Talk:Reason/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Is consciousness a part of the definition of reason?

Hello. I have just reverted a good faith change to our opening sentence by User:Lonjers. I only did this so that we can be careful, and check before making this change. Changes like this can sometimes be overlooked for a long time. Here are the two edit summaries, to start discussion:

• Lonjers: Does not seemed to be in reference. Also not used at all or expained anywhere else in the article. Reason deos not requore conciousness. Conciousness is too ill defined anyway.
• Andrew Lancaster: can we take this to talk first to check sourcing? Consider: animals are logical in their actions, and show evidence of making decisions about beliefs too

And one more note: I think the reference on that sentence was probably added quite some time after the sentence was itself made. I have my doubts about the "any source is better than no source" approach sometimes seen on on Wikipedia, but it is widely accepted and even encouraged. Nevertheless, we should keep that in mind in judging whether this word really needed to be removed.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:41, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

After a first quick look around, take this as an example, and consider how the word reflection is critical to defining both practical and theoretical reason in this source.

• Practical reason is the general human capacity for resolving, through reflection, the question of what one is to do.
• the standpoint of theoretical reason [in contrast] is occupied when we engage in reasoning that is directed at the resolution of questions that are in some sense theoretical rather than practical;
• One possibility is to understand theoretical reflection as reasoning about questions of explanation and prediction.
• theoretical reflection is concerned with matters of fact and their explanation.

I would think that this importance of reflection is referring to what we mean with the word conscious. To remind what our lead sentence says:

• Reason is the capacity for consciously making sense of things, applying logic, for establishing and verifying facts, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:22, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Reflection and consciousness don't seem linked to me. Or at the very least they don't seem to have any demonstrated connection. Reflection can be achieved by incredibly basic inanimate objects. Viruses can self replicate for example which is essentially reflecting the ideas stored in their genes. Apologize ahead of time for my lack of mark up ability. Lonjers (talk) 17:45, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Two points to reply to:

• The connection between reflection and consciousness might not be obvious at first sight. Indeed I notice some sources seem to prefer "self consciousness" to get the point across, because consciousness has a wide range of meanings. At its broadest, consciousness can be be awake, which is clearly not right here. But reflective consciousness refers to doing something and knowing you are doing it at the same time. (My own attempt to explain.) Does this make sense?
• We need to distinguish between different meanings of "reason". To say that viruses have reason is not the normal meaning. To say that even any animals have reason is not universally accepted (but it does get said). Many sources say it is unique to humans. This particular article begins by trying to define the hard core that all expert sources would agree about, and then later it discusses more controversial uses of the word. This is practical, because it is very hard to say what "the reason of a dog" would mean unless you first know what it means for a human.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:26, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

If self consciousness is what is meant then the link should be to that article not to consciousness in general. And I still don't see any link or any evidence of a link to even that topic. There are humans that do not pass the mirror test or even recognize their own voice or name for example because of neurological disorders but some of them can clearly reason. I don't think virus's reason in the normal sense of the world. But they are obviously capable of reflection. Some very simple electronic circuits can achieve reflective consciousness but I don't think you would define that as being able to reason. It is trivial to write a computer program that achieves reflective consciousness and most large programs utilize this feature in some form. I am not an expert in the area but I think it is pretty clear that consciousness should not be the very first link on the page when topics like logic are much more central to reasoning. Especially because it is not referenced anywhere else in the article. Lonjers (talk) 23:45, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Ok going to remove it again. If Andrew or anyone else thinks there is more to discuss feel free to revert and restart the discussion. Apoligies if you just have not gotten a chance too look yet but I tend to lose track of things and I don't want to forget. Lonjers (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 07:34, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

I think this discussion is not yet over, so I am going to return the text for the time being, and reply as follows:

• Just inserting the word self-consciousness would not work in the context we are talking about. My proposal is that we try to find another word like perhaps "deliberate"?
• I think your comments about computers achieving reflective consciousness are not helpful, because such remarks depend upon give new definitions to the terms and these do not refer to the subject of this article, which is the more original and common meaning, and relates to the specific way that humans think. To say that animals or machines think with reason or consciousness or deliberation are comparisons to humans thinking which not everyone accepts, obviously.
• Concerning your remark about it not being in the source, note my comments above about how the source seems to me to have been inserted after the sentence was written. We can delete the source if that is a problem, because leads generally just reflect what is in the body of the article. I notice that words derived from "conscious" appear 8 times in our article body and "deliberate" 4 times, so maybe you should look at those.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:33, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Oh sorry. I think I figured out how to get alerts working so this should be easier for me now. Also going to try your mark up. If anything learning some stuff.

• I misunderstood what you meant about the source before. I like the idea of removing it.
• I like "deliberate" because it creates a distinction between random operation of logical rules like in say evolution and application towards a goal. Definitely much better than self-consciousness for my previously listed reasons. And better than reflexive consciousness. But I would need to think about that more/read some more first I am a little uncomfortable with the potential identification with free will.
• Conscious or some form of it is listed several times but surrounding context is used to make it clear they mean other things entirely."clear consciousness"(colloquialism),"conscious decision"(purposefulness),"self-consciously","conscious decision or plan"(deliberate),"requires a consciousness not only of what happened in the past"(knowledge).
• "awareness or consciousness" and "Other results are consciousness", Could potentially be what is meant by the first sentence but are not actually used in direct connection with reason. I think the first word in the article will be assumed to mean either awareness(a-consciousness) or qualia(p-consciousness). This is what the wikipedia article suggests is most popular and they make sense to me. These concepts are what is not really discussed in the article.
• I don't think a lot of these other uses of consciousness are great lines and being even more specific would be better. But I think they are generally ok and don't want to go change too much of other peoples work. Not really sure what the wikipedia standards are for that. A couple of them I would like to change though."requires a consciousness not only of what happened in the past" to knowledge for clarity. Get rid of"self-consciously". I actually don't have a problem with the sentence as a whole. Its just that learning is clearly possible without being able to do classic self consciousness tests.
• I will admit to bias here so its good to have a check on it. I am coming at this as a former computer/neuroscientist. Hence my interest. And in these fields the ability of animals and computers to achieve self-consciousness and reflection is now considered well demonstrated. Although perhaps we define them slightly differently than in other fields. Computer science has no real opinion on awareness but biology does for animals. Neither have any kind of consensus on qualia. Work in both fields though have clearly shown though that learning and knowledge creation/transfer is possible outside all but the most vague definitions of awareness. In some cases people can be taught how to do something but are completely unaware they have learned the skill at least as far as they can tell us. And computers can clearly learn and come up with novel solutions to problems. But I agree that reasoning seems to be more than pure logic and observation. I guess I would define it as doing logic and observation. My personal views are not what wikipedia is for of course. I just don't want the article to be misleading to some of the advancements we have made concerning the issue in science. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lonjers (talk • contribs) 11:40, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

First some practical stuff. I am glad to be helping you try some new things out. One thing you should remember to do is to sign your posts. See WP:SIGN. I have also taken the liberty of indenting your reply one more step, and this reply to you is one more step again. This is the normal way of formatting threads of discussion (although there are certainly variants around). Now to your replies:

• Well, let's not delete the source until we have a bit of a master plan. As you can now see, there are a few parts of the article which are potentially affected by this discussion, so let's work out what the big picture is first.
• "Deliberate". One reason it came to mind for me is the way this word is used in Ethics, such as Aristotles. Aristotle uses a Greek word proairesis, which means deliberate choice, using reason. Of course in ethics it is important to know whether someone did something on purpose or not. When animals kill people we do not accuse them or murder, in the same way as we would not accuse a person of murder just because they caused a death accidentally. As you point out, deliberate also fits with the context of at least a few of the uses of the word conscious on our article.
• One of the cases you mention in our article is actually talking about nous, not reason.
• Not sure "knowledge" is helpful in the case you mean. I think Aristotle's distinction between memory and recollection is concerning consciousness - really consciously trying to remember something.
• The article does go into computers and animals in the last parts, and I think there are specialist articles. I think there are various linked concepts and it is possible to talk our readers through them. But at the opposite extreme of your approach, I guess some authors might even say that reason is whatever it is which defines the special way humans think.
• Maybe an extra note about a traditional definition: reason is sometimes equated to language, or something internal which is prior to language. (Also, some authors like Thomas Hobbes, equated reason with "adding and subtracting", i.e. maths.) If you think about a person thinking with "language", it is always a kind of self-conscious or deliberate thinking.

I should apologize that I have not had much time on this so I am typing quickly and asserting things about "authors" without looking anything up for you.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:43, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

• 1. So first in reference to a master plan or big picture. In general I don't see a problem with making iterative improvements to articles. At least to me that is half the point of Wikipedia. There is the whole "Be bold" thing. "there are a few parts of the article which are potentially affected by this discussion" I agree however I think a major improvement could be made to the article merely by removing the intros first reference to consciousness and/or its reference to self-consciousness. These changes are related to the rest of the article but I don't think they would weaken any other part of the article.

• I think this would be a good idea because changes to the main article are much more visible than to the talk page and it would provide a chance for others to think about improvements to the rest of the article regarding these issues without being to unnssarily constrained by the intro. For example if there are changes you want to make to article in genral regarding this I think you should just make them. Later the more generic intro that I propose could be rechanged to something more specific if the issues are worked out better else where.

• I would be willing to make more extensive changes all at once though if you really think that is the right direction. But referencing all the changes we would need to make for a larger rewrite is going to be hard by quoting things in the talk page. So I am thinking if we want to go down that road we should make a branch of this article with the changes so it is easier to make modifications and show each other more exactly what we mean. I am not sure the best way to do this though. I could just make a new version on my personal talk page but maybe there is a better way.

• 2. With more thought and reading I am ready to replace the start reference and the other references to consciousness that seem to refer to deliberate with the word deliberate. There is a fair amount of debate in modern ethics over the importance of being deliberate. I also think you could make a decent argument that being deliberate is not required f\or reason. But wikipedia is not a place for original research. It is clearly better than a/p-type consiousness which the original article seems to be refering too both in the s\ence that the rest of the article supports it better and in the sense that it does not contradict other parts of science to the same extent. I still don't think it is perfect but wikipedia is not build on perfection.

• 3. Which case? Nous seems more specific and in general I support that.

• 4. Thinking about this one more I don't want to change it. I disagree with major parts of the "Reason, imagination, mimesis, and memory" section. For example "peculiarity in humans of voluntary initiation of a search through one's mental world" has been proven to be possible by animals experimentally.(at least to the same level of experimentation possible on humans). However these assertions are cited to individual historical philosophers of such importance that I don't think they should be removed or modified. In a larger rewrite or as a follow up to a smaller change I would instead choose to cite some other sources that provide counter points.

• 5. "But at the opposite extreme of your approach, I guess some authors might even say that reason is whatever it is which defines the special way humans think." even on this side the first two references to consciousness in the intro are incorrect. As it would be humanness not p/a type consciousness that would define reason.

• 6. Language does not require self-conscious or deliberate thinking. For the a simple example of this people can talk in their sleep. I agree a good approach in a larger rewrite would be to follow something more along the lines of the consciousness article. Making notes of all the different definitions of reason that are made by major figures and subject areas instead of trying to create a definitive definition in the intro. Lonjers (talk) 21:31, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

• Concerning being bold, there is a bit more conservatism generally regarding removal of materials, because it can be harder to keep track of. Consider WP:PRESERVE. One of the aims of having a discussion on the talk page is to give other editors a chance to mention any concerns (but then they might not all be watching closely).
• So I think it is less controversial to convert "conscious" to "deliberate"? And better to find new references first before deleting old ones?
• I also think some of the other points you are making could better be addressed by adding material than by deleting material?
• A typical practical issue on Wikipedia is that most of us work in short bursts, which is not perfect. This means it is safer to work in small steps in order to avoid getting stuck midway through some major rearrangement. Major rearrangements often require a bit of drafting discussion on the talk page first in order to create panic.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:56, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

• Ok so here is my plan. I plan on replacing conscious with deliberate. In both the intro and in other places where the references are essentially to deliberate not conscious. For the intro I will attempt to find a good citation for this to replace the current one. I think there are actually good ones for this already in the article. I will try to add not delete anything. I plan on adding some new cited material to the "Reason, imagination, mimesis, and memory" section. I also plan on doing some expansion of the neurosci and compsci sections with some references. I want to do a decent job so I think I will wait till I have more time on the weekend. Lonjers (talk) 05:52, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. I shall try to keep playing devil's advocate! :) --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:06, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

User:Lonjers, thinking about this discussion I am wondering whether your understanding of reason is covered by saying that you equate it with logic simply?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:37, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

I think reason is a rather ambiguous term. Reading the article as is clearly suggests reason means different things to different people. And that is ok with me. Lots of other wikipedia articles manage to deal with this ambiguity and remain useful to readers. However the intro to this article and a few other places in this article are too absolute and in places make scientifically misleading statements. I am willing to compromise to fix the worse offenders in this regard without making major changes. I plan on doing these edits tonight and tomorrow. Lonjers (talk) 01:30, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

One of the challenges we have as Wikipedians on this subject is in the sources which restrict us. Traditionally, "reason" is a well-established philosophical term which means something other than just logic or being logical, and indeed originally the same word was used for both language, explanation, and reason. Modern empirical science has started testing some ideas of philosophy, but researchers are not always well-versed in the nuances of the philosophical terminology, and even when they are, they are not often publishing "secondary" information which helps us "translate" from old to new. And philosophers with a good historical understanding are not often publishing about the science either. Empirical research, as published in WP:primary publications, tends to focus on testing quite specific things (do animals act logically, do they show signs of self-consciousness etc), and what we really need is WP:secondary commentary in order to help us compare these narrowly defined results to the bigger philosophical questions. I'll be interested to see what you can come up with.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:42, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Yea I agree this is a challenging subject. I decided to start slow here. My first big edit is basically to change the first sentence and the header to be less definitive and take in a wider variety of concepts surrounding reason. Something more along the model of the consciousness article. I plan on continuing to make more edits. If you think any of things in my list look wrong or you think additions need to be made go for it. My next few edits will being trying to replace the word conscious in other parts of the article with more specific words. I left the first reference in its other location for now along with what I think is a problematic reference to self consciousness. I think these are more ok to leave though because they don't make a definitive statement. Also still plan on expanding computation and neuro sections. Lonjers (talk) 02:40, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Well the edits you made now are quite big changes. I think for those types of changes of direction on a long stable article it is common practice to propose the changes here first, and potentially we should go looking for more people to get involved so that we do not make mistakes. Some general concerns about the approach, in terms of Wikipedia norms:

• Adding a lot of quotes and sources into the opening line is not normally considered a good style for WP. See MOS:LEDE and WP:NOTDICT. The aim should be to collect those quotes and sources for further down in the body, whereas the lead is the official summary of the body, written in the voice of Wikipedia. (So often the opening lines are the ones requiring the most talk page discussion.)
• Related to the first: there is a tendency on WP we should be careful of, that people try to fit all their favorite things into the first sentence, making the lead longer and longer, and making the first sentences unreadable while older material slips down the page. Eventually over years this becomes a disaster. It is better to review the whole lead as a whole every now and then.
• You continue to say (for example in your edit summary) you want to make this article less "human centric" but I would argue that the humancentric and philosophical meaning is the core definition of reason which should dominate this particular article. When scientists use the word reason to refer to things being logical, such as computers or animals [ADDED: or humans making sub-conscious but logical decisions, as per Aristotle's phronein], they are just using a philosophical term in an extended and fuzzy way (arguably wrongly). I think there are other articles about at least some of these extended meanings.

I shall post a note at WP:Philosophy to say the lead is being discussed here, and below is a summary of the revert I just did. Please in the meantime do not see this as being an edit "against" you. It is good to have a new editor working on this article, but you are proposing fairly major changes and this should be considered. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:37, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

• Yea I can see now how changing the intro matters quite a bit compared to what I thought before. I think it is a good idea to get some other people to look at this. I will wait on further changes until this hopefully happens.
• I see the point about not having the intro be a list of possibilities for many types of articles. But most of the article seems to be about the different concepts of reason already. Therefore a summery of the article is almost inevitably going to end up being similar. We could just choose a definition like in the original article. But I think this would be misleading/not neutral as it really does encompass many concepts in real world use. Another option would be to go for something very generic and then follow it up with more possibilities. This was my original intention when removing consciousness on the my first edit.
• I do want/(have a bias towards) making the article less "human centric". However this is not why I made my two removals of human. Note I actually added one(well that definition listed men specifically unfortunately). The reason I made the removals is that I don't think wikipedia articles should make definitive statements about things that are fairly ambiguous and are used in many different ways. Defining reason as having to involve humans or tangentially as having to involve p/q type consciousness as it does now seems like an overreach. I also don't think the article should define it merely as logic for the same reasons. I think all the major ways to address reason should be discussed in the article and mentioned in the intro.
• "just using a philosophical term in an extended and fuzzy way" I don't think this is true. Neuroscientists definitely and even computer scientists are arguing that these are exactly identical in animals and functionally identical in computers respectively. Of course we could just define reason as being only about humans. But this just does not match up with common usage or even how it is used in many parts of philosophy. The original definition does not even define it this way.(it says it is a "definitive characteristic of human nature" but this does not imply that it can't exist outside of humans) Again I think there is a significant amount of philosophical work that does use this definition. I just don't think it is our place to be deciding this definition. Lonjers (talk) 05:32, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Some ideas about how to write a lead under these circumstances:

• First question: is there really one concept called reason, or should we be writing several articles such as "Reason (philosophy)"? I think the answer is that our sources certainly seem to think they are all referring to the same concept. It just happens there is controversy about definitions.
• Second question: is it easy to define a common theme or core meaning, which we can put in the opening lines (in order to then define sub-versions such as what you are emphasizing, which is quite close in meaning to logic, but also other ones)? I have not had much time but looking around on google books yesterday I feel that there is. I think it is something like one capability which humans have of coming to logical conclusions. (But then we must emphasize that at least some classic treatments would find this incomplete. For example maybe we need to say indicate that it is possibly not the only way humans and other beings can come to a logical conclusion, but a specific one?)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:42, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Current version

Proposed change by Lonjers

Reason is the capacity for consciously making sense of things, applying logic, for establishing and verifying facts, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, mathematics, and art, and is normally considered to be a definitive characteristic of human nature. The concept of reason is sometimes referred to as rationality and sometimes as discursive reason, in opposition to intuitive reason.

Reason has been defined variously to include deliberate resolving through reflection, from Immanuel Kant synthesizing into unity concepts provided by the intellect, logic, nous, mimesis, man's tool of understanding, inquiry of the moral, aesthetic, or religious, and computation among other concepts. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, mathematics, and art, and is normally considered to be a definitive characteristic of human nature. The concept of reason is sometimes referred to as rationality and sometimes as discursive reason, in opposition to intuitive reason.

The monkey, the banana, and the stick.

Very briefly. A researcher ties a banana too high for the monkey to reach and gives the monkey a stick, to see if the monkey can reason that the stick can be used to knock down the banana. The monkey stands the stick upright, scampers up it, and grabs the banana before the stick falls over, thus (supposedly) outwitting the researcher by coming up with a cleverer solution. Rick Norwood (talk) 16:49, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and really most people call this type of behaviour "problem solving". Of course there is even tool use amongst apes and even one corvid in New Caledonia. Apparently Hume would even call such things reason. Problem solving involves, as per the definition of reason implied by Hume, long chains of thought about cause and effect (but not consciously AS causes and effects just as associated ideas, like smoke brings the idea of fire). But it does not require the symbolic thinking whereby two associated ideas are connected by a third one which has only a nominal value as a kind of aid to thinking, but which then also becomes language like and conscious. So in my mind even quite complex problem solving is not necessarily reason.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:26, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Where is the reason? In the monkey examples, the animal would visually imagine himself climbing the stick to reach the fruit or knocking the fruit with the stick. There is no reasoning. The monkey doesn't verbally think, "If I do this, then that will happen." It would form an image of itself and then imitate that picture of events.173.72.63.150 (talk) 23:37, 22 January 2014 (UTC)The Honourable Ronald Adair

Turlish

The Turkish word which fits best to reason is Akıl, not Gerekçe. Gerekçe means reason, but never reasoning. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.105.246.27 (talk) 05:17, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Deductive reasoning

In my opinion the example in the section "Deductive Reasoning" is not an example of a valid argument. The conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premises. The premise that rectangles have four sides does not warrant the conclusion that everything with four sides is a rectangle. 2.246.160.43 (talk) 16:27, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Good catch! I've changed it. In future, when you see mistakes I encourage you to make changes yourself. Thanks, Sunrise (talk) 16:41, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

April 2015

"Deduction is generally an inference by reasoning from the general to the specific." <-- from the section on deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning.

Quite simply, no, it isn't. Deductive reasoning has no essential relationship with generality OR particularity, and for that matter neither do the other two species. It's about *entailment* vs. *probability*, and that's *all* it's about.

I actually teach logic at College. If any myth about deductive vs. non-deductive logic needs to DIE, it's this one about "generality" and "particularity." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 153.42.50.149 (talk) 19:59, 15 April 2015‎

Welcome to Wikipedia! Please feel free to make changes yourself. I've removed the statement for now, since it wasn't cited. If anyone objects, they should post here. If they do, a link to a textbook or other academic work you're aware of that discusses the issue might be useful. Sunrise (talk) 19:31, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

The idea of deduction going from the general to the specific and induction from the specific to the general goes back to Aristotle. It is preserved in the difference between mathematics and science. The pattern in mathematics, set in place by Euclid, is Axiom, Definition, Theorem, Proof. You cannot deduce the truth of a theorem without axioms and definitions (and, in modern mathematical logic, a proof schema, e.g. If A is true, and A implies B, then B is true.) Since Axioms and definitions are general statements, deduction necessarily goes from the general. Since theorems are less general, requiring hypotheses as well as conclusions, they are more specific, though the applications of theorems to particular cases are more specific still. Maybe the sentence objected to should read "Deduction is reasoning from general axioms and definitions to less general theorems which only hold under certain hypotheses." Another property of deduction is that it is (or, at least, nobody has ever been able to show that it isn't) absolute ("entailment"?) while induction is falsifiable ("probability"?). Rick Norwood (talk) 11:57, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

In any case, and maybe this is what you are saying, the sentence seemed to contain something worth getting right. I think we should try to replace with something which allows for the tradition plus modern definitions. I do hope our new contributor can be dragged into the crazy world of Wikipedia!--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:16, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

An officially "reasonable" option?

Off topic per Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:48, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The United States National Institutes of Health says "acupuncture appears to be a reasonable option".[1] Here is some of the history[2]. Here is a discussion of the lead first paragraph for the acupuncture article.[[3] Please comment and contribute. [User:FloraWilde|FloraWilde]] (talk) 16:29, 26 June 2015 (UTC) Please stop forum shopping. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:26, 26 June 2015 (UTC) What is "forum shopping"? FloraWilde (talk) 16:29, 26 June 2015 (UTC) This is. The Talk:Reason page is for discussions relating to the article subject, not entirely unrelated matters. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:38, 26 June 2015 (UTC) And please don't edit your posts after they have been replied to. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:40, 26 June 2015 (UTC) Sorry, there was an edit conflict as I modified my comment at the same time you replied. I will be more careful. I posted here because the NIH use the word reason" in a way that editors of this article may be able to help explicate. If my edit here is not appropriate, please delete the part (or whole) of it that should not be here. FloraWilde (talk) 16:44, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Debates regarding reason

Some philosophers believe that the separation of rationality from irrationality is an illusion.

The following two dialogs between philosophers may serve as examples.

Dialog 1.

Philosopher A: Suppose a scientist is trying to solve a problem and follows a line of thought that is non-conformist. Is he being rational or irrational?

Philosopher B: Irrational.

Philosopher A: Not necessarily. Science can not advance without non-conformist thought. What if it turns out he's right and everyone else is wrong? History will then judge that he was rational. Copernicus' line of thought regarding heliocentrism is an example. Everyone around him at the time thought he was irrational regarding it. At that point in history, civilization's concept of rationality versus irrationality with regards to world view completely inverted. Entire bodies of knowledge were wrong -- not just one fact. In the future much of what we know is rational today, will be discovered to actually be irrational. Consensus can not be used as a reference for rationality.

---

Dialog 2.

Philosopher A: If I am imagining things, am I being rational?

Philosopher B: Nope.

Philosopher A: In order to consider theories he is famous for, Einstein imagined thought experiments of observers on moving trains, stationary observers, and of himself riding a beam of light. At that point in history, civilization's concept of rationality versus irrationality with regards to space and time were found to be incorrect. Entire bodies of knowledge were wrong -- not just one fact. In the future much of what we know is rational today, will be discovered to actually be irrational. Consensus can not be used as a reference for rationality.

-Nicholas Noh July 17, 2015 Nn9888 (talk) 12:12, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

"Analogical reasoning is incorrectly reasoning" is incorrectly reasoning

The subsection on analogical reasoning is one of the most ridiculous I have ever read on an article in Wikipedia, at least a reasonably evolved article like this one.

It seems that we are caught inside an incredibly tight perspective that sees only a tiny fallacy where a huge section of human thought should be contemplated. We have only to turn to the linked main article Analogical reasoning to see how preposterous this subsection here is...

I am not a philosopher, I fear my edits would be below the desired quality. But if anyone would go ahead and fix that, it would be analogous to a doctor curing a leper, thus allowing the person to be seen for who she is instead of being thought of as something repulsive due to her disease. Analogy is more than fallacies of analogy.

Callmepgr (talk) 12:47, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

V

A number of the subsections of this article have titles where reason versus something - emotion, truth, religion, and etc. I wonder if these are as accurate titles as can be found. When the titles are something like, "Reason's relation to truth," then the relationship is not confined to opposition. AmesJussellR (talk) 15:54, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

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Separate Reason and Reasoning

I think to article. All other language separated this 2 concepts in separated article. Do you agree? --Philogik (talk) 05:30, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Why? What will be different about the two articles?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:12, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Why indeed. Show us your reasoning! Such a change requires a much more substantial rationale. Biogeographist (talk) 14:29, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

@Philogik: You may be interested in looking at the page that disambiguates different senses of reason: Reason (disambiguation). It is the first sentence you see in this Reason article, the scope of which is clearly described: "this article is about the human faculty of reason and rationality". It links to other senses, other articles:

1. Rationality, "the quality or state of being reasonable, based on facts or reason" and
2. Reason (argument), "a factor which justifies or explains".

Or you may be interested in the articles Critical thinking &/or Informal logic. Maybe something else?

Hint: click the Category links at the bottom of each of the articles listed above to do some systematic browsing, e.g. Category:Reasoning and Category:Logic. I'm sure you'll find what you're thinking of already has a well developed article that is worth studying and improving if you can.

And after being registered for over 10 years, please consider adding at least a word or two to your User page. Click your red-linked user name above and edit to create a page, your very own: say nothing more if you wish than you love logik. It helps build credibility even in the absence of argument, unreasonable as that may seem. ;) -- Paulscrawl (talk) 03:56, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

meaning of the word reason

Is it posible that meaning of reason is not only ability but also something like mind and even intellect? I noticed that in some language like in my language try to copy English definition of reason and because of that we waste our divided of reason.

The reason, we can translate into two words. One is something like the ability, and the other is something like the equivalent of the mind. The second word suggests that reason can be something that creates thinking and can come from philosophy when people couldn't say what is the mind and they changed "mind" as the cause of thinking(reason).

Reasoning in our contry is something like process of thinking and it can be strongly connected with logic. Reasoning is a process consists in recognizing a given belief or sentence as true or valid under another belief or sentence considered to be true beforehand. I think it may be good idea to divided reason and reasoning and like as our language connected reasoning with logic ( deductive reasoning, Inductive reasoning etc.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.29.180.220 (talk) 18:32, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

I’m not happy with the first paragraph. It uses the words facts and information. These are references to real world, sensory knowledge. My understanding, by contrast, is that reason is simply about thinking, in the absence of real world information. I’m troubled and would be glad if someone with greater knowledge could sort this out, please. DouglasBell (talk) 14:41, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

I was wrong. Now I get it. Reason is about thinking and empirical knowledge. DouglasBell (talk) 14:35, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

I’ve studied this further. I’m not convinced that the term reason as defined here has anything to do with obtaining and using empirical evidence, facts. Instead I think it is about pure thinking. But the first sentence talks about facts. It refers to a paper I cannot access so I can’t chase up this information, regrettably. I’m inclined to change this first sentence and the reference. But I’m aware that this would be a major change. I’m puzzled as to why others haven’t helped out with a resolution of this point. DouglasBell (talk) 16:40, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Ok. I’ve waited a while. Now I’m going to edit the page. I’m going to remove the early mention of obtaining and verifying facts. I’ll leave the citation, which I cannot access, until such time as we can find something more helpful. I think this edit will clarify and improve the page. DouglasBell (talk) 13:56, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Reason and Rationality

The first paragraph ends:

Reason, or an aspect of it, is sometimes referred to as rationality.

There is no citation. It is vague - twice. I don’t think it meets Wikipedia standards. I think it needs attention. I can’t easily do it but surely there are people out there who can DouglasBell (talk) 16:08, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

As I understand things: Reason is a (systematic) approach to thinking. But rationality or rather rationalism is the belief that thinking is the best approach to obtaining valid knowledge. The former is a collection of methods or an approach ; the latter is an epistemological belief. Please can someone edit this sentence and add a citation. DouglasBell (talk) 20:09, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

I, for one, do not agree that reason or rationality are the same thing as 'rationalism'. Where is this supposed school of thought called 'rationalism' defined? By whom? The main exponents of reason or rationality in the seventeenth century, Descartes and Spinoza, certainly did not call their "systematic approach to thinking" (this would be a better description of their method, in my view) 'rationalism'. I am not aware of thinkers after them calling their method or system of thought 'rationalism' either. warshy ^(¥¥) 22:09, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

As a side note, rationalism and empiricism have often been contrasted as doctrinal ideal types. Search for rationalism + empiricism on Wikipedia to find examples of references to this distinction. The current second paragraph of Rationalism summarizes this distinction. Mario Bunge, for example, summarized an implication of the distinction thusly: "Now, when the object under study is an ideal object, such as a number system or a theory, reason is both necessary and sufficient. But when the object of interest is concrete (material), radical rationalism like Leibniz's, is unsuitable, for it amounts to apriorism, which is just as arbitrary as irrationalism." Bunge, Mario (2012). Evaluating philosophies. Boston studies in the philosophy of science. Vol. 295. New York: Springer-Verlag. p. 4. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-4408-0. ISBN 9789400744073. OCLC 806947226. Biogeographist (talk) 18:32, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

I think we are actually not in disagreement.

I think there are 3 related terms to define: Reason Rationality Rationalism

Wikipedia has a page for each. Wikipedia, I think, defines and explains and each one. I think it does it very well.

My quibble is the final sentence at the end of paragraph one on reason , which tries to relate reason to rationality. Which I think it tries to do, but badly. That’s what I’m seeking to fix. DouglasBell (talk) 22:36, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

OK. So the first two references in Rationalism could be a big help in starting you in your endeavor, I believe. warshy ^(¥¥) 22:48, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

"fundamentally and ultimately about being consistent in our thoughts"

The basis of rationality, the means by which it is recognised, is about consistency of argument. This should not be controversial as a point. LeapUK (talk) 12:35, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Your edit is indeed the kind of use of "our" that should be avoided per MOS:OUR. But also, consistency of thoughts is not by itself the hallmark of reason. People can be consistent in their thoughts without good reason. At least as important in reason is the metacognitive process of improving thinking, not merely keeping thoughts consistent. In other words, reason properly understood has to be able to improve itself, which requires more than consistency. This is implied in the first sentence in the words "adapting" and "based on new or existing information" (emphasis added). See, for example:

Reasoning, in turn, is epistemologically self-constrained thinking in which the application and coordination of inferences is guided by a metacognitive commitment to what are deemed to be justifiable inferential norms. The construction of rationality, in this view, involves increasing consciousness and control of logical and other inferences. This metacognitive conception of rationality begins with logic rather than ending with it, and allows for developmental progress without positing a state of maturity.

— Moshman, David (May 2004). "From inference to reasoning: the construction of rationality". Thinking & Reasoning. 10 (2): 221–239. doi:10.1080/13546780442000024. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Biogeographist (talk) 13:39, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

FWIW, in some social sciences, rationality, is something like logical consistency.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:48, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Right, and some philosophers may use the word "reason" in the same way. But since this is the first paragraph of the article on reason and reasoning, it should describe reason and reasoning in a maximally capacious way if possible (which does not mean imprecise), or if not possible, then adequately summarize the differences of view about it.

When broader historical and developmental trends are taken into account, it becomes clear why rationality cannot be simply assimilated to logicality. A system of formal logic already contains all of its valid theorems. Logical systems don't grow or become more powerful. Logical systems can't construct new logical systems more powerful than themselves. Yet the history of logic shows that human knowledge of logic and logical systems has developed (Bochenski 1970, Kneale and Kneale 1986) and that more and more powerful systems of logic have been discovered. If rationality simply means following the rules contained within a particular logical system, then the history of logic can't be rational!

— Bickhard, Mark H.; Campbell, Robert L. (July 1996). "Developmental aspects of expertise: rationality and generalization". Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence. 8 (3–4): 399–417. doi:10.1080/095281396147393. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Biogeographist (talk) 14:51, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

The very essence of rationality is that it is a consistent argument that flows without contradicting itself or the facts. The very essence of irrationality is that it is an inconsistent one that makes dislocated leaps.

Consistency is the foundational quality of reason, and inconsistency is the foundational quality of irrationality.

Why is this so hard to understand? LeapUK (talk) 16:58, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Consistency in itself cannot defined or measured. What determines the consistency of thought is the basic logic of the argument. So, the foundation of reason, in my view, is logic, not consistency, as I believe the other resposndents have also been pointing to. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 17:40, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

What warshy said is not exactly what I am pointing to. Let me try again. In my dictionary, consistent means "[1] (of a person, behavior, or process) unchanging in achievement or effect over a period of time: manufacturing processes require a consistent approach; [2] compatible or in agreement with something: the injuries are consistent with falling from a great height; [3] (of an argument or set of ideas) not containing any logical contradictions: a consistent explanation". First point: understanding reason as a process, it is not unchanging (see the articles cited above). Second point: with regard to compatibility or agreement, reason as a process can include incompatibility and disagreement as a step in the process. Third point: that an argument or set of ideas can be free of logical contradictions is an ideal that guides the process of reason, but it is not the process of reason itself (see the first two points). Here is a description from Nicholas Rescher about how consistency is an important part of, but not the whole of, reason, which also involves, e.g., the development of increasing systematicity, complexity, and comprehensiveness:

The exfoliative development of philosophical systems is driven by the quest for consistency. Once an apory is resolved through the decision to drop one or another member of the inconsistent family at issue, it is only sensible and prudent to try to salvage some part of what is sacrificed by introducing a distinction. Yet all too often inconsistency will break out once more within the revised family of propositions that issues from the needed readjustments. And then the entire process is carried back to its starting point. The overall course of development thus exhibits the overall cyclical structure depicted in Display 1. The unfolding of distinctions has important ramifications in philosophical inquiry. As new concepts crop up in the wake of distinctions, new questions arise regarding their bearing on the issues. In the course of securing answers to our old questions we open up further questions, questions that could not even be asked before. The historical course thus tracks an evolving process of apory resolution by means of distinctions. And this process of dialectical development imposes certain characteristic structural features upon the course of philosophical history: [1] Concept proliferation—ever more elaborate concept manifolds evolve. [2] Concept sophistication—ever more subtle and fine-drawn distinctions. [3] Doctrinal complexification—ever more extensively formulated theses and doctrines. [4] System elaboration—ever more elaborately articulated systems....

— Rescher, Nicholas (2007). "Philosophical dialectic". Dialectics: a classical approach to inquiry. Frankfurt; New Brunswick: Ontos Verlag. pp. 87–118 (99). ISBN 9783938793763. OCLC 185032382. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Reason is more than being consistent in our thoughts (with unreason being a lack of consistency) as your edit said. How could people engage in the process of reason if they did not sometimes contradict each other, or themselves? They could not. Biogeographist (talk) 17:53, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

I will still argue that the foundation of Reason (and Rationalism), as it was understood by the 17th and 18th century philosophers that bequeathed it to Western thinking (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Kant) is Logic. And beyond that, you would not need, to critique or develop Philosophy further, even today, anything else other than Ontology, Metaphysics, and Epistemology. At least, if I were trying to do that, that's where I would start. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 20:19, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

P.S.: Lest I unintentionally end up hurting some Anglo-Saxon sensibilities on the English WP, I guess I should add also Hobbes and Locke to my list of 17th century beginners of modern Rationalism. warshy ^(¥¥) 03:33, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

The problem with that argument is that it leaves out everything before and after the six thinkers you mentioned! An article on reason and reasoning in Hobbes, Descartes, Locke, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Kant would be interesting (if written well), but it's not this article. And limiting reason to Ontology, Metaphysics, and Epistemology leaves out much of practical reason (understood in today's general sense of the term, not the specifically Kantian sense), not to mention many other areas of inquiry. Biogeographist (talk) 20:36, 14 May 2020 (UTC) and 11:31, 15 May 2020 (UTC) and 13:02, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Categorization of this page

Elsewhere, Marcocapelle and Carneadesofcyrene have been discussing how this page should be categorized in the light of WP:CATDEFINING. But also keep in mind WP:CATSPECIFIC—pages are not placed in a parent category when they are placed in any subcategory. Biogeographist (talk) 14:10, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Need quotation to verify citation in first sentence

I tagged the citation in the first sentence with {{Request quotation}}. I don't have access to the full text of the cited source and I would like to verify that the source supports the first sentence. Can someone please read the source and provide a quotation from it that confirms that the source says essentially what the first sentence says? Just put the quotation in the quote parameter of the citation template with an exact page number, or remove the citation if it doesn't essentially say what the first sentence says. Thanks! Biogeographist (talk) 02:43, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

This was done by Carneadesofcyrene in this edit. Thanks, Biogeographist (talk) 14:12, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

No problem Biogeographist. Thanks for flagging that a quote was needed, I had access to the original cited source and it did not support the claim (though I had some tertiary sources that supported something pretty close). --Carneadesofcyrene (talk) 00:10, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Egocentric predicament

I notice that there is no discussion of the Egocentric predicament. Any reason why not? Anyone willing to include this matter? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.183.110.20 (talk) 04:44, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Do you care to make an argument for why it should be mentioned? It seems to be a name for external world skepticism, which is a kind of philosophical skepticism. There may be some way to add another sentence or two about skepticism to Reason § Reason versus truth, and "first principles". Biogeographist (talk) 03:40, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Consciousness not necessarily a prerequisite for reasoning, by all accounts

Some philosophers/scientists include pre-conscious associations as part of the reasoning process. It is not entirely a conscious function with that regard. 2601:882:101:1A0:FD82:A768:9B14:7BDE (talk) 21:01, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure which part of the article you are responding to, but the second paragraph makes a statement pretty similar to what you said: "Aristotle drew a distinction between logical discursive reasoning (reason proper), and intuitive reasoning, in which the reasoning process through intuition—however valid—may tend toward the personal and the subjectively opaque." Biogeographist (talk) 02:34, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

References

Psychologistic

This article needs a critical rewording, this is infested with psychologism. 109.245.32.142 (talk) 15:29, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Please cite examples for review.

Cheers, FJofre (talk) 10:01, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

And remember that we are living in the 21st century, not the 19th century. Anti-psychologism is passé now. For example:

What Popper, the Vienna Circle, and one of their intellectual ancestors, Frege, called the sin of 'psychologism' (see Abbagnano, 1967) is not considered sinful among contemporary metatheorists, and in some quarters is looked upon as a virtue. It goes without saying that the historian of science [...] cannot view an inquiry into the psychology of the scientist he is studying, or the psychological or sociological aspects of an episode involving a group of scientists, as methodologically forbidden. When we today contrast empirical metatheory or, more broadly, naturalized epistemology with the metatheory and epistemology of the logical positivists and their predecessors, we should not use terms like 'a priori' or 'armchair' to imply that the logical positivists, or the great British empiricists who contributed to their intellectual heritage, made no use of empirical generalizations about the human mind. Everyone knows that Locke, Berkeley, and Hume freely referred to facts about the human sense organs, mind, and society, but it is sometimes supposed that the logical positivists and others close to them (e.g., the Berlin School, Popper, or C. I. Lewis) did not do so. It must be admitted that the Vienna Circle and Americans influenced by them were not quite consistent in this matter, but it is obvious that anyone who talks about "intersubjective confirmability," "protocol sentences," "ostensive definition," even "directly observable," is invoking concepts that go beyond formal logic or the mathematical theory of probability. I recall resisting the amount of naturalized epistemology urged by our late Center director Grover Maxwell, saying that I would prefer to have my philosophy of science totally free of psychology, an aspiration which he quickly liquidated by the simple question, "Well, Meehl, tell me which principles of scientific methodology you can deduce from Russell and Whitehead?" One might think at least modus tollens is an example, but even that doesn't do, because, following Popper, we take it for granted that the falsifying consequent is an observational statement.

— Meehl, Paul E. (1990). Corroboration and verisimilitude: against Lakatos's 'sheer leap of faith' (PDF) (Technical report). Minneapolis: Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Minnesota. MCPS-90-01.

You're welcome, Biogeographist (talk) 01:57, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

You can pick any line.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.245.35.188 (talk) 12:42, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

As I said above, remember which century we're living in! Biogeographist (talk) 02:38, 14 February 2023 (UTC)