Quotes About Reasoning

I graduated with a B.A. in philosophy, and it was by far the best major I could have taken in college.

Sometimes Aristotle analyses his terms, but very often he takes them for granted; and in the latter case, I think, he is sometimes deceived by them.

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.

among this pool are these: (a) explanatory power, (b) explanatory scope, (c) plausibility, (d) degree of ad hoc-ness and (e) conformity with other beliefs. The more explanatory power and scope and the more plausibility and conformity with other beliefs an explanation has, the better it is. The less ad hoc (adjusted, contrived, artificial) the explanation, the better as well. The trick is to subject all explanation options to these

He hath considered shortly, in a clause The trespas of hem bothe, and eek the cause, And althogh that his ire hir gilt accused, Yet in his resoun he hem bothe excused, As thus: he thoghte wel that every man Wol helpe himself in love if that he kan, And eek delivere himself out of prisoun;

Oon of us two moste bowen, doutelees; And sith a man is moore resonable Than womman is, ye moste been suffrable.

The same principles which at first view lead to skepticism , pursued to a certain point , bring men back to common sense

IT IS A HARD THING TO SUPPOSE THAT RIGHT DEDUCTIONS FROM TRUE PRINCIPLES SHOULD EVER END IN CONSEQUENCES WHICH CANNOT BE MAINTAINED or made consistent

He never does a proper thing without giving an improper reason for it.

You can't rationally argue out what wasn't rationally argued in.

It turned out I was pretty good in science. But again, because of the small budget, in science class we couldn't afford to do experiments in order to prove theories. We just believed everything. Actually, I think that class was called Religion. Religion class was always an easy class. All you had to do was suspend the logic and reasoning you were being taught in all the other classes.

They are always wanting reasons, yet they are too ignorant to understand the merits of any question, and usually fall back on their moral sense to settle things after their own taste. Evidently

Sir James paused. He did not usually find it easy to give his reasons: it seemed to him strange that people should not know them without being told, since he only felt what was reasonable. At

He could perhaps have given no precise form to the reasons that determined this conclusion, but it is well known to all experienced minds that our firmest convictions are often dependent on subtle impressions for which words are quite too coarse a medium.

Caleb was in a difficulty known to any person attempting in dark times and unassisted by miracle to reason with rustics who are in possession of an undeniable truth which they know through a hard process of feeling, and can let it fall like a giant's club on your neatly carved argument for a social benefit which they do not feel.

Caleb was in a difficulty known to any person attempting in dark times and unassisted by miracle to reason with rustics who are in possession of an undeniable truth which they know through a hard process of feeling, and can let it fall like a giant's club on your neatly-carved argument for a social benefit which they do not feel.

the Fallacy of the Stolen Concept. This fallacy, writes Nathaniel Branden, "consists of the act of using a concept while ignoring, contradicting or denying the validity of the concepts on which it logically and genetically depends.

As a consequence, it should be true that if you just get the facts out to people, they will reason to the right conclusion. And so year after year, decade after decade, liberals keep telling facts to conservative audiences without changing many minds. This behavior by liberals is itself a form of science denial—the denial of the cognitive and brain sciences. It is simply irrational behavior by many people proud of their rationality. It

Prototype frames. Among the most important of the commonplace frames are the prototype frames, where you reason about a category on the basis of some subcategory (real or imagined). The best known is the social stereotype. For instance, both conservatives and progressives use stereotypes of immigrants, though very different ones.

P]hilosophical theories are structured by conceptual metaphors that constrain which inferences can be drawn within that philosophical theory. The (typically unconscious) conceptual metaphors that are constitutive of a philosophical theory have the causal effect of constraining how you can reason within that philosophical framework.

You can only make sense of what your brain allows.

Trying to understand superstition rationally is like trying to pick up something made of wood by using a magnet.

Every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and justification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical.

He who threatens us will find us deaf to his threats. We are willing to listen only to rational arguments.