Quotes About Reasoning

science, as good as it is with how, isn't equipped to deal with why.

Logic is one thing and commonsense another.

Not only have you been trained so thoroughly in how to think, but you have also been given the alternatives by which you could object to thinking a certain way.

Unless indoctrinated, a child is too logical to understand discrimination.

Thinking? You're not thinking. You're reasoning without reasons, and that's just another word for prejudice.

you must use arguments to explain how you arrived at your conclusion. That is how you will convince others: by offering the reasons and evidence that convinced you. It is not a mistake to have strong views. The mistake is to have nothing else.

Truly informed sources rarely expect others to accept their conclusions simply because they assert them.

Typically we learn to "argue" by assertion. That is, we tend to start with our conclusions—our desires or opinions—without a whole lot to back them up. And it works, sometimes, at least when we're very young. What could be better? Real argument, by contrast, takes time and practice. Marshaling our reasons, proportioning our conclusions to the actual evidence, considering objections, and all the rest—these are acquired skills. We have to grow up a little.

No matter how well you argue from premises to conclusion, your conclusion will be weak if your premises are weak.

Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit.

We must trust to nothing but facts: These are presented to us by Nature, and cannot deceive. We ought, in every instance, to submit our reasoning to the test of experiment, and never to search for truth but by the natural road of experiment and observation.

I say 'told myself' because—and this became clearer to me later, I didn't know this back then, I wasn't wise to it—to put it bluntly, we never really know why we do what we do. The part of our brains tasked with generating reasons doesn't care about truth… only plausibility.

Phineas Gage's case is not the only important historical source in the effort to understand the neural basis of reasoning and decision making...[to understand the effect of] prefrontal damage. ... The Hebb-Penfield and Ackerly-Benton shared a number of personality traits...They are bereft of a theory of their own mind and of the mind of those with whom they interact

Phineas Gage's case is not the only important historical source in the effort to understand the neural basis of reasoning and decision making;

Phineas Gage's case is not the only important historical source in the effort to understand the neural basis of reasoning and decision making...[to understand the effect of] prefrontal damage. ... The Hebb-Penfield and Ackerly-Benton shared a number of personality traits...One way of describing their predicament is by saying that they never construct an appropriate theory about their persons.

He's suffering from Politician's Logic. Something must be done, this is something, therefore we must do it.

A person whose mind is actually dismantled does not realise that MENTAL also means INTELLECTUAL.

Simple and plain to say 'NO BRAIN, NO PAIN'

Intuition,' he answered with a shrug. 'It is the only tool left to the mathematician in the absence of proof.

Since we think we understand when we know the explanation, and there are four types of explanation (one, what it is to be a thing; one, that if certain things hold it is necessary that this does; another, what initiated the change; and fourth, the aim), all these are proved through the middle term.

There are, then, these three means of effecting persuasion. The man who is to be in command of them must, it is clear, be able (1) to reason logically, (2) to understand human character and goodness in their various forms, and (3) to understand the emotions--that is, to name them and describe them, to know their causes and the way in which they are excited.

Thought is required wherever a statement is proved, or, it may be, a general truth enunciated.

We ought to be able to persuade on opposite sides of a question; as also we ought in the case of arguing by syllogism: not that we should practice both, for it is not right to persuade to what is bad; but in order that the bearing of the case may not escape us, and that when another makes an unfair use of these reasonings, we may be able to solve them.

A man who has been well trained will not in any case look for more accuracy than the nature of the matter allows; for to expect exact demonstration from a rhetorician is as absurd as to accept from a mathematician a statement only probable.