Effective Reasoning/Print version
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Everyone reasons. Humans are reasoning animals. Further, humans reason with words and symbols.
To reason is to use thought to come to some conclusion. Reasoning can be done alone or in groups.
Unfortunately, being human does not assure any of us that we will reason effectively. In other words, reasoning does not have to produce particularly useful results. Productive reasoning is both an art and a science.
I hope to present here information that will allow most to develop both the skill and the knowledge to reason effectively.
Particularly, I will be discussing informal reasoning. For a complete exposition of effective reasoning, see, also, the Wikibooks Introduction to Moral Reasoning, Formal Logic, and Systems of Logic.
Potential Outline
Effective Reasoning
Reason is what makes us human human! It is our USP (unique survival process)
Naturally, the human animal is weak, slow and lacking strong jaws or sharp claws. Yet somehow our species has come to dominate the world and everything in it, short of Mother Nature herself. How did this happen?
Evolutionary Philosophy
This is a controversial topic which proposes that, like our cousins, the great apes, we were once a forest dwelling species that abandoned or was excluded from "the Garden of Eden" and had to survive by eating grass and carrion, which somehow transmuted into wheat, rice and bread along with fishing animal hunting and herding.
The key to this transformation was (allegedly) the mastery of fire and weaponry, both of which are highly dangerous to a social species such as homo sapiens. Learning to make controllable fire and reliable tools requires high levels of communication, so emotional responses developed so that language and reason emerged.
To discover more on this, try first the work of the polymath Noam Chomsky, a professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) USA. He is a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, logician, historian, political critic, and publisher of some very controversial critiques of the modern world.
Formal reasoning
Formal reasoning is concerned only with the forms of arguments. Certain forms of arguments have been identified which are valid. In other words, if the original statements (or premises) in those arguments are true, then the conclusions must necessarily be true also. Therefore, the form:
All marbles are red. All red things are bright. Therefore, all marbles are bright.
is a valid form.
The truth of the first two statements is not of interest. But, assuming that they are true, the last statement must necessarily be true.
Formal reasoning is deductive in nature. In other words, as said above, the conclusion of a valid formal argument follows necessarily from the premises. Notice that deductive reasoning produces no new information. It simply rearranges what is already known into a new statement of the same information.
Notice also that deductive or formal reasoning does not require any reference to external reality. It can be completely divorced from external reality. Therefore:
All unicorns are white. All white things are virtuous. Therefore, all unicorns are virtuous.
is a perfectly good and valid deductive argument.
Formal reasoning is addressed in other Wikibooks - Formal Logic, and Systems of Logic.
Informal Reasoning
Informal reasoning includes formal reasoning but it also is concerned with all the other elements of reasoning. It addresses the probability of truth of premises and conclusions. Informal reasoning is common, every-day reasoning.
Truth
Truth seems obvious enough - we learn to tell the truth at an early age. Unfortunately, one of the features of language is it enables us to imagine future scenarios which are fanciful (which is what fiction writers do). In short it enables us to be untruthful to ourselves as well as others.
Emotionally, we react to situations. Emotions are primitive, quick and dirty survival tools - the sort of thing that makes one jump away from a flame or lash out at an attacker. We could not survive without such tactical tools.
We humans can - uniquely, and because of language - make up stories about what might happen if we did this or that, and so predict the effect of our actions. These are the long-term strategic tools that have made mankind master of the earth.
Our reports and predictions fall along a scale: they may be entirely true, partly true, false or disastrous. Reason draws us to the positive end of this scale. thoughtless blind obedience, stupidity and madness lead to errors, some of which may literally be fatal errors. Effective reasoning is our only hope of survival today and tomorrow (just as it has been for some three million years or whenever it was that our species first emerged)
Leadership
Individuals who get these stories of the future approximately right (reasonable models, accurate projections), and can marshal available resources become leaders. Those who get it radically wrong are considered mad or insane. Most of us are sometimes leaders and sometimes followers - but this is a recent innovation.
For much of human history human society has been hierarchical: people were raised from infancy to believe that they belonged to an immutable social group such as 'royalty' nobility' or 'serfdom' The Hindu caste system is perhaps the most structured, but it happened (and still happens) everywhere. Director, manager or employee; pope, cardinal or priest; Officer, NCO or private soldier, and so on.
Thinking allowed
The reformation, the enlightenment and above all the twentieth century wars in Europe came about through reason. Better educated people talking together, writing treatises and printing books broke the shackles of the old order.
The age of reason is accelerating through radio, television, the Internet and mobile phone technologies. It is not important that most of the material is simply entertaining, what matters is that it gives us food for thought. We can use these toys to imagine new products, services, social orders. If human imagination is reasonable, we humans should enjoy happy and fulfilled lives. If not, then crisis, recession and chaos might ensue, so that even medieval lunatic asylums might start to look like attractive places to live!
Informal reasoning is intuitive and not reliant on logical thought or debate within a a formal process developed by philosophers such as Confucius, who promoted debate within families and communities in China, Plato, who evolved logical debate between scholars in Greece or Avicenna, who developed these ideas during the Islamic Golden period, from which developed the study of modes of reasoning which might 'prove' or 'disprove' contentious proposals. However, perhaps because of the word informal in the title, the precise definition of informal logic and reasoning is a matter of some dispute!
Most formal methods are deductive' which means taking an ideas apart and analyzing the integrity of its components.
The alternative is inductive reasoning which means searching for reliable related facts that might support or destroy the proposal.
Reasoning is however much more complicated than a collection of logical proposals. Essentially it is problem solving. Inventing new ways of thinking by both analysis of the problem and synthesis of the solution.
Problem Solving
One way to do this is to analyze all the givens and the wanteds to evolve a process. For example, if one is hungry, then one might reasonably search the memory for all edibles and their probable location, or one could search the locality and list everything - eatable or not. Most of us would use a bit of both, by collecting a larder or store and organizing its contents precisely to avoid being hungry in the future.
The Reason WHY?
Informal reasoning starts at an early age, 'on Mama's knee' or 'sitting with Nelly'. A wag once said that we humans inherit sanity from our children constantly demanding to know asking "Why?", "Why?", "WHY?". Another suggested we should be careful with wishes in case we got what we wanted.
The Dispute
Informal reasoning is disputed because, for some, the term does not exclude formal processes, it simply allows intuition, taste and interpretation that goes beyond the 'clinical' logic and the 'habitual' truth.
For example, it is widely held that it is possible to travel too fast in a vehicle, because of the risk of injury or death.
In fact no-one has yet died from speed. What kills people is the rapid deceleration and sudden stop against an immovable obstacle or the arrival of potential energy that becomes kinetic that kills and maims people.
Informal reasoning says - go slowly, leave space, avoid excessive braking, try to predict what those other idiots are doing.... simply because, in accidents, many different vectors are significant, and we rely on previous experience. As Bismark noticed, we don't have time to make every mistake for ourselves - we learn from others: The famous Nelly, mentioned above, our teachers, our friends, our reading.
Its the economy, stupid!
Once you realize that everything is complicated, and getting more so every day, you also realize that these formal thinking tools have their limits. Philosophers, theologians and business gurus do indeed discover bits of useful 'truths', but really, they have as much effect on human reasoning as do meteorologists on the weather. That is to say, they report rather than control the process of thoughtful reasoning.
We all absorb culture form our families and societies: paternalism versus participation at home, control versus guidance at school, religion versus socialism in our society and so on. But we also have male and female traits, and even our brain in two parts. It is not an absolute truth, but in general, men are better at spatial and functional relationships (maybe because they once had to form teams to hunt woolly mammoths). Women, however excel at verbal skills (probably because they had to stop the men from killing each other - who knows?)
Informal reasoning therefore somewhat colored by the gender, religion and profession of the thinker. But its purpose is not simply to solve problems, it is to rethink 'common sense' and 'reason' and to share those new thoughts by what might perhaps be called 'entrepreneurial skills'.
Stuff and Junk
As EF Shumaker remarked in his treatise 'Small is beautiful' much of what we do is create 'stuff'. Products, services, beliefs, fears or hopes, all of which are saleable, and most of which are 'junk' - things to throw away, such as the information leaflet in every packet of medicine, or the plastic bags we buy in order to throw away rubbish (which, today, is mostly the pretty packaging).
These unnecessary products and services have always been with us, and are part of our rich human heritage. Without a bored shepherd playing with a reed, maybe we would not have the music of woodwind and brass. It was informal reasoning that made the production of food and shelter a minor concern that ceased to consume all the available 'human resources'.
Thinking is what makes us human. To err is human - maybe to reason is divine? It has been proposed that our intelligence is a survival strategy, our 'unique selling point' in which formal logic has its place alongside education, culture and experience. That language - the medium of thinking - emerged from early tool-making. But the most important tool we ever made is reasoning - thinking things through, however imperfectly me may do that.
Effective Reasoning/Forms of Informal Reasoning
- Critique/Analysis
- Argumentation
- Problem Solving/Decision Making
- Analogical Reasoning
- Causality and Correlation
- Scientific Reasoning
- Probabilistic Reasoning
- Aesthetic Reasoning
- Moral Reasoning
Need for Reasoning
- Organizing Information (Deduction)
- Solution of Problems
- Resolution of Controversies
- Discovery of Truth
Elements of Reasoning
Effective Reasoning/Assumptions and Conclusions
Deduction and induction are two different methods of reasoning.
- Deduction uses logical assumptions to reach a logical conclusion. It involves reasoning from one or more statements (premises) to reach a logical conclusion. In deductive logic, inference leads from a set of premises to a conclusion just as certain as the premises. If the premises are true, the conclusion cannot be false.
- Induction uses observations to justify a conclusion. In other words, inductive reasoning is drawing conclusions by going from specific to general. While deductive reasoning goes from general information to specific conclusion.
Inductive reasoning
Simple Definition: using observations to form a general conclusion.
| Example #1 | 1) I see white swans on my walk every morning.
2) My friends say they've only seen white swans. 3) Therefore, all swans are white. |
| Example #2 | 1) Every time I have seen the sun rise, it has been in the east.
2) I have observed this pattern for several years. 3) Therefore, the sun always rises in the east. |
| Example #3 | 1) I drink coffee every morning.
2) Caffeine is addictive. 3) Coffee contains caffeine. 4) Therefore, I'm addicted to caffeine. |
Problems with Inductive Reasoning
Uses of Inductive Reasoning
Deductive reasoning
Simple Definition: using logical premises to reach a logical conclusion.
If p represents all the premises, and q represents the conclusion then . In other words, if all the premises are true, then the conclusion must also be true.
Effective Reasoning/Truth and Falsity
Effective Reasoning/Validation, Fallacy, Reliability
Language
Effective Reasoning/Verbal and Nonverbal Reasoning
Effective Reasoning/Semantics and Syntax
Effective Reasoning/Functions of Language and Forms of Discourse
Effective Reasoning/Agreement and Disagreement
Effective Reasoning/Information, Concept, Reality, Virtual Reality
Effective Reasoning/Fact and Opinion
Effective Reasoning/Subjective and Objective
Sources of Appeal
Effective Reasoning/Empiricism
Effective Reasoning/Origin and Agreement
Effective Reasoning/Circumstance
Effective Reasoning/Relationship and Relevancy
Definition and Focus
Effective Reasoning/Definition and Problem Solving
Effective Reasoning/Definition and Discourse
Effective Reasoning/Kinds of Definition
Deduction
Effective Reasoning/Proof, Support, Evidence, and Warrant
Effective Reasoning/Forms of Deduction
Inductive Reasoning
Effective Reasoning/Analogical Reasoning
Effective Reasoning/Causal Connection
Effective Reasoning/Mill's Methods
Effective Reasoning/The Scientific Method
Effective Reasoning/Experimentation and Ad Hoc Hypothesis
Effective Reasoning/Sociological/Anthropological Methods
Effective Reasoning/Probability
Effective Reasoning/Probabilistic Method
Effective Reasoning/Expected Value
Effective Reasoning/Intuition and Reasoning
Argumentation
Literary Criticism
Aesthetic Criticism
Moral Reasoning
Apologetics and Religious Criticism
Informal and Formal Reasoning
Formal reasoning is concerned only with the forms of arguments. Certain forms of arguments have been identified which are valid. In other words, if the original statements (or premises) in those arguments are true, then the conclusions must necessarily be true also. Therefore, the form:
All marbles are red. All red things are bright. Therefore, all marbles are bright.
is a valid form.
The truth of the first two statements is not of interest. But, assuming that they are true, the last statement must necessarily be true.
Formal reasoning is deductive in nature. In other words, as said above, the conclusion of a valid formal argument follows necessarily from the premises. Notice that deductive reasoning produces no new information. It simply rearranges what is already known into a new statement of the same information.
Notice also that deductive or formal reasoning does not require any reference to external reality. It can be completely divorced from external reality. Therefore:
All unicorns are white. All white things are virtuous. Therefore, all unicorns are virtuous.
is a perfectly good and valid deductive argument.
Formal reasoning is addressed in other Wikibooks - "Formal Logic", and "Systems of Logic".
Informal reasoning includes formal reasoning but it also is concerned with all the other elements of reasoning. It addresses the probability of truth of premises and conclusions. Informal reasoning is common, every-day reasoning.
License
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As of July 15, 2009 Wikibooks has moved to a dual-licensing system that supersedes the previous GFDL only licensing. In short, this means that text licensed under the GFDL only can no longer be imported to Wikibooks, retroactive to 1 November 2008. Additionally, Wikibooks text might or might not now be exportable under the GFDL depending on whether or not any content was added and not removed since July 15. |
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An MMC is "eligible for relicensing" if it is licensed under this License, and if all works that were first published under this License somewhere other than this MMC, and subsequently incorporated in whole or in part into the MMC, (1) had no cover texts or invariant sections, and (2) were thus incorporated prior to November 1, 2008.
The operator of an MMC Site may republish an MMC contained in the site under CC-BY-SA on the same site at any time before August 1, 2009, provided the MMC is eligible for relicensing.
How to use this License for your documents
To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of the License in the document and put the following copyright and license notices just after the title page:
- Copyright (c) YEAR YOUR NAME.
- Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
- under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3
- or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
- with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
- A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU
- Free Documentation License".
If you have Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts and Back-Cover Texts, replace the "with...Texts." line with this:
- with the Invariant Sections being LIST THEIR TITLES, with the
- Front-Cover Texts being LIST, and with the Back-Cover Texts being LIST.
If you have Invariant Sections without Cover Texts, or some other combination of the three, merge those two alternatives to suit the situation.
If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we recommend releasing these examples in parallel under your choice of free software license, such as the GNU General Public License, to permit their use in free software.