterparts.

Behavioral experiments on human reasoning[edit]

Experimental cognitive psychologists carry out research on reasoning behaviour. Such research may focus, for example, on how people perform on tests of reasoning such as intelligence or IQ tests, or on how well people’s reasoning matches ideals set by logic (see, for example, the Wason test).^[103] Experiments examine how people make inferences from conditionals e.g., If A then B and how they make inferences about alternatives, e.g., A or else B.^[104] They test whether people can make valid deductions about spatial and temporal relations, e.g., A is to the left of B, or A happens after B, and about quantified assertions, e.g., All the A are B.^[105] Experiments investigate how people make inferences about factual situations, hypothetical possibilities, probabilities, and counterfactual situations.^[106]

Developmental studies of children’s reasoning[edit]

Developmental psychologists investigate the development of reasoning from birth to adulthood. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development was the first complete theory of reasoning development. Subsequently, several alternative theories were proposed, including the neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development.^[107]

Neuroscience of reasoning[edit]

The biological functioning of the brain is studied by neurophysiologists, cognitive neuroscientists and neuropsychologists. Research in this area includes research into the structure and function of normally functioning brains, and of damaged or otherwise unusual brains. In addition to carrying out research into reasoning, some psychologists, for example, clinical psychologists and psychotherapists work to alter people’s reasoning habits when they are unhelpful.

Computer science[edit]

Automated reasoning[edit]

In artificial intelligence and computer science, scientists study and use automated reasoning for diverse applications including automated theorem proving the formal semantics of programming languages, and formal specification in software engineering.

Meta-reasoning[edit]

Meta-reasoning is reasoning about reasoning. In computer science, a system performs meta-reasoning when it is reasoning about its own operation.^[108] This requires a programming language capable of reflection, the ability to observe and modify its own structure and behaviour.

Evolution of reason[edit]

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (August 2017)

A species could benefit greatly from better abilities to reason about, predict and understand the world. French social and cognitive scientists Dan Sperber and Hugo Mercier argue that there could have been other forces driving the evolution of reason. They point out that reasoning is very difficult for humans to do effectively, and that it is hard for individuals to doubt their own beliefs (confirmation bias). Reasoning is most effective when it is done as a collective – as demonstrated by the success of projects like science. They suggest that there are not just individual, but group selection pressures at play. Any group that managed to find ways of reasoning effectively would reap benefits for all its members, increasing their fitness. This could also help explain why humans, according to Sperber, are not optimized to reason effectively alone. Their argumentative theory of reasoning claims that reason may have more to do with winning arguments than with the search for the truth.^[109][110]

Reason in political philosophy and ethics[edit]

Aristotle famously described reason (with language) as a part of human nature, which means that it is best for humans to live «politically» meaning in communities of about the size and type of a small city state (polis in Greek). For example…

It is clear, then, that a human being is more of a political [politikon = of the polis] animal [zōion] than is any bee or than any of those animals that live in herds. For nature, as we say, makes nothing in vain, and humans are the only animals who possess reasoned speech [logos]. Voice, of course, serves to indicate what is painful and pleasant; that is why it is also found in other animals, because their nature has reached the point where they can perceive what is painful and pleasant and express these to each other. But speech [logos] serves to make plain what is advantageous and harmful and so also what is just and unjust. For it is a peculiarity of humans, in contrast to the other animals, to have perception of good and bad, just and unjust, and the like; and the community in these things makes a household or city [polis]. […] By nature, then, the drive for such a community exists in everyone, but the first to set one up is responsible for things of very great goodness. For as humans are the best of all animals when perfected, so they are the worst when divorced from law and right. The reason is that injustice is most difficult to deal with when furnished with weapons, and the weapons a human being has are meant by nature to go along with prudence and virtue, but it is only too possible to turn them to contrary uses. Consequently, if a human being lacks virtue, he is the most unholy and savage thing, and when it comes to sex and food, the worst. But justice is something political [to do with the polis], for right is the arrangement of the political community, and right is discrimination of what is just. (Aristotle’s Politics 1253a 1.2. Peter Simpson’s translation, with Greek terms inserted in square brackets.)

The concept of human nature being fixed in this way, implied, in other words, that we can define what type of community is always best for people. This argument has remained a central argument in all political, ethical and moral thinking since then, and has become especially controversial since firstly Rousseau’s Second Discourse, and secondly, the Theory of Evolution. Already in Aristotle there was an awareness that the polis had not always existed and had needed to be invented or developed by humans themselves. The household came first, and the first villages and cities were just extensions of that, with the first cities being run as if they were still families with Kings acting like fathers.^[111]

Friendship [philia] seems to prevail [in] man and woman according to nature [kata phusin]; for people are by nature [tēi phusei] pairing [sunduastikon] more than political [politikon = of the polis], in as much as the household [oikos] is prior [proteron = earlier] and more necessary than the polis and making children is more common [koinoteron] with the animals. In the other animals, community [koinōnia] goes no further than this, but people live together [sumoikousin] not only for the sake of making children, but also for the things for life; for from the start the functions [erga] are divided, and are different [for] man and woman. Thus they supply each other, putting their own into the common [eis to koinon]. It is for these [reasons] that both utility [chrēsimon] and pleasure [hēdu] seem to be found in this kind of friendship. (Nicomachean Ethics, VIII.12.1162a. Rough literal translation with Greek terms shown in square brackets.)

Rousseau in his Second Discourse finally took the shocking step of claiming that this traditional account has things in reverse: with reason, language and rationally organized communities all having developed over a long period of time merely as a result of the fact that some habits of cooperation were found to solve certain types of problems, and that once such cooperation became more important, it forced people to develop increasingly complex cooperation—often only to defend themselves from each other.

In other words, according to Rousseau, reason, language and rational community did not arise because of any conscious decision or plan by humans or gods, nor because of any pre-existing human nature. As a result, he claimed, living together in rationally organized communities like modern humans is a development with many negative aspects compared to the original state of man as an ape. If anything is specifically human in this theory, it is the flexibility and adaptability of humans. This view of the animal origins of distinctive human characteristics later received support from Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.

The two competing theories concerning the origins of reason are relevant to political and ethical thought because, according to the Aristotelian theory, a best way of living together exists independently of historical circumstances. According to Rousseau, we should even doubt that reason, language and politics are a good thing, as opposed to being simply the best option given the particular course of events that lead to today. Rousseau’s theory, that human nature is malleable rather than fixed, is often taken to imply, for example by Karl Marx, a wider range of possible ways of living together than traditionally known.

However, while Rousseau’s initial impact encouraged bloody revolutions against traditional politics, including both the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution, his own conclusions about the best forms of community seem to have been remarkably classical, in favor of city-states such as Geneva, and rural living.

See also[edit]

• Argument
• Argumentation theory
• Confirmation bias
• Conformity
• Critical thinking
• Logic and rationality
• Outline of thought – topic tree that identifies many types of thoughts/thinking, types of reasoning, aspects of thought, related fields, and more.
• Outline of human intelligence – topic tree presenting the traits, capacities, models, and research fields of human intelligence, and more.
• Common sense

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Reason at PhilPapers
• Beer, Francis A., «Words of Reason», Political Communication 11 (Summer, 1994): 185–201.
• Gilovich, Thomas (1991), How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life, New York: The Free Press, ISBN 978-0-02-911705-7

Reason involves the ability to think, understand and draw conclusions in an abstract way, as in human thinking. The meanings of the word «reason» overlap to a large extent those of «rationality.»

A[edit]

• The Infinite, from which comes the impulse that lead us to activity, is not the highest Reason, but higher than reason.
  • Felix Adler, Life and Destiny: or Thoughts from the Ethical Lectures of Felix Adler (1913), Section 2: Religion

• We admire and revere the soul which can ride its own passions and force them into obedience to the dictates of reason.
  • Felix Adler, Life and Destiny: or Thoughts from the Ethical Lectures of Felix Adler (1913), Section 4 : Moral Ideals

• Reason may be employed in two ways to establish a point: firstly, for the purpose of furnishing sufficient proof of some principle, as in natural science, where sufficient proof can be brought to show that the movement of the heavens is always of uniform velocity. Reason is employed in another way, not as furnishing a sufficient proof of a principle, but as confirming an already established principle, by showing the congruity of its results, as in astrology the theory of eccentrics and epicycles is considered as established, because thereby the sensible appearances of the heavenly movements can be explained; not, however, as if this proof were sufficient, forasmuch as some other theory might explain them.
  • Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I, Q. 32, Art. 1, Reply Obj. 2, as quoted in The «Summa Theologica» of St. Thomas Aquinas (1921) Part I. QQ. XXVII-XLIX, pp. 63-64, Tr. Fathers of the English Dominican Province.

• Reason in man is rather like God in the world.
  • Thomas Aquinas (c.1225 – 1274) Opuscule II, De Regno.

• I think I am justified — though where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong?
  • Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility (1811).

• …He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him against the liberty of his fellow-men.
  • Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, as quoted in Atatürk: The Biography of the founder of Modern Turkey, by Andrew Mango; «In a book published in 1928, Grace Ellison quotes [Atatürk], presumably in 1926-27», Grace Ellison Turkey Today (London: Hutchinson, 1928)

• I do not leave any verses, dogmas, nor any moulded standard principles as moral heritage. My moral heritage is science and reason. What I have done and intended to do for the Turkish nation lies in that. Anyone willing to appropriate my ideas for themselves after me will be my moral inheritors provided they would approve the guidance of science and reason on this axis.
  • Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, as quoted in Kemalist Devrim ve İdeolojisi (1980) by İsmet Giritli, İstanbul Üniversitesi Yayınları, p. 13

B[edit]

• Reason is omnivorous; it does not pasture exclusively in scientific fields.
  • Jonathan Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers (1979), p. 3.

• Reason is like a runner who doesn’t know that the race is over, or, like Penelope, constantly undoing what it creates…. It is better suited to pulling things down than to building them up, and better at discovering what things are not, than what they are.
  • Pierre Bayle, Reply to the Questions of a Provincial (Réponse aux questions d’un provincial, 1703). Quoted in Elisabeth Labrousse, Bayle, trans. Denys Potts (Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 61.

• Il n’est pas nécessaire de tenir les choses pour en raisonner.
  • It is not necessary to retain facts that we may reason concerning them.
  • Pierre de Beaumarchais, Barbier de Séville (1773), V. 4.

• Reason always stands in need of being purified by faith
  • Benedict XVI, in Caritas in Veritate (29 June 2009).

• Reason cannot remain a bare intellectual faculty; it must become a faculty of judgment dealing with the question of values.
  • Margaret Benson, The Venture of Rational Faith (London: Macmillan and Co., 1908), p. 224.

• RATIONAL, adj. Devoid of all delusions save those of observation, experience and reflection.
  • Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary (1911).

• REASON, v.i. To weight probabilities in the scales of desire.
  • Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary (1911).

• REASON, n. Propensitate of prejudice.
  • Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary (1911).

• Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and insensibly approximate to the characters we most admire. In this way, a generous habit of thought and of action carries with it an incalculable influence.
  • Christian Nestell Bovee, Intuitions and Summaries of Thought (1862), Volume I, p. 178.

• If we would guide by the light of reason, we must let our minds be bold.
  • Louis Brandeis, New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U.S. 262 (1932) (dissenting).

• Pure Reason left to herself
  relieth on axioms and essential premises
  which she can neither question nor resolve.
  • Robert Bridges, The Testament of Beauty (1929), Book I, line 450.

• We should not in the field of Reason look to find
  less vary and veer than elsewhere in the flux of Life.
  • Robert Bridges, The Testament of Beauty (1929), Book I, line 582.

• Reason is Life’s sole arbiter, the magic Laby’rinth’s single clue:
  Worlds lie above, beyond its ken; what crosses it can ne’er be true.
  • Richard Francis Burton, in The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870), VII.

C[edit]

• Pagan philosophers set up reason as the sole guide of life, of wisdom and conduct; but Christian philosophy demands of us that we surrender our reason to the Holy Spirit; and this means that we no longer live for ourselves, but that Christ lives and reigns within us (Rom 12:1; Eph 4:23; Gal 2:20).
  • John Calvin Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life, Page 27

• Reason will not lead to solution; I will end up lost in confusion
  • The Cardigans, «Lovefool» (1996)

• All great men are gifted with intuition. They know without reasoning or analysis, what they need to know.
  • Alexis Carrel, quoted in M. B. Raja Rao, Nava-Vēda: God and Man (Nara and Narayan) (1968‎) p. 229.

• A rational, moral being cannot, without infinite wrong, be converted into a mere instrument of others’ gratification. He is necessarily an end, not a means. A mind, in which are sown the seeds of wisdom, disinterestedness, firmness of purpose, and piety, is worth more than all the outward material interests of a world. It exists for itself, for its own perfection, and must not be enslaved to its own or others’ animal wants.
  • William Ellery Channing, “Self-Culture” (1838).

• Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he’s been given. But up to now he hasn’t been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life’s become extinct, the climate’s ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day.
  • Anton Chekhov in Uncle Vanya (1897).

• Within the brain’s most secret cells
  A certain Lord Chief Justice dwells
  Of sovereign power, whom one and all
  With common voice, we Reason call.
  • Charles Churchill, The Ghost (1763).

• True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions.
  • Cicero, De Re Publica, Book 3, Chapter 22.

• To me the entire uselessness of such rules as practical guides lies in the inherent vagueness of the word «reasonable,» the absolute impossibility of finding a definite standard, to be expressed in language, for the fairness and the reason of mankind, even of Judges. The reason and fairness of one man is manifestly no rule for the reason and fairness of another, and it is an awkward, but as far as I see, an inevitable consequence of the rule, that in every case where the decision of a Judge is overruled, who does or does not stop a case on the ground that there is, or is not, reasonable evidence for reasonable |men, those who overrule him say, by implication, that in the case before them, the Judge who is overruled is out of the pale of reasonable men.
  • John Duke Coleridge, Dublin, &c. Rail. Co. v. Slattery (1878), L. R. 3 App. Ca. 1197; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 218.

• Water cannot rise higher than its source, neither can human reason. Now, all reasoning respecting transcendent truths must have its source where the truths or ideas themselves originate.
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Notes appended to the third edition of Southey’s Life of Wesley, reported in Charles Prest, The Witness of the Holy Spirit (1867), p. 18.

• Religion passes out of the ken of reason only where the eye of reason has reached its own horizon; faith is then but its continuation, even as the day softens away into the sweet twilight; and twilight, hushed and breathless, steals into the darkness.
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria: Or, Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions (1817), p. 302.

• We think only through the medium of words.—Languages are true analytical methods.—Algebra, which is adapted to its purpose in every species of expression, in the most simple, most exact, and best manner possible, is at the same time a language and an analytical method.—The art of reasoning is nothing more than a language well arranged.
  • Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, System of Logic quoted by Antoine Lavoisier, Traité Élémentaire de Chimie (1789) translated by Robert Kerr as Elements of Chemistry (1790).

D[edit]

• Reason has built the modern world. It is a precious but also a fragile thing, which can be corroded by apparently harmless irrationality. We must favor verifiable evidence over private feeling. Otherwise we leave ourselves vulnerable to those who would obscure the truth.
  • Richard Dawkins, The Enemies of Reason, «Slaves to Superstition» [1.01], 2007-08-13, timecode 00:46:47ff.

• In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice.
  • Richard Dawkins, cited in Awake! magazine 2004, 6/22.

• [T]he power of forming a good judgment and of distinguishing the true from the false, which is properly speaking what is called Good sense or Reason, is by nature equal in all men.
  • René Descartes, Discourse on Method, as quoted in Descartes’ Philosphical Writings Vol. 1 (1911) ed., Elizabeth Haldane, G. R. T. Ross: Discourse on Method, p. 6.

• He, who will not reason, is a bigot; he, who cannot, is a fool; and he, who dares not, is a slave.
  • Sir William Drummond of Logiealmond, in Academical Questions (1805), Preface, p. 15

E[edit]

• I want now to glance for a moment at the development of the theoretical method, and while doing so especially to observe the relation of pure theory to the totality of the data of experience. Here is the eternal antithesis of the two inseparable constituents of human knowledge, Experience and Reason, within the sphere of physics. We honour ancient Greece as the cradle of western science. She for the first time created the intellectual miracle of a logical system, the assertions of which followed one from another with such rigor that not one of the demonstrated propositions admitted of the slightest doubt—Euclid’s geometry. This marvellous accomplishment of reason gave to the human spirit the confidence it needed for its future achievements. …But yet the time was not ripe for a science that could comprehend reality, was not ripe until a second elementary truth had been realized, which only became the common property of philosophers after Kepler and Galileo. Pure logical thinking can give us no knowledge whatsoever of the world of experience; all knowledge about reality begins with experience and terminates in it.
  • Albert Einstein, «On the Method of Theoretical Physics» (Apr., 1934) in Philosophy of Science, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 163-169.

• Two angels guide
  The path of man, both aged and yet young,
  As angels are, ripening through endless years,
  On one he leans: some call her Memory,
  And some Tradition; and her voice is sweet,
  With deep mysterious accords: the other,
  Floating above, holds down a lamp which streams
  A light divine and searching on the earth,
  Compelling eyes and footsteps. Memory yields,
  Yet clings with loving check, and shines anew,
  Reflecting all the rays of that bright lamp
  Our angel Reason holds. We had not walked
  But for Tradition; we walk evermore
  To higher paths by brightening Reason’s lamp.
  • George Eliot, Spanish Gypsy (1868), Book II.

• Comedy is in act superior to tragedy and humourous reasoning superior to grandiloquent reasoning.
  • Attributed to Friedrich Engels by Karl Marx in Comments on the North American Events, Die Presse (12 October 1862)

• Knowest thou what kind of speck you art in comparison with the Universe?—That is, with respect to the body; since with respect to Reason, thou art not inferior to the Gods, nor less than they. For the greatness of Reason is not measured by length or height, but by the resolves of the mind. Place then thy happiness in that wherein thou art equal to the Gods.
  • Epictetus, (ca. 55-135 AD) Golden Sayings of Epictetus #33.

• One who knows not who he is and to what end he was born; what kind of world this is and with whom he is associated therein; one who cannot distinguish Good and Evil, Beauty and Foulness,… Truth and Falsehood, will never follow Reason in shaping his desires and impulses and repulsions, nor yet in assent, denial, or suspension of judgment; but will in one word go about deaf and blind, thinking himself to be somewhat, when he is in truth of no account. Is there anything new in all this? Is not this ignorance the cause of all the mistakes and mischances of men since the human race began?
  • Epictetus, (ca. 55-135 AD) Golden Sayings of Epictetus #81.

• Study how to give as one that is sick: that thou mayest hereafter give as one that is whole. Fast; drink water only; abstain altogether from desire, that thou mayest hereafter confirm thy desire to Reason.
  • Epictetus, (ca. 55-135 AD) Golden Sayings of Epictetus #101.

• Auctoritas siquidem ex vera ratione processit, ratio vero nequaquam ex auctoritate. Omnis enim auctoritas, quae vera ratione non approbatur, infirma videtur esse. Vera autem ratio, quum virtutibus suis rata atque immutabilis munitur, nullius auctoritatis adstipulatione roborari indigent.
  • For authority proceeds from true reason, but reason certainly does not proceed from authority. For every authority which is not upheld by true reason is seen to be weak, whereas true reason is kept firm and immutable by her own powers and does not require to be confirmed by the assent of any authority.
  • Johannes Scotus Eriugena (815 – c. 877) De Divisione Naturae, Bk. 1, ch. 69; translation by I. P. Sheldon-Williams, cited from Peter Dronke (ed.) A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy (Cambridge: CUP, 1988) p. 2.

F[edit]

• Copernicanism and other «rational» views exist today only because reason was overruled at some time in their past. (The opposite is also true: witchcraft and other «irrational» views had ceased to be influential only because reason was overruled at some time in their past.)
  • Paul Feyerabend, Against Method (1975) p. 155

• If reason is to be realized in the sensuous world, it must be possible for many rational beings to live together as such; and this is permanently possible only if each free being makes it its law to limit its own freedom by the conception of the freedom of all others. For each free being having the physical power to check or destroy the freedom of other free beings, and being dependent in its free actions only upon its will; it is only when all free beings have voluntarily made it their law (rule of action) never so to check the freedom of all others that a community of free beings becomes possible, wherein such a check never occurs.
  • The Science of Rights 1796 by, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, 1762-1814; Kroeger, Adolph Ernest, 1837-1882, tr Publication date 1889P. 137

• To say that madness is dazzlement is to say that the madman sees the day, the same day that rational men see, as both live in the same light, but that when looking at that very light, nothing else and nothing in it, he sees it as nothing but emptiness, night and nothingness. Darkness for him is another way of seeing the day. Which means that in looking at the night and the nothingness of the night, he does not see at all. And that in the belief that he sees, he allows the fantasies of his imagination and the people of his nights to come to him as realities. For that reason, delirium and dazzlement exist in a relation that is the essence of madness, just as truth and clarity, in their fundamental relation, are constitutive of classical reason.
  In that sense, the Cartesian progression of doubt is clearly the great exorcism of madness. Descartes closes his eyes and ears the better to see the true light of the essential day, thereby ensuring that he will not suffer the dazzlement of the mad, who open their eyes and only see night, and not seeing at all, believe that they see things when they imagine them. In the uniform clarity of his closed senses, Descartes has broken with all possible fascination, and if he sees, he knows he really sees what he is seeing. Whereas in the madman’s gaze, drunk on the light that is night, images rise up and multiply, beyond any possible self-criticism, since the madman sees them, but irremediably separated from being, since the madman sees nothing.
  Unreason is to reason as dazzlement is to daylight.
  • Michel Foucault, History of Madness (1961), Part Two: 2. The Transcendence of Delirium

• If you will not hear reason, she will surely rap your knuckles.
  • Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack (July 7, 1757).

• The Way to see by Faith, is to shut the Eye of Reason:
  The Morning Daylight appears plainer when you put out your Candle.
  • Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack (republished 1958); the first portion of this sentence is often quoted without the context provided by the complete statement.

G[edit]

• The language of reason unaccompanied by kindness will often fail of making an impression. It has no effect on the understanding, because i touches not the heart. The language of kindness unassociated with reason will frequently be unable to persuade: because though it may gain upon the affections, it wants that which is necessary to convince the judgement. But let reason and kindness be united in your discourse; and seldom will even pride or prejudice find it easy to resist.
  • Thomas Gisborne, Sermons, Vol. I (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1802), Sermon XI. On the Character of Naaman, pp. 240–1.

• The sleep of reason produces monsters.
  • Francisco Goya, caption, etching The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (1799).

H[edit]

• A reasonable fine is such as the law will judge to be so . . . but what a reasonable fine is, and who shall be the judge of it, the law has established no rule.
  • Lord Hardwicke, Moore’s Case (1736), 17 How. St. Tr. 914; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 218.

• Reason is a religious duty and quality of the mind; and exercise of the judgment upon all occasions and subjects is true and most divine worship.
  • Cora Hatch, “The Religion of Life,” Discourses on Religion, Morals, Philosophy and Metaphysics (1858).

• Like other traditions, the tradition of reason is learnt, not innate. It too lies between instinct and reason; and the question of the real reasonableness and truth of this tradition of proclaimed reason and truth must now also scrupulously be examined.
  • Friedrich Hayek, The Fatal Conceit (1988), Ch. 4: The Revolt of Instinct and Reason

• Those may justly be reckoned void of understanding that do not bless and praise God; nor do men ever rightly use their reason till they begin to be religious, nor live as men till they live to the glory of God. As reason is the substratum or subject of religion (so that creatures which have no reason are not capable of religion), so religion is the crown and glory of reason, and we have our reason in vain, and shall one day wish we had never had it, if we do not glorify God with it.
  • Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. IV. Isaiah to Malachi, Section on Daniel 4:34-37.

• When the dictators of today appeal to reason, they mean that they possess the most tanks. They were rational enough to build them; others should be rational enough to yield to them.
  • Max Horkheimer, “The End of Reason,” The Essential Frankfurt School Reader (1982), p. 28

• The more the concept of reason becomes emasculated, the more easily it lends itself to ideological manipulation and to propagation of even the most blatant lies. … Subjective reason conforms to anything.
  • Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason (1947), pp. 24-25

• Reason quite properly rejects contradiction.
  • Michael Horton, Pilgrim Theology (14 January 2013), p. 177

• We must …cultivate true metaphysics with some care, in order to destroy the false and adulterate. …Accurate and just reasoning… is alone able to subvert that abstruse philosophy and metaphysical jargon, which being mixed up with popular superstition, renders it in a manner impenetrable to careless reasoners, and gives it the air of science and wisdom.
  • David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) Ch.I.

• While we [philosophers] study with attention the vanity of life… we are, perhaps, all the while flattering our natural indolence, which, hating the bustle of the world, and drudgery of business, seeks a pretense of reason to give itself a full and uncontrolled indulgence.
  • David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) Ch.V, Part I.

• Nature will always maintain her rights, and prevail in the end over any abstract reasoning whatsoever.
  • David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) Ch.V, Part I.

• All inferences from experience… are effects of custom, not of reasoning.
  • David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) Ch.V, Part I.

• No conclusions can be more agreeable to scepticism than such as make discoveries concerning the weakness and narrow limits of human reason and capacity.
  • David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) Ch.VII, Part II.

• There is no method of reasoning more common, and yet none more blamable, than, in philosophical disputes, to endeavor the refutation of any hypothesis, by a pretense of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality.
  • David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) Ch.VIII, Part II.

• Nature must have provided some other principle, of more ready, and more general use and application; nor can an operation of such immense consequence in life, as that of inferring effects from causes, be trusted to the uncertain process of reasoning and argumentation.
  • David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) Ch.IX.

• The experimental reasoning itself, which we possess in common with beasts, and on which the whole conduct of life depends, is nothing but a species of instinct or mechanical power, that acts in us unknown to ourselves.
  • David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) Ch.IX.

• Besides that the ordinary course of nature may convince us, that almost everything is regulated by principles and maxims very different from ours; besides this, I say, it must evidently appear contrary to all rules of analogy, to reason from the intentions and projects of men, to those of a Being so different and so much superior.
  • David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) Ch.XI.

• The Cartesian doubt… were it ever possible to be attained by any human creature (as it plainly is not) would be entirely incurable; and no reasoning could ever bring us to a state of assurance and conviction upon any subject.
  • David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) Ch.XII, Part I.

• There is a degree of doubt, and caution, and modesty, which, in all kinds of scrutiny and decision, ought for ever to accompany a just reasoner.
  • David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) Ch.XII, Part III.

• If we reason a priori, anything may appear able to produce anything.
  • David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) Ch.XII, Part III.

• If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.
  • David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) Ch.XII, Part III.

J[edit]

• Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
  • Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Peter Carr (1787).

• Neither in deductive nor inductive reasoning can we add a tittle to our implicit knowledge, which is like that contained in an unread book or a sealed letter. …Reasoning explicates or brings to conscious possession what was before unconscious. It does not create, nor does it destroy, but it transmutes and throws the same matter into a new form.
  • William Stanley Jevons, The Principles of Science (1874) p.136

• I beheld with reverent dread, and highly marvelling in the sight and in the feeling of the sweet accord, that our Reason is in God; understanding that it is the highest gift that we have received; and it is grounded in nature.
  • Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love (c.1393), Ch. 83.

K[edit]

• There is a gossipy reasoning which in its endlessness bears about the same relation to the result as the interminable line of Egyptian monarchs bears to the historical value of their reigns.
  • Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, Part I, Swenson p. 20 1843.

• Ask whatever questions you please, but do not ask me for reasons. A young woman may be forgiven for not being able to give reasons, since they say she lives in her feelings. Not so with me. I generally have so many reasons, and most often such mutually contradictory reasons, that for this reason it is impossible for me to give reasons. There seems to be something wrong with cause and effect also, that they do not rightly hang together. Tremendous and powerful causes sometimes produce small and unimpressive effects, sometimes none at all; then again it happens that a brisk little cause produces a colossal effect.
  • Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, Part I, Swenson p. 25.

L[edit]

• You reason too much; all young people are so fond of reasons, as if reasons were of any use. … It is your duty to write what will sell, and I tell you reasons are unmarketable commodities.
  • Letitia Elizabeth Landon, the publisher Curl in Ethel Churchill (or The Two Brides) (1837) Volume II, Chapter 2.

• Rationality is very much connected with the tradition in science for the last 300 years, when you’re going to end up with some sort of understandable explanation of something. And I would be disappointed if that were the case.
  • Christopher Langton, as quoted by John Horgan, The End of Science (1996) p. 201

• We must trust to nothing but facts: These are presented to us by Nature, and cannot deceive. We ought, in every instance, to submit our reasoning to the test of experiment, and never to search for truth but by the natural road of experiment and observation.
  • Antoine Lavoisier, Traité élémentaire de chimie (1789) Tr. Robert Kerr as Elements of Chemistry (1790).

• I take it that reasonable human conduct is part of the ordinary course of things.
  • Nathaniel Lindley, Baron Lindley, L.J., «The City of Lincoln» (1889), L. R. 15 P. D. 18; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 218.

M[edit]

• What are we, weak and blind human beings! And what is that flickering light we call Reason? When we have calculated all the probabilities, questioned history, satisfied every doubt and special interest, we may still embrace only a deceptive shadow rather than the truth.
  • Joseph de Maistre, Considerations on France (1796), ch. VIII

• Ratio omnia vincit.
  • Reason conquers all.
  • Marcus Manilius, Astronomicon, IV, 932.

• Reason … contradicts the established order of men and things on behalf of existing societal forces that reveal the irrational character of this order—for “rational” is a mode of thought and action which is geared to reduce ignorance, destruction, brutality, and oppression.
  • Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man (1964), pp. 141-142.

• Now some of the scribes were there, sitting and reasoning in their hearts: “Why is this man talking this way? He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins except one, God?” But immediately Jesus discerned by his spirit that they were reasoning that way among themselves, so he said to them: “Why are you reasoning these things in your hearts?
  • Gospel of Mark 2:6-8, NWT

• Reason can no longer restrain one who is lured by the fury of ambition.
  • Karl Marx, Reflections of a Youth on Choosing an Occupation (1835), Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society, L. Easton, trans. (1967), p. 36.

• Reason nevertheless prevails in world history.
  • Karl Marx, «Comments on the North American Events», Die Presse (12 October 1862)

• In capitalist society however where social reason always asserts itself only post festum great disturbances may and must constantly occur.
  • Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I (Capital: A Critique of Political Economy) (1867) Vol. II, Ch. XVI, p. 319.

• But all was false and hollow; though his tongue
  Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear
  The better reason, to perplex and dash
  Maturest counsels.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book II, line 112.

• Subdue
  By force, who reason for their law refuse,
  Right reason for their law.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book VI, line 40.

• Indu’d
  With sanctity of reason.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book VII, line 507.

• Mais la raison n’est pas ce qui règle l’amour.
  • But it is not reason that governs love.
  • Molière, Le Misanthrope (1666), I, 1.

• La parfaite raison fuit toute extremité,
  Et veut que l’on soit sage avec sobriètè.
  • All extremes does perfect reason flee,
    And wishes to be wise quite soberly.
  • Molière, Le Misanthrope (1666), I, 1.

• A man always has two reasons for what he does—a good one, and the real one.
  • Attributed to J. Pierpont Morgan in Owen Wister, Roosevelt: The Story of a Friendship (1930), p. 280.

P[edit]

• It’s whispered that soon if we all call a tune,
  then the Piper will lead us to reason.
  And a new day will dawn for those who stand long,
  and the forests will echo with laughter.
  • Jimmy Page and Robert Plant in «Stairway to Heaven» on Led Zeppelin IV (1971).

• A long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.
  • Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776).

• To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.
  • Thomas Paine, The American Crisis (1776–1783), The Crisis No. V

• All reasoning ends in an appeal to self-evidence.
  • Coventry Patmore, The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895), Aurea Dicta IV.

• Say first, of God above or man below,
  What can we reason but from what we know?
  • Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle I, line 17.

• Reason, however able, cool at best,
  Cares not for service, or but serves when prest,
  Stays till we call, and then not often near.
  • Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle III, line 85.

• Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise;
  His pride in reasoning, not in acting lies.
  • Alexander Pope, Moral Essays (1731-35), Epistle I, line 117.

• Debout, les damnés de la terre
  Debout, les forçats de la faim
  La raison tonne en son cratère
  C’est l’éruption de la fin
  • Stand up, damned of the Earth
    Stand up, prisoners of starvation
    Reason thunders in its volcano
    This is the eruption of the end.
  • Eugène Edine Pottier, The Internationale (1864)

R[edit]

• As soon as an object is regarded as a dynamic entity, then analysis and definition become both difficult and unsatisfactory. Thinking is under such circumstances well-nigh impossible for most people. To think at all logically, no matter how concretistic the thought may be, there must be some static point. Where, now are we to look for this point? The man of action answers, in its effect. Then an object becomes completely separated… from all other objective elements as well as from the perceiving self. …Reality, in other words, is pragmatic. …Like all other philosophers, he [the thinker, as opposed to the man of action] is… aware of the movement and the shifting form of things. He is as much impressed by this as the man of action. But the world must first be static and objects must first take on a permanent or, at least, a stable form before one can deal with them systematically. …The attempts of these primitive thinkers are embodied in numerous creation myths… the task is always the same—an original, moving, shapeless or undifferentiated world must be brought to rest and given stable form. …There exist, however, many things that manifestly do not have permanence of form and do look different at different times. Philosophers have always given the same answer to this problem and predicated a unity behind these changing aspects and forms.
  • Paul Radin, Primitive Man as Philosopher (1927)

• Man is a rational animal – so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for evidence in favor of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it, though I have searched in many countries spread over three continents.
  • Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays (1950), Chapter 7: An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish, p. 71.

• Were I (who to my cost already am
  One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man)
  A spirit free to choose, for my own share,
  What case of flesh and blood I pleased to wear,
  I’d be a dog, a monkey, or a bear,
  Or anything but that vain animal,
  Who is so proud of being rational.
  The senses are too gross; and he’ll contrive
  A sixth to contradict the other five;
  And before certain instinct will prefer
  Reason, which fifty times for one does err;
  Reason, an ignis fatuus of the mind,
  Which, leaving light of nature, sense, behind,
  Pathless and dangerous wandering ways it takes,
  Through error’s fenny bogs and thorny brakes;
  Whilst the misguided follower climbs with pain
  Mountains of whimseys, heaped in his own brain.
  • John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, «A Satire against Reason and Mankind» (c. 1675), line 1.

• Then old age and experience, hand in hand,
  Lead him to death, make him to understand,
  After a search so painful and so long,
  That all his life he has been in the wrong.
  Huddled in dirt the reasoning engine lies,
  Who was so proud, so witty, and so wise.
  • John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, «A Satire against Reason and Mankind» (c. 1675), line 25.

• Our sphere of action is life’s happiness,
  And he that thinks beyond thinks like an ass.
  Thus, whilst against false reasoning I inveigh,
  I own right reason, which I would obey:
  That reason which distinguishes by sense
  And gives us rules of good and ill from thence,
  That bounds desires, with a reforming will
  To keep ’em more in vigour, not to kill.
  Your reason hinders, mine helps to enjoy,
  Renewing appetites yours would destroy.
  • John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, «A Satire against Reason and Mankind» (c. 1675), line 96.

• There is no point on which a greater amount of decision is to be found in Courts of law and equity than as to what is reasonable; for instance, reasonable time, reasonable notice, and the like. It is impossible a priori to state what is reasonable in such cases. You must have the particular facts of each case established before you can ascertain what is meant by reasonable time, notice, and the like.
  • Lord Romilly, M.R., Labouchere v. Dawson (1872), L. R. 13 Eq. Ca. 325; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 218.

S[edit]

• My reason is now all to me—my only warrant for God, virtue, and immortality. Woe to me if I catch this, my only witness, in a contradiction! if my esteem for its conclusions diminishes! if a broken vessel in my brain diverts its action! My happiness is henceforth intrusted to the harmonious action of my sensorium: woe to me if the strings of this instrument give a false note in the critical moments of my life—if my convictions vary with my pulsations!
  • Friedrich Schiller, Philosophical Letters, Letter 1

• Every why hath a wherefore.
  • William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors (1592-94), Act II, scene 2, line 44.

• Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
  Looking before and after, gave us not
  That capability and god-like reason
  To fust in us unus’d.
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act IV, scene 4, line 36.

• Give you a reason on compulsion! if reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I (c. 1597), Act II, scene 4, line 263.

• Good reasons must, of force, give place to better.
  • William Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar (1599), Act IV, scene 3, line 203.

• But since the affairs of men rest still incertain,
  Let’s reason with the worst that may befall.
  • William Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar (1599), Act V, scene 1, line 96.

• Strong reasons make strong actions.
  • William Shakespeare, King John (1598), Act III, scene 4, line 182.

• His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them; and when you have them, they are not worth the search.
  • William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act I, scene 1, line 16.

• I have no other but a woman’s reason
  I think him so because I think him so.
  • William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1590s), Act I, scene 2, line 23.

• The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
  • George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

• According to Blanchette and Campbell (2012), ―deductive reasoning in particular has often been seen as a hallmark of human intelligence and of the potential for logical thinking (159). Deductive reasoning consists of the method in which inference is constructed logically through valid conclusions from a set of premises (Wassertheil-Smoller & Smoller, 2015). The process of deductive reasoning consists of drawing a conclusion that is based on multiple arguments that are commonly presumed to be truthful or legitimate. Through deductive reasoning, individuals assume that the set of premises are truthful, and consequently, the conclusions that arise from these valid premises must in turn, produce legitimate truthful conclusions (Walton, 1990). According to Heit and Rotello (2010), deductive reasoning is ―more heavily influenced by slower analytic processes that encompass more deliberative, and typically more accurate, reasoning (805). Individuals who use deductive reasoning adopt rules,properties, and facts to reach a conclusion. Deductive reasoning starts out with a general premise, or hypothesis, and explores the possibilities to draw a particular, logical conclusion.
  • Georgoulas-Sherry, Vasiliki, “The Impact of Resilience and Grit on Inductive and Deductive Reasoning Following Exposure to Combat-Like Environments“, Columbia University, (2018), pp. 19-20.

• As with the research on deductive reasoning, research on inductive reasoning shows that affect impacts an individual‘s ability to inductively reason (Evans et al., 1993). For example, research shows that positive moods have been shown to promote imagination, ingenuity, creative and integrative thinking (Isen et al., 1985; Isen et al., 1987; Salovey et al., 1993), increase working memory load (Seibert & Ellis, 1991), enhance the ability to interpret information and increase cognitive flexibility (Isen & Daubman, 1984; Isen, 1999), and increase performance on a number of cognitive tasks (Ashby & Isen, 1999; Isen, 1999). Negative moods have been shown to decrease accuracy of judgment, deteriorate cognitive processing, and diminish decision making (Palfai & Salovey, 1993; Channon & Baker, 1994; Oaksford, Morris, Graigner, &Williams, 1996; Goel & Dolan, 2003; Blanchette & Richards, 2004; Blanchette, 2006). Again, as with deductive reasoning, conflicting results have also been found.
  • Georgoulas-Sherry, Vasiliki, “The Impact of Resilience and Grit on Inductive and Deductive Reasoning Following Exposure to Combat-Like Environments“, Columbia University, (2018), p. 27.

• Though reason is not to be relied upon as a guide universally sufficient to direct us what to do, yet it is generally to be relied upon and obeyed when it tells us what we are not to do.
  • Robert South, Sermon XXIII (preached at Christ Church, Oxford, November 1, 1691)), in Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions (Philadelphia: Sorin & Ball, 1844), Vol. I, p. 374.

• Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired.
  • Jonathan Swift, «Letter to a Young Gentleman, Lately Enter’d Into Holy Orders by a Person of Quality» (1721)

T[edit]

• A man demonstrates his rationality, not by a commitment to fixed ideas, stereotyped procedures, or immutable concepts, but by the manner in which, and the occasions on which, he changes those ideas, procedures, and concepts.
  • Stephen Toulmin, Human Understanding (1972) Vol. 1 The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts, epigraph.

• When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself.
  • Mark Twain, Is Shakespeare Dead? (1909), §11,as reprinted in Essays and Sketches of Mark Twain (1995), ed. Stuart Miller, ISBN 1566198798

• To ingenious attempts at explaining by the light of reason things which want the light of history to show their meaning, much of the learned nonsense of the world has indeed been due.
  • Edward Burnett Tylor, Primitive Culture (1871)

V[edit]

• Reason, sometimes, seems to me to be the faculty our soul possesses of understanding nothing about our body!
  • Paul Valéry, Dance and the Soul (1921), in Dialogues (Bollingen Series XLV 4/ Princeton University Press, 1989), translated by William McCausland Stewart, p. 46. The speaker is Eryximachus, a physician.

• Most people in reasoning, dear Phaedrus, use notions that not only are «ready-made,» but have actually been made by nobody. No one is responsible for them, and so they serve every one badly.
  • Paul Valéry, Eupalinos, or The Architect (1921), in Dialogues (Bollingen Series XLV 4/Princeton University Press, 1989), translated by William McCausland Stewart, p. 137. The speaker is Socrates.

• Reason deceives us more often than does nature.
  • Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues, Reflections and Maxims (1746), Maxim 123.

W[edit]

• Reason is the test of ridicule, and not ridicule the test of truth.
  • William Warburton, The Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated, Volume I, Dedication to the Freethinkers (1738), 1765 edition, p. 15.

• Reason is the glory of human nature, and one of the chief eminences whereby we are raised above our fellow-creatures, the brutes, in this lower world.
  • Isaac Watts, Logic: or The Right Use of Reason in the Inquiry after Truth (1724), Introduction.

• When we affirm that philosophy begins with wonder, we are affirming in effect that sentiment is prior to reason.
  • Richard Weaver, Ideas have Consequences (1948), p. 19.

• It must have required enormous effort for man to overcome his natural tendency to live like the animals in a continual present. Moreover, the development of rational thought actually seems to have impeded man’s appreciation for the significance of time. … Belief that the ultimate reality is timeless is deeply rooted in human thinking, and the origin of rational investigation of the world was the search for permanent factors that lie behind the ever-changing pattern of events.
  • Gerald James Whitrow, Time in History: Views of Time from Prehistory to the Present Day (1988)

• I am not going to question your opinions. I am not going to meddle with your belief. I am not going to dictate to you mine. All that I say is, examine; enquire. Look into the nature of things. Search out the ground of your opinions, the for and the against. Know why you believe, understand what you believe, and possess a reason for the faith that is in you…
  But your spiritual teachers caution you against enquiry — tell you not to read certain books; not to listen to certain people; to beware of profane learning; to submit your reason, and to receive their doctrines for truths. Such advice renders them suspicious counsellors. By their own creed you hold your reason from their God. Go! ask them why he gave it.
  • Frances Wright, A Course of Popular Lectures (1829), Lecture III : Of the more Important Divisions and Essential Parts of Knowledge.

Y[edit]

• Reason progressive, Instinct is complete;
  Swift Instinct leaps; slow reason feebly climbs.
  Brutes soon their zenith reach. * * * In ages they no more
  Could know, do, covet or enjoy.
  • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night VII, line 81.

• And what is reason? Be she thus defined:
  Reason is upright stature in the soul.
  • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night VII, line 1,526.

Z[edit]

• That which exercises reason is more excellent than that which does not exercise reason; there is nothing more excellent than the universe, therefore the universe exercises reason.
  • Zeno of Citium, as quoted in De Natura Deorum by Cicero, ii. 8.; iii. 9.

Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations[edit]

Quotes reported in Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 658-59.

• Domina omnium et regina ratio.
  • Reason is the mistress and queen of all things.
  • Cicero, Tusculanarum Disputationum, II. 21.

• Aristophanes turns Socrates into ridicule … as making the worse appear the better reason.
  • Diogenes Laertius, Socrates, V.

• Reasons are not like garments, the worse for wearing.
  • Earl of Essex to Lord Willoughby (Jan. 4, 1598–9).

• Setting themselves against reason, as often as reason is against them.
  • Thomas Hobbes, Works, III, p. 91. Ed. 1839. Also in Epistle Dedicatory to Tripos, IV, XIII.

• Hoc volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas.
  • I will it, I so order, let my will stand for a reason.
  • Juvenal, Satires (early 2nd century), VI. 223.

• You have ravished me away by a Power I cannot resist; and yet I could resist till I saw you; and even since I have seen you I have endeavored often «to reason against the reasons of my Love.»
  • John Keats, Letters to Fanny Braune, VIII.

• La raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure.
  • The reasoning of the strongest is always the best.
  • Jean de La Fontaine, Fables, I. 10.

• To be rational is so glorious a thing, that two-legged creatures generally content themselves with the title.
  • John Locke, Letter to Antony Collins, Esq.

• Omnia sunt risus, sunt pulvis, et omnia nil sunt:
  Res ‘hominum cunctæ, nam ratione carent.
  • All is but a jest, all dust, all not worth two peason:
    For why in man’s matters is neither rime nor reason.
  • George Puttenham, Arte of English Poesie, p. 125. Attributed by him to Democritus.

• Nam et Socrati objiciunt comici, docere eum quomodo pejorem causam meliorem faciat.
  • For comic writers charge Socrates with making the worse appear the better reason.
  • Quintilian, De Institutione Oratoria, II. 17. 1.

• On aime sans raison, et sans raison l’on hait.
  • We love without reason, and without reason we hate.
  • Jean-François Regnard, Les Folies Amoureuses.

• Nihil potest esse diuturnum cui non subest ratio.
  • Nothing can be lasting when reason does not rule.
  • Quintus Curtius Rufus, De Rebus Gestis Alexandri Magni, IV, 14, 19.

• Id nobis maxime nocet, quod non ad rationis lumen sed ad similitudinem aliorum vivimus.
  • This is our chief bane, that we live not according to the light of reason, but after the fashion of others.
  • Seneca the Younger, Octavia, Act II, 454.

• While Reason drew the plan, the Heart inform’d
  The moral page and Fancy lent it grace.
  • James Thomson, Liberty, Part IV, line 262.

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)[edit]

Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

• Polished steel will not shine in the dark. No more can reason, however refined or cultivated, shine efficaciously but as it reflects the light of Divine truth shed from heaven.
  • John Foster, p. 487.

• The light of reason ever gleams on the margin of an unmeasured and immeasurable ocean of mystery; and however far we push our discoveries, the line of light only moves on, and has infinite and unfathomable darkness beyond it.
  • Henry Giles, p. 487.

• Here is the manliness of manhood, that a man has a reason for what he does, and has a will in doing it.
  • Alexander Maclaren, p. 488.

• Let reason count the stars, weigh the mountains, fathom the depths — the employment becomes her, and the success is glorious. But when the question is, » How shall man be just with God?» reason must be silent, revelation must speak; and he who will not hear it assimilates himself to the first deist, Cain; he may not kill a brother, he certainly destroys himself.
  • Henry Melvill, p. 488.

• What a return do we make for those blessings we have received! How disrespectfully do we treat the gospel of Christ to which we owe that clear light both of reason and of nature, which we now enjoy, when we endeavor to set up reason and nature in opposition to it! Ought the withered hand which Christ has restored and made whole to be lifted up against Him?
  • Bishop Sherlock, p. 487.

See also[edit]

Dialectic Discourse Irrationality Language Logic Logos

Mind Rationalism Rationalization (sociology) Science Thought

External links[edit]

It is indeed true that the reason for an action precedes the action, while its purpose follows it, which implies that the two are altogether different. On the other hand, it is also true that, in everyday communication, a locution such as ‘the reason for this action is X’ is interchangeable with ‘the purpose of this action is X’. How can these two, seemingly contradictory, truths be reconciled?

The explanation is that, even though the reason itself precedes the action, the content of the reason (what the reason is about) usually involves something that follows the action. In other words, the reason for an action is usually that it is expected to accomplish some particular purpose. The two therefore tend to merge when they are spoken of casually, in spite of being, strictly speaking, quite distinct.

For example, suppose that I am going to the grocery store. The purpose of my doing so is having the ingredients necessary for the dinner tonight. That purpose will be achieved after the action of going to the store. What is the reason for the action? The reason is that I have formed the plan to eat at home tonight, together with my having opened my refrigerator and realized that it was empty. The planning for the dinner, and the discovery of the emptiness of the refrigerator took place before the action of going to the store. However, if I am asked for the reason, I am unlikely to say ‘The reason is that I made a plan to eat at home, and discovered that I didn’t have any groceries’; such an articulation of the reason, although accurate, would be overelaborate for the purposes of casual conversation. Instead I will say ‘to get something for dinner’. This brief formulation conveys the content of my reason in a way that is perfectly satisfactory for the purposes of casual conversation, but it obscures the fact that the reason itself has appeared in the past, even though it concerns something that will happen in the future. As the content of the reason is the purpose of the action, such an informal specification of the reason for an action is interchangeable with a specification of its purpose, even though the reason and the purpose are distinct.

• #1

I used to think that the correct preposition for the word REASON is FOR, and the correct preposition for the word CAUSE in OF. However, I have seen lots of sentences where REASON is used with OF and CAUSE is used with FOR. Could you clarify how to use these prepositions correctly. Below are some sentences I have found:
REASON
1. The Reason of My Tears (the name of a song)
2. By Reason of Insanity (the title of a book)
3. A doctor can’t operate if he doesn’t know the reason of the illness (Macmillan Dictionary)
4. The actual reason for the depression was a general loss of confidence in the American economy.
Psychiatrists review the case history of the patient both medically and personally, because it might be the reason of the depression
CAUSE
An Underlying Cause for Psychopathic Behavior (the name of an article)
However, the exact cause of these personality traits is an area of scientific debate (extract from the same article)

I’m totally confused after this analysis.

• #2

I’ll try to help.
1. The Reason of My Tears. This implies that the tears are capable of thinking. » The reason for my tears» is the ordinary phrase.
2. By reason of Insanity. Here «by reason of» can be followed by any noun or noun phrase that makes sense. «By reason of my…good looks, winning personality, secret knowledge, etc.
3. Here I prefer «the reason for the illness.»
4. Again, I would have chosen «the reason for» the depression.
Obviously, «of» was used in these and it worked. It doesn’t sound as idiomatic to me.

{edit} I just noticed this is your first posting, Anello. Welcome!

Last edited: Jul 9, 2010

• #3

I’ll try to help.
1. The Reason of My Tears. This implies that the tears are capable of thinking. » The reason for my tears» is the ordinary phrase.
2. By reason of Insanity. Here «by reason of» can be followed by any noun or noun phrase that makes sense. «By reason of my…good looks, winning personality, secret knowledge, etc.
3. Here I prefer «the reason for the illness.»
4. Again, I would have chosen «the reason for» the depression.
Obviously, «of» was used in these and it worked. It doesn’t sound as idiomatic to me.

{edit} I just noticed this is your first posting, Anello. Welcome!

Thanks for your greeting and provided explanations. Frankly speaking, I still see no obvious reason for using this or that word/preposition. It looks like the matter of intuition. And your preferences are the same as mine.

• #4

I’ll try to help.
1. The Reason of My Tears. This implies that the tears are capable of thinking. » The reason for my tears» is the ordinary phrase.
2. By reason of Insanity. Here «by reason of» can be followed by any noun or noun phrase that makes sense. «By reason of my…good looks, winning personality, secret knowledge, etc.
3. Here I prefer «the reason for the illness.»
4. Again, I would have chosen «the reason for» the depression.
Obviously, «of» was used in these and it worked. It doesn’t sound as idiomatic to me.

{edit} I just noticed this is your first posting, Anello. Welcome!

Is it possible to say «the reason of yours/mine» instead of «your/my reason»? For example:
The reason of yours makes no sense (instead of «your reason makes no sense»)

Many thanks!

• #5

Agreed. Many of those reason of examples seem wrong to me.

• #6

Is it possible to say «the reason of yours/mine» instead of «your/my reason»? For example:
The reason of yours makes no sense (instead of «your reason makes no sense»)

No, that really doesn’t work, Edison.

• #7

No, that really doesn’t work, Edison.

How about using «the reason of you/Peter» for «your reason» and «Peter’s reason»?

• #8

Which one should be correct?

What is the reason for this problem?
What is the cause of this problem?