How to Reason

Last Updated: March 4, 2023 References

Reason refers to the mental powers and processes concerned with forming conclusions, judgments, or inferences.^{[1]
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Research source} Proper use of reasoning is extremely important in making effective daily decisions. Here are some tips to exercise reason in your daily conduct.

Steps

1
Be open-minded. Errare humanum est- to err is human. We are all short-sighted, and very often see but only one side of a matter, thereby failing to see the whole picture. We see in part, we know in part, and therefore we often draw erroneous conclusions, inferences, and judgments from our partial views. Narrow-mindedness is a great fault of reasoning that all must strive to avoid.
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Try (prove) all things; hold fast that which is good. Dispel all prejudices from your mind. Think not that there is no truth except in the sciences you study. If you prejudge another's notions before examining them in detail, you have not discovered their darkness, but have merely closed your eyes.
- Be eager to discover truth in subjects unfamiliar to you. The more you feel challenged, the more you are learning, making multiple new connections between the neurons in your brain and improving your ability to reason.
- Read widely and take interest in many different subjects.
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3
Seek the truth, and pursue it earnestly. Never imagine that you know all there is to know about any subject, and that there is no more truth to know.
- Human beings dig and search for gold and hidden treasures with great labour, and painstakingly must sort through all the earth and rubbish before coming into contact with the pure metal. But all the labour is not for naught, as gold is nevertheless gold, and will enrich the person that puts forth the effort to seek it. Understand that truth is more precious than choice gold.
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Distinguish truth from appearances of truth. When digging for gold, for example, you would come across sand, pebbles, and dross blended with it. Superficial glitters may mimic substantial gold to the novice. Discernment skills come with repeated and frequent practice in seeking the truth, without any prejudices or presumptions.
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Learn to view things from the other's perspective and refuse to be offended easily. Some people hold so fast to their own beliefs, they would not even consider it when others question the beliefs which they hold as infallible or sacred. No human being is infallible. To suppose one is infallible is to refuse reason. Therefore, accept criticisms with eagerness, as a convenient means to examine your own beliefs, ideas, and views.
- Be humble. Dispel any biases or errors you chance to uncover immediately, unreservedly, and wholeheartedly. Note that this includes all subjects and areas of your life, even in matters of religion or politics.
- Of course, being humble does not mean being a doormat; use the criticisms of others to build your strengths rather than being haunted by your weaknesses. And learn to be discerning; much criticism is opinion and not constructive correction––do not beat yourself up on account of another's attempted devaluing of you.
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Learn from others. Confucius once said, walking among three people, I find my teacher among them. Choose that which is good in them and follow it, and that which is bad and change it.^{[2]
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Research source} You can always learn something from others, be they parents, siblings, friends, neighbours, ministers, etc. If you see something another person does well, learn from it by following his or her example. If you see something another person does poorly, learn from that as well, by finding a way to improve so as not to repeat the mistake yourself. (Remember that you cannot seek to change another but you can be a superb role model.)
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Put passion aside. Passion is a major bias that can blind us to the facts, and pervert (distort) reason, insomuch that you become incapable of using your own or listen to others' reason. To reason appropriately, you must adopt a spirit of unbiased disinterest.
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Get all the facts. Seek out the best books in every science, search the internet for the most reliable resources, and learn from the most knowledgeable persons on the subjects of science and knowledge.
- Take an online university-created course in something you once thought too hard, like physics, astronomy or mathematics. Challenge yourself and strengthen your skills of reasoning.
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Study and apply logic in reasoning.^{[3]
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- Deductive reasoning is drawing conclusion from the general to the specific. In deductive reasoning, if a logical sequence is followed, the argument is valid, and the conclusion must be true if the premises are true. For instance, if "All men are mortal" is the the major premise, and "Socrates is man" is the minor premise, then "Socrates is mortal" is the valid conclusion, which must be true if the premises are true. Deductive reasoning is to be contrasted with inductive reasoning.
- Inductive reasoning is drawing a conclusion from the specific to the general, and is mostly used to formulate theories. In inductive reasoning, the specific facts do not necessarily entail the general conclusion. For instance, if you reach you hand into a bag of stones of unknown colours, and all the stones you draw out are white, you might induce that all the stones in the bag are white. This may or may not be true; the conclusion can be falsified (disproved) by the next non-white stone you draw out from the bag. The more facts you gather, and the larger the sample size, the stronger the inductive reasoning process, which is also called making a conjecture. Your conclusion is more probable in such a conjecture that all the stones in the bag are white, if you draw out a thousand stones, than if you only drew out ten stones. The collection of such data is part of the process of reasoning by statistical inference and probability.
- Abductive reasoning is drawing conclusion or making an argument to select a better explanation, as in medical diagnosis; this is related to inductive reasoning, since the conclusion in an abductive argument does not follow with certainty from its premises and concerns something unobserved. What distinguishes abduction from the other forms of reasoning is an attempt to favour one conclusion above others, by attempting to falsify alternative explanations or by demonstrating the higher likelihood of the more favoured conclusion, given a set of more or less disputable information and assumptions. For example: "This patient displays (certain symptoms); these might be from various possible causes, but (a probable diagnosis) is preferred above others as being more probable..." The concept of abduction was introduced into modern logic by philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce.^{[4]
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  Research source}Peirce said "I perform an abduction when I so much as express in a sentence anything I see... Not the smallest advance can be made in knowledge beyond the stage of vacant staring, without making an abduction at every step." Also abductive reasoning is used to explain a conclusion or an outcome. "The grass is wet, therefore, it may have rained." Detectives as well as diagnosticians are commonly associated with this style of reasoning.^{[5]
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- Analogical reasoning is drawing comparisons by analogy either explicitly or implicitly. This form of logical reasoning infers some similarity of one thing to another thing in a certain respect, on the basis of the known similarity between the things in other respects. An analogy attributed to Samuel Johnson is: "Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true." ^{[6]
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