Quotes About Reasoning

Written language is conducive to critical thinking because it is stable and explicit. Speech, by contrast, is evanescent. Written lines of reasoning can be pondered, discussed, dissected, and critiqued so that the reader can in some sense rise above the text, judge it, and keep the very best ideas—those that pass scrutiny.

In everyday speech, the word intelligence has two distinct meanings. The most familiar meaning is the ability to think and reason. An intelligent person can manage complex information quickly and accurately, as well as generate interesting ideas, effective strategies, and warranted conclusions. A second meaning of the word intelligence is a body of knowledge.

We certainly wouldn't want scientists to base anything on science!

If you're rational you don't get to believe whatever you want to believe.

Consequently, no idea – no complete series of answers to why-questions – can ever be an object of human knowledge. Yet, Kant argues, without ideas morality would be impossible:

Sharp, incisive, clever thinking is steadily becoming a lost art, more and more the domain of specialists and gurus. The trend is troubling and raises the question, Is America losing its ability to think? If, for argument's sake, we define thinking as the use of knowledge and reasoning to solve problems and plan and produce favorable outcomes, the answer is, apparently, yes.

Time and time again, as we will see, the brilliant forebears of modern neuroscience abandoned their fierce reasoning skills and, deus ex machina, threw in a spook at the end of their analysis.

Anecdotal thinking comes naturally science requires training.

Of the various tools taught in school, science and thinking skeptically about all claims should be near the top.

Our greater capacity for learning is often offset by our greater capacity for magical thinking.

Any preference for my group's interests over yours must be justified by some unbiased, disinterested ethic. Which sounds simple but, given that we're dealing with Humans and not Vulcans, it's sometimes difficult for two parties to agree on basic principles, specially parties who are unable or unwilling to switch points of view. This is the power of ethical reasoning.

Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.

As scientists and other logically minded people often point out, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

On the most basic level, he simply could not link cause and effect.

I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.

I find I am much prouder of the victory I obtain over myself, when, in the very ardor of dispute, I make myself submit to my adversary's force of reason, than I am pleased with the victory I obtain over him through his weakness.

Et en quoi une vie a-t-elle besoin d'être justifiée ? La totalité des animaux, l'écrasante majorité des hommes vivent sans jamais éprouver le moindre besoin de justification. Ils vivent parce qu'ils vivent et voilà tout, c'est comme ça qu'ils raisonnent ; ensuite je suppose qu'ils meurent parce qu'ils meurent, et que ceci, à leurs yeux, termine l'analyse.

Any reasoning that leaves somebody alone to wallow in their own guilt went against the gospel of reconciliation.

I've always believed in instinct over intellect. The instinct is what you always knew; intellect is what you figure out.

Man is said to be a reasoning animal. I do not know why he has not been defined as an affective or feeling animal. Perhaps that which differentiates him from other animals is feeling rather than reason.

Man is said to be a reasoning animal. I do not know why he has not been defined as an affective or feeling animal. Perhaps that which differentiates him from other animals is feeling rather than reason. More often I have seen a cat reason than laugh or weep. Perhaps it weeps or laughs inwardly — but then perhaps, also inwardly, the crab resolves equations of the second degree.

When people experience strong emotion, they can't hear logic.

Of two or more competing theories, the simpler theory is most likely correct.

Computers lack common sense. We can train machine learning algorithms to spot patterns and detect signals, but to date we haven't been able to give them the ability to reason from context.