Talk:Reasoning

Shadowboxing

That page claims that reasoning must be either deduction or induction, which I think is unjustifiable.

since there is already a page dedicated to logical reasoning which actually divides up reasoning into the three classical ways in/de/abductive this is clearly a good candidate for a disambiguation page with links to both objective/logical r. and subjective r.. comments? -- Kku 22:31, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Would anyone write please something about the psychological/logical meaning of Shadowboxing? (Refuting something which sounds like the other has said but is not actually that.) -- Adam78 22:44, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Lotta pages talking about the same things

Maybe some merging would be in order ? We have :

• Reasoning
• Logical reasoning
• Deductive reasoning
• Inductive reasoning
• Abductive reasoning
• Defeasible reasoning
• Retroductive reasoning (a redirect)
• Dialectical reasoning (also a redirect)

How do all those ideas interrelate ? Is defeasilble reasoning the same as abductive reasoning, or as retroductive reasoning ? If not, how can we make the differences clearer ? Flammifer 18:17, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

I just added a bit to the Reasoning article, creating some consistency between Reasoning and Reason. I'd like to expand on, and go into more detail, the idea of reasoning as a creative function of the soul. As for merging, my suggestion is... Reasoning is fine Logical reasoning should be merged into reasoning, what little it adds could easily be incorporated into the Reasoning article; But a link to reasoning should be added to the Logic article. Inductive reasoning is named Induction, and is a nice expansion on the reasoning article and should be left as it is. Perhaps the other methods should be similarly renamed. Daffdaemon 2/20/2006

To the above list, add (at least)

Common sense

Conventional wisdom

Knowledge

Epistemology

Meta-epistemology

dealing with the same topic(s) -knowledge Newbyguesses 22:21, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Metaphysical explanation of human reasoning included.

That's all pretty much better than nothing. In reality there are only three areas of reasoning which match the three existing human reasoning capabilities:

• Logical Reasoning
• non-Logical Reasoning (languages, feelings and so on)
• Mathematical Reasoning

"Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone. ... Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Albert Einstein

reasoning is the understanding of one bound and forces.

---

• • Three things you should know about this post. One is that you did not sign it, do so for all future posts, please. See, you could have posted this today or maybe months ago, but I have no way of knowing because you didn't sign it.

The next thing is this random Einstein quote. What relevance does anything pertaining to Einstein hold to a discussion of reasoning? I'm not familiar of the exact context of that quote of yours, and the context of it is not provided (Which, ironically, is a fallacy in and of itself--to provide a quote without providing context is to provide a positive claim on conjecture. Pure conjecture, at that. That is, pure conjecture, as in, expecting the reader to just assume that the context allows the quote to hold relevance without any evidence at all to suggest that.

One explanation (And the one I'd wager on) is that it is a non-sequitur based on Einstein's fame. The non-sequitur being the premise, "Einstein is a smart guy and smart guys make correct statements," and the consequent being "This statement is made by Einstein, and is, therefore, correct." Does not follow. This does not follow. Non-sequitur.

Let's review. Two things that you should know about this post, and should remember to take into account in the future, include... -Sign your posts. -Do not try to use fallacies as arguments, especially not when you're trying to make a claim about reasoning itself. Unless you're trying to be ironic... If that's the case, then you should make the deliberate nature of the irony more apparent, and also keep in mind that although absurdism does not carry the negative connotation that a fallacy does, it still doesn't carry a point.

So, what's the third thing we need to learn from this post? Simple. Don't make positive claims of "fact" when what you're discussing is abstract scientific theory, an abstract concept of philosophy, or, as it is in this case, both.

One last thing of note--your actual post was just... It was just this side of unreadable. I sympathise with you if you're not a native speaker of English, as it is my third language and it took me years of practise to attain fluency. I tried to figure out your meaning and revised it, to make your post easier to understand. If I was mistaken in any of those revisions, then I apologise. 162.40.241.39 15:55, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Categories

It's not a branch of philosophy. However, it should be under logic. There is a group whose purpose in life is to pare the logic project to nothing. They have removed dozens of articles out from under logic. That's why it's not there. Gregbard 23:38, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Introduction

The introduction claims that all reasoning is used to support already existing beliefs, etc. I am less cynical. I think that at least sometimes, we reason in order to discover the truth, rather than only to justify what we already believe. I'm going to change the intro accordingly, and see what happens. Rick Norwood 20:46, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I disagreed with your change to the intro and reverted it, but I do see your point. The sentence is ambiguous. Something can 'support' another thing by providing reasons for it, rather than being an after the fact attempt to back your position up, and both senses of 'support' were supposed ot be operating here. I will have another go at fixing it. Let me know what you think.

P.S. Thank you for motivating me to stick some Aristotle into the article. I should definitely not be reading the Prior Analytics at them moment, but what fun! Anarchia 22:58, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

abduction induction deduction table

maybe such a table would be good to show the differences at one look

determinations of reasoning

	Abduction	Induction	Deduction
Input(Reason)	?	given	given
Rules	given	?	given
Result	given	given	?
? = the data to be determined
given = the data that is given

i myself had trouble understanding the differences between abduction and induction since both deal with the unknown and many variables

it would have had come handy in class

Animal reasoning

I removed the following statement from the opening paragraph:

Although reasoning was once thought to be a uniquely human capability, other animals also engage in reasoning.

My reasons for this excision are:

• The statement reads as being quite definite, yet the paragraph in the linked Wikipedia article is far from conclusive.
• The majority of the discussion in the linked WP article is unreferenced. The only reference given is of research that speculated there might be "casual reasoning" in crows.
• There is no discussion of animal reasoning anywhere else in the article, as would normally be expected from a statement made in the opening paragraph.

I searched for evidence sufficient to justify its inclusion but thus far came up empty handed. Hence I think it should be excluded until a stronger case can be made for its inclusion.Manning (talk) 03:14, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Misuse of sources

Jagged 85 (talk · contribs) is one of the main contributors to Wikipedia (over 67,000 edits; he's ranked 198 in the number of edits), and practically all of his edits have to do with Islamic science, technology and philosophy. This editor has persistently misused sources here over several years. This editor's contributions are always well provided with citations, but examination of these sources often reveals either a blatant misrepresentation of those sources or a selective interpretation, going beyond any reasonable interpretation of the authors' intent. Please see: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85. I searched the page history, and found one edit by Jagged 85 in February 2008. Tobby72 (talk) 17:59, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Crap

I think this is crap. Come and have a look at my comments:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Genezistan

Genezistan (talk) 10:02, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Why not put your comment here rather than on your talk page. pgr94 (talk) 11:08, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I do not want to take up much space from here and also, my points are general, not limited to this entry in the lexicon. My criticism concerns the whole method of presenting "knowledge".Genezistan (talk) 12:02, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

If you have suggestions to improve this article, please go ahead and discuss. If not, this is not the right place. Please see WP:FORUM. pgr94 (talk) 12:13, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

You mean this?

Discussion forums. Please try to stay on the task of creating an encyclopedia. You can chat with people about Wikipedia-related topics on their user talk pages, and should resolve problems with articles on the relevant talk pages, but please do not take discussion into articles. In addition, bear in mind that talk pages exist for the purpose of discussing how to improve articles; they are not mere general discussion pages about the subject of the article, nor are they a helpdesk for obtaining instructions or technical assistance. If you wish to ask a specific question on a topic, Wikipedia has a Reference desk, and questions should be asked there rather than on talk pages. Wikipedians who wish to hold casual discussions with fellow Wikipedians can use the IRC channels, such as #wikipedia. Note that this is an IRC channel, not a message board. There are also a number of early-stage projects that attempt to use a wiki for discussion and debate. Material unsuitable for talk pages may be subject to removal per the talk page guidelines

Where did I break the rule? Genezistan (talk) 15:19, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

computer reasoning

This article is either way out of date, playing dumb or ignorant of the state computer reasoning has reached. 96.252.218.253 (talk) 09:58, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Why does this article exist?

This article nominally covers the same subject as Reason. Just adding an "-ing" does not change that fact. To the extent that there is any superior and worthwhile material in this article then I think as per WP:CFORK we should consider integrating those bits into the other article. Although this present article seems rather big and to cover lots of different things than Reason, but on closer inspection a lot of it is quite questionable in terms of notability, and appropriateness for an encyclopedia. See WP:NOTE and WP:NOT. What do others think?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:07, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Could you give concrete examples of what you think is not notable rather than a sweeping statement. Much of it seems notable to me although I am not familiar with the history of reasoning so I can't judge that section. pgr94 (talk) 20:40, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

First of all please do not ignore the other part of the problem which is that this article is a content fork covering the same subject as Reason. Can you comment on that?

Just some examples of the weakness of the material here:-

• Opening definition says that reasoning is a type of "looking for" a whole bunch of things including feelings. Not orthodox?
• Next sentence: "Different forms of such reflection on reasoning occur in different fields". Un-sourced and meaning not clear, but it certainly seems wrong. It seems to be saying that when a physchologist reasons his or her reasoning is different from the reasoning of an economist? Also not clear WHY this sentence is here.
• Next sentence: "In philosophy, the study of reasoning typically focuses on what makes reasoning efficient or inefficient, appropriate or inappropriate, good or bad." This is un-sourced and incorrect. It sounds more like what logic is about.
• "The properties of logic which may be used to reason are studied in mathematical logic." Have a look at the article mathematical logic and you'll see this is wrong.
• Most of the subject headings are basically OR and/or not notable. It seems like all that has been done is to put different adjectives on "reason" and call those distinct matters for discussion, but they are not. Lawyers and Babylonians all reason in the same way. There are no such fields of study known as "Babylonian reasoning", "Lawyer reasoning" etc. Just mentioning some examples of, say, Chinese people reasoning, does not make "Chinese reasoning" a subject.
• To the extent that the article tries to discuss some historical examples of the study of reason. This might be useful material that can be added to reason?

Does the above help explain?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:54, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't agree that reasoning is essentially a human faculty, which the reason article claims (For other types of reasoning see for example Animal cognition#Reasoning and problem solving and automated reasoning). The reason article does not cover these topics at all and may be better named human reasoning. Perhaps that's why this article appears odd to you. pgr94 (talk) 22:08, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I would support a merge provided that there is a minimal loss of good content. Also, I would support renaming the category of the same name. I don't see any need to differentiate between human and non-human reasoning in different articles.Greg Bard (talk) 22:50, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Greg and Pgr, I agree that the current Reason article does not do much concerning non human reasoning, for example the use of the word with regards to computers. I am not sure that there is much to say about the subject but if there is why could it not either be merged to Reason or put into a new article? Secondly though, what else is there, if anything, in this article which is worth saving? Obviously the principle of not wanting to loose any good material is reasonable, but see my notes above.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:54, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Andrew, I'm in favour of a merge if it avoids redundancy, but at present the reason article is 1) centred on human reasoning and 2) lacks much information to the point where I have a preference for this article (reasoning) as a starting point (that's not to say that it doesn't have its flaws). Another article that is closely related is inference. Some might say reasoning and inference are synonyms. Do all these articles, (reason, reasoning, inference) cover the some topic?

Perhaps a good start would be an agreement on a definition. Once editors of each article share the same definition, larger changes are less likely to cause problems.

pgr94 (talk) 09:02, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Also, different disciplines have studied reasoning (mathematicians, computer scientists, psychologists, zoologists, philosophers) and I think the article should reflect that. As editors we should reflect current knowledge, not try to synthesize it (WP:SYN). pgr94 (talk) 09:02, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm:-

• 1. Reason is indeed centred on human reasoning, and so is Reasoning. That of course makes sense in both cases, because all other meanings of reason are extensions or metaphors for human reasoning, which was the first thing called reasoning and the one the other ones are compared to. Anyway, in practical terms if covering "non human reasoning" was the aim I do not see that this article is succeeding and I am not confident that there is much notable and reliably source-able material around. If there is, then maybe the best result is to have a separate article for it, but I would suggest that as an temporary first step we add it as a section to Reason and see how big it really and is and whether it really justifies a split as per WP:SPLIT. I guess there is a valid argument that non human reasoning has never really been observed, even if those words have sometimes be used to describe things similar to human reasoning. Does that make sense?
• 2. If the reason for starting this article was to try another approach at the same subject as Reason, which is what I guess your point 2 means, then this is not an approach the WP community normally accepts. See WP:CFORK.
• 3. Concerning other articles like inference you may be right, but I guess that should be discussed on each of those pages. I never looked at inference. Last night, while considering this type of thing I did have a look at a few other potential cases though, like rationality. I think rationality, like logic is handling a specific separable subject. Maybe editors on these articles can usefully spend some time cross checking to make sure the articles link to each other in a useful way.
• 4. Concerning definitions of reason, or things like reason, which are discipline specific, the difference has to be notable. See WP:NOTE. So for example rationality is handling some of the special uses in social sciences, in what I think is a pretty correct way, but trying to separate out "lawyer reasoning" does not work. The books and articles about what rationality means specifically in the social sciences, but lawyers might learn logic or rhetoric or law, but not "lawyer reasoning".

Hopefully what I am saying makes sense. In concrete which parts of the current article do you think have a strong case for keeping somehow? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:30, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Any updates on comments from others? The more I look at it, my own feeling is that this article should simply be deleted and become a redirect to Reason. There is little worth keeping, but there might be bits. Some bits might indeed be better being moved to inference or maybe artificial intelligence or animal cognition? But every time I compare to the more worked on articles they seem to cover things better than this one?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:45, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

against. I have already provided grounds above. pgr94 (talk) 10:55, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Which grounds have you provided? Sorry, but could you make it more clear why this article should exist? Please note that I've replied in a lot more detail to your previous posts.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:11, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Different disciplines have studied reasoning (mathematicians, computer scientists, psychologists, zoologists, philosophers) and I think the article should reflect that. As editors we should reflect current knowledge, not try to synthesize it (WP:SYN). pgr94 (talk) 11:20, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

So you were saying that this material was not adequately covered in Reason right? Why not just add such material to Reason, Rationality, inference and all the other articles which already exist though? The question is why we need a separate article for "leftovers".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:16, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Here is the current table of contents, with comments by me attached:-

• 1 History of reasoning Opinion: not for keeping: each of these sections is not worth keeping. You can add adjectives on to reasoning forever but that does not mean we may create articles for each combination we come up with. There is no body of literature called "Babylonian reasoning" for example.
  • 1.1 Babylonian reasoning
  • 1.2 Greek reasoning
  • 1.3 Indian reasoning
  • 1.4 Chinese reasoning
  • 1.5 Islamic reasoning
• 2 Reasoning methods and argumentation Opinion: not for keeping These appear to be about aspects of logic, not reason as such which is a more general word. There are lots of articles I think already cover this better. Again, just giving a title with the word reasoning in does not justify having parallel coverage.
  • 2.1 Deductive reasoning
  • 2.2 Inductive reasoning
  • 2.3 Abductive reasoning
  • 2.4 Analogical reasoning
  • 2.5 Fallacious reasoning
    • 2.5.1 Formal fallacies
    • 2.5.2 Informal fallacies
• 3 Psychology
  • 3.1 Behavioral experiments on human reasoning
  • 3.2 Developmental studies of children's reasoning
  • 3.3 Neuroscience of reasoning
• 4 Automated reasoning
• 5 Meta-reasoning
• 6 Legal reasoning Opinion. See opinion for section 1.

So just as my first comment, open to discussion, I'd think the stuff worth discussion is maybe in sections 3, 4, and 5, or maybe not. This is just to get discussion started.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:09, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Just a note to say that something should eventually be done. After a long enough waiting period, I take it that there'll be no objections if I start merging bits of this article into others, and eventually turn it into a redirect for Reason.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:54, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

So what definition of reasoning are you proposing? That should be a priority before any deletion. pgr94 (talk) 12:42, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I see two way to understand your question. I'll try both:

1. First option is concerning which material to keep in THIS article. It means asking which definition of reasoning would justify keeping it in a separate article called "reasoning". But as explained I do not think there is any sensible way of defining reasoning in any way that contrasts with reason and other words which already have articles. So I have seen no way to keep this article. That's why I propose to merge any good material to other articles. (Again, don't take the word delete too seriously.) The WP "rules" here are WP:MERGE, WP:SPLIT, WP:CFORK.

2. Perhaps you are asking more about which material should be kept in Wikipedia (in ANY article) and which is not worth keeping? But I don't have any special theories on this. I am just basing my proposals on a straightforward reading of Wikipedia policy which tells us that any meaning of reason (or reasoning) that is notable and able to be discussed in a way which can be sourced from reliable sources, can be included. See in this case WP:RS, WP:V, WP:NOTE.

Hope that makes sense? Sorry if I have misunderstood.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:25, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

It's simple. Do you agree to use this definition of reasoning or are you suggesting another?

Reasoning is the cognitive process of looking for reasons, beliefs, conclusions, actions or feelings. (Kirwin, Christopher. 1995. 'Reasoning'. In Ted Honderich (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press: p. 748)

I am not getting your point I'm afraid. I did not see anything in our discussion so far that indicated that either of us believe that the problem is that there are lots of different things all called reasoning? Perhaps you are asking if this particular quote is the best possible wording to define that thing called reasoning? Maybe you are proposing this should be used at the head of an eventual merged article? I do not think it is a particularly good wording. But it is obviously describing the same type of thing which most normal definitions of reason or reasoning describe. Please explain further what you are getting at? The Reason article starts with

Reason is a mental faculty (or ability) found in humans, that is able to generate conclusions from assumptions or premises. In other words, it is amongst other things the means by which rational beings propose specific reasons, or explanations of cause and effect. In contrast to reason as an abstract noun, a reason is a consideration which explains or justifies.

What do you think of that?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:39, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

If I haven't been very clear, let me summarise my position:

1. Not just philosophy. The Reason article is primarily about philosophy. Rename the article "Philosophy of reason" and no drastic changes would be needed. The indisputable fact of the matter is that reason/reasoning is a subject that has been addressed by psychologists, neuroscientists, logicians, computer scientists, ethologists and statisticians. The article should reflect that as per WP:NPOV. At present there is not one reference to an article describing the outcome of empirical enquiry. It's essentially science-free! Instead we get statements like But Aristotle, for example, stated that phantasia and phronein (a type of thinking which can judge and understand in some sense) also exist in some animals. I think that sort of material belongs in historical articles, not a contemporary view of the field.

2. Non-human reasoning The definition(s) and coverage of reason/reasoning should include non-human reasoning. Reasoning has been observed in animals and is routinely performed by computer since at least the 1970s.

3. Synonyms? I believe the priority is to make clear whether thought, reason, reasoning, and inference are all refering to same thing or not. I think input from editors of those articles would be beneficial in any merger discussion.

pgr94 (talk) 19:16, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. That helps.

1. Not just philosophy. No problem. Then we can expand reason. But reason/reasoning is an object of philosophy and all other uses of those terms derive from philosophical uses. So however this subject (reason/reasoning) gets divided up, philosophy is going to have to be in the main article. If there are non-philosophical uses, such as concerning computers or animals or whatever, then these are going to need to be in specialized articles. There is a main meaning and then specialized meanings. Specialized meanings can be mentioned in short form on the main article and in more detail on their own articles. The main article should be mostly about whatever meanings of the word are the core meanings. Every time we use the word "reasoning" we are referring to things which have something in common and that something is of especial interest to the main article. Can you agree with that?

2. Non-human reasoning. I think this is just such a case. Surely such subjects can be handled in two ways (a) within the main reason article and (b) in articles about those special versions of "reason". Animal reasoning and machine reasoning are both concepts which compare animals and machines to humans. Is there an article already about animal "reasoning"?

3.Synonyms. Well, my only concern is that there is no point starting a discussion if it is not relevant to what anyone is arguing. Is anyone at all arguing that thought and inference are the same thing as reason and reasoning? Is anyone at all arguing that there is a difference between reason and reasoning? I have not seen those arguments. Concerning editors "from" other articles, I guess you'd say I came here from Reason. I think I've already posted a message on inference about this discussion, but got no response. I do not see the overlap with thought. I agree that having more people in this discussion would be better, but that has not happened so far.

Does that make sense?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:42, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I have gone ahead and done a merge, turning this article into a redirect. Please note that this is not a deletion, and I am not insisting that all the material in Reason needs to ultimately remain in one article. I think however, that discussion on two talk pages is not going to work. Having all discussion at that page will focus minds better. And in any case it is clear that there is no rationale for having two articles named Reason or Reasoning, so if some of the material does not fit on Reason then we can discuss there where it might fit better.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:44, 6 December 2010 (UTC)