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Reason is the capacity of applying logic consciously by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth.[1] It is associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, religion, science, language, mathematics, and art, and is normally considered to be a distinguishing ability possessed by humans.[2][3] Reason is sometimes referred to as rationality.[4]
Reasoning involves using more-or-less rational processes of thinking and cognition to extrapolate from one's existing knowledge to generate new knowledge, 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 and true conclusions.[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]: VI.7 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 the significance of sensory information from their environments, or conceptualize abstract dichotomies such as cause and effect, truth and falsehood, or good and 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 that either explains or justifies events, phenomena, or behavior.[8] Reasons justify decisions, reasons support explanations of natural phenomena, and reasons can be given to explain the actions (conduct) of individuals.
The words are connected in this way: Using reason, or reasoning, means providing good 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.
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- Proudfoot, Michael (2010). The Routledge dictionary of philosophy. A. R. Lacey (4th ed.). London: Routledge. p. 341. ISBN 978-0203428467. OCLC 503050369.
Reason: A general faculty common to all or nearly all humans... this faculty has seemed to be of two sorts, a faculty of intuition by which one 'sees' truths or abstract things ('essences' or universals, etc.), and a faculty of reasoning, i.e. passing from premises to a conclusion (discursive reason). The verb 'reason' is confined to this latter sense, which is now anyway the commonest for the noun too
- Rescher, Nicholas (2005). The Oxford companion to philosophy. Ted Honderich (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 791. ISBN 978-0191532658. OCLC 62563098.
reason. The general human 'faculty' or capacity for truth-seeking and problem solving
- Proudfoot, Michael (2010). The Routledge dictionary of philosophy. A. R. Lacey (4th ed.). London: Routledge. p. 341. ISBN 978-0203428467. OCLC 503050369.
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- Mercier, Hugo; Sperber, Dan (2017). The Enigma of Reason. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-0674368309. OCLC 959650235.
Enhanced with reason, cognition can secure better knowledge in all domains and adjust action to novel and ambitious goals, or so the story goes.... Understanding why only a few species have echolocation is easy. Understanding why only humans have reason is much more challenging.
- Compare: MacIntyre, Alasdair (1999). Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues. The Paul Carus Lectures. Vol. 20. Open Court Publishing. ISBN 978-0812693973. OCLC 40632451. Retrieved 2014-12-01.
[T]he exercise of independent practical reasoning is one essential constituent to full human flourishing. It is not—as I have already insisted—that one cannot flourish at all, if unable to reason. Nonetheless not to be able to reason soundly at the level of practice is a grave disability.
- Mercier, Hugo; Sperber, Dan (2017). The Enigma of Reason. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-0674368309. OCLC 959650235.
- ^ Swindal, James. "Faith: Historical Perspectives". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Duquesne University. Retrieved December 18, 2023.
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- Amoretti, Maria Cristina; Vassallo, Nicla, eds. (2013). Reason and Rationality. Philosophische Analyse / Philosophical Analysis. Vol. 48. Berlin: De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110325867. ISBN 978-3868381634. OCLC 807032616.
- Audi, Robert (2001). The Architecture of Reason: The Structure and Substance of Rationality. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195158427.001.0001. ISBN 0195141121. OCLC 44046914.
- Eze, Emmanuel Chukwudi (2008). On Reason: Rationality in a World of Cultural Conflict and Racism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. doi:10.1215/9780822388777. ISBN 978-0822341789. OCLC 180989486.
- Rescher, Nicholas (1988). Rationality: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Nature and the Rationale of Reason. Clarendon Library of Logic and Philosophy. Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198244355. OCLC 17954516.
- ^ Hintikka, J. "Philosophy of logic". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
- ^ Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics.
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- Foucault, Michel (2003). "What is Enlightenment?". In Rabinow, Paul; Rose, Nikolas (eds.). The Essential Foucault. New York: The New Press. pp. 43–57.
- Kompridis, Nikolas (2000). "So We Need Something Else for Reason to Mean". International Journal of Philosophical Studies. 8 (3). Informa UK Limited: 271–295. doi:10.1080/096725500750039282. ISSN 0967-2559. S2CID 171038942.
- Kompridis, Nikolas (2006). "The Idea of a New Beginning: A Romantic Source of Normativity and Freedom". Philosophical Romanticism. New York: Routledge. pp. 32–59.
- ^ "reason". Merriam-Webster Dictionary. 10 September 2023.
- ^ Rachels, James (2002). The Elements of Moral Philosophy (4th ed.). McGraw Hill.[page needed]