Reason

**Reason** It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.

Bertrand Russell (1950) Reason is a way of knowing that involves different elements. In a very general sense, reasoning is a collective endeavour by which people construct meaning together by exchanging, modifying and improving their ideas and opinions. When someone makes a claim to know, it is legitimate to ask for reasons and to expect that these will be coherent. Arguments require consistency. Reason is perhaps as present in everyday decision making and problem solving as it is in mathematics, sciences and other areas of knowledge. The requirements of logical validity and rigour serve these various purposes. In different degrees and in different ways, it is arguable that reason has its place in many, if not all, areas of knowledge as well as in the everyday experience of individuals and the groups to which we belong. It may be worth considering how reason is used in these different domains to discover and create, to articulate, to justify and assess knowledge claims. For when disputes arise, what is at issue is not only the substance or facts of the matter, but also the appropriateness of the reasons given for acceptance of the facts, and the validity of the logical procedures used in reaching the conclusion. The questions in this section probe the nature, value and limits of reason, and the logic that many suppose is a shared standard of evaluation. [|Systematic thinking review quiz.] [|Art and the failure of logic - humorous story] [|Monty Python's argument sketch]

**Nature of reason**
Monty Python - The argument media type="custom" key="5416779"
 * One of the roles traditionally attributed to reason is to find balance or equilibrium between two extremes. Is this idea still relevant as a description of the role that reason plays in the search for self-knowledge? What does it mean for someone to be reasonable?

[|The fallacy files]
 * What is the difference between reasoning about means and reasoning about ends? Is one more prevalent or more valuable than the other?
 * What is the role of reason in the creation and recognition of patterns in nature and in social life?
 * Is reason purely objective and universal, or does it vary across cultures? Is logic purely objective and universal?
 * Formal logic is the study of form in argument, irrespective of the subject matter. Is it really possible to study the logic of an issue independent of its content, and how beneficial is it to do so? Does the answer to this question depend upon the subject matter under consideration? Does it depend on the area of knowledge to which the subject matter belongs?
 * What is the relationship between reason as a way of knowing and logic in its different forms (inductive, deductive, intuitive, natural)? Is it possible and worthwhile to “translate” everyday arguments into formal logical structure, and what might be lost in the translation? How does the commonsense use of “it’s logical”, meaning “it makes sense to me”, differ from its technical meaning of “it has a valid argument form”?

**Reason and knowledge**
Walt Disney animation entitled Reason and Emotion media type="custom" key="5577869" **Strengths and weaknesses of reason** [|Stephen's guide to logical fallacies] [|Fallacies - the Nizkor Project] [|Love is a fallacy] [|BBC journalist Louis Theroux recently visited members of the Westborough Baptist Church in Kansas. They have been called the "most hated family in America" after they started picketing the funerals of American servicemen killed in Iraq,] Eugène Ney Terre'Blanche (born January 31, 1941) is a Boer-Afrikaner who founded the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging during the apartheid era in South Africa. Terre'Blanche remains leader of the recently reactivated AWB and continues to push for an Afrikaner state within South Africa. media type="custom" key="5577905" [|Dissecting peoples 'predictably irrational' behaviour]
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">What possibilities for knowledge are created by reason? What are the advantages of being able to reason about something rather than, say, feeling something, dreaming about something, wishing something to be the case?
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Does all knowledge require some kind of rational basis?
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">If knowledge claims cannot be rationally defended, should they be renounced? Is the answer to this question dependent on the area of knowledge of the claim?
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Can reason on its own, independent of sense perception, emotion and language, ever give us knowledge? Or are reason and language inseparable in the quest for, construction and justification of knowledge?
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">What constitutes a good argument? What is the value of learning to distinguish between valid and invalid arguments?
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">What are the advantages of discriminating between valid and invalid arguments, good and bad reasons, more or less persuasive reasoning, both for the individual knower and for society?
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Why are informal fallacies often plausible and convincing? When, where and by whom are they formulated? Are there circumstances under which the use of informal fallacies can be justified, for example, in public advertising campaigns aimed at persuading us to donate money for good causes (for example, humanitarian relief, children’s funds)?
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">How can beliefs affect our capacity to reason well and to recognize valid arguments? Can they affect a person’s capacity to distinguish between fallacy, good argument and rationalization? What is the difference between a rational argument and a rationalization?
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">What, if any, are the advantages of expressing arguments in symbolic terms? Are the ambiguity and vagueness of conventional language eliminated by this formulation?
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Are there some parts of human life or experience where reason has no real function?