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HISTORY OF REASONING It is likely that humans have used reasoning to work out what they should believe or do for a very long time indeed. However, some researchers have tried to determine when, in the history of human development, humans moved from using myths to describe the world to attempting to reason about the world, and when humans first began to reason about their own reasoning. Greek development of reasoning The works of Homer , written in the eighth century BCE, contain mythic stories that use gods to explain the formation of the world. However, only two centuries later, late in the sixth century BCE, Xenophanes of Colophon began to question the Homeric accounts of the creation of nature and the gods. He wrote:
According to David Furley, "the basis of criticism appears to have been that he saw an inconsistency between the concept of god as something different from man, and the stories told about the gods, which made them behave as men do."Furley, David. 2003. 'Rationality among the Greeks and Romans'. In The Gale Group, ''Dictionary of the history of ideas''. of Miletus, c. 624 BCE – c. 546 BCE, proposed that all is water. Anaximenes of Miletus, c. 585 BCE – c. 525 BCE, claimed that air is the source of everything.Furley, David. 2003. 'Rationality among the Greeks and Romans'. In The Gale Group, ''Dictionary of the history of ideas''. University Of Virginia Library. [http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv4-07 Aristotle is, so far as we know, the first writer to give an extended, systematic treatment of the methods of human reasoning. He identified two major methods of reasoning, analysis and synthesis. In the first, we try to understand an object by looking at its component parts. In the second, we try to understand a class of objects by looking at the common properties of each object in that class. Aristotle developed what is known as , Aristotle begins by pointing out that: :" {Link without Title} no pleasure is a good, neither will any good be a pleasure." Aristotle. 350 B.C.E. Robin Smith (transl.). 1989. ''Prior Analytics''. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing: A2:7 He then argues that this argument is an example of a rule of reasoning of the following form: :Premise: "A belongs to none of the Bs" :Conclusion: "B not belong to any of the As". Aristotle. 350 B.C.E. Robin Smith (transl.). 1989. ''Prior Analytics''. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing: A2:14-26 Aristotle points out that by understanding the reasoning involved in this type of argument, we can know that whatever the As and Bs are, we can reach the same conclusion about the relationship between them. This is a simple and straightforward argument, but it is a sign of an amazing leap in understanding and research into reason, and was the beginning of the development of Formal Logic . REASONING METHODS AND ARGUMENTATION One approach to the study of reasoning is to identify various forms of reasoning that may be used to support or justify conclusions. The main division between forms of reasoning that is made in philosophy is between or Critical Thinking . Deductive reasoning See Also: Deductive reasoning Deductive arguments are intended to have reasoning that is Valid . Reasoning in an argument is valid if the argument's conclusion must be true when the premises (the reasons given to support that conclusion) are true. One classic example of deductive reasoning is that found in Syllogism s like the following: :Premise 1: All humans are mortal. :Premise 2: Socrates is a human. :Conclusion: Socrates is mortal. The reasoning in this argument is valid, because there is no way in which the premises, 1 and 2, could be true and the conclusion, 3, be false. Validity is a property of the reasoning in the argument, not a property of the premises in the argument or the argument as a whole. In fact, the truth or falsity of the premises and the conclusion is irrelevant to the validity of the reasoning in the argument. The following argument, with a false premise and a false conclusion, is also valid, (it has the Form of reasoning known as Modus Ponens ). :Premise 1: If green is a colour, then grass poisons cows. :Premise 2: Green is a colour. :Conclusion: Grass poisons cows. Again, if the premises in this argument were true, the reasoning is such that the conclusion would also have to be true. In a deductive argument with valid reasoning the conclusion contains no more information than is contained in the premises. Therefore, deductive reasoning does not increase one's knowledge base, and so is said to be non-ampliative. Within the field of Formal Logic , a variety of different forms of deductive reasoning have been developed. These involve abstract reasoning using symbols, Logical Operators and a set of rules that specify what processes may be followed to arrive at a conclusion. These forms of reasoning include Aristotelian Logic , also known as syllogistic logic, Propositional Logic , Predicate Logic , and Modal Logic . Inductive reasoning See Also: Inductive reasoning Inductive reasoning contrasts strongly with deductive reasoning. Even in the best, or strongest, cases of inductive reasoning, the truth of the premises does not guarantee the truth of the conclusion. Instead, the conclusion of an inductive argument follows with some degree of Probability . Relatedly, the conclusion of an inductive argument contains more information than is already contained in the premises. Thus, this method of reasoning is ampliative. A classical example of inductive reasoning comes from the Empiricist David Hume : :Premise: The sun has risen in the east every morning up until now. :Conclusion: The sun will also rise in the east tomorrow. Abductive reasoning See Also: abductive reasoning Abductive Reasoning , or argument to the best explanation often involves both inductive and deductive arguments. However, as the conclusion in an abductive argument does not follow with certainty from its premises it is best thought of as a form of inductive reasoning. What separates abduction from the other forms of reasoning is an attempt to favor one conclusion above others, by attempting to falsify alternative explanations or by demonstrating the likelihood of the favored conclusion, given a set of more or less disputable Assumptions . Argument from analogy Argument From Analogy is usually also a form of inductive reasoning. An argument from analogy has the following form: : A has Characteristics x,y, and z : B has characteristics x and y : So, B has (or probably has) characteristic z Reasoning by analogy goes from one particular thing, or category, to another particular thing, or category. As with other forms of inductive argument, even the best reasoning in an argument from analogy can only make the conclusion probable given the truth of the premises, not certain. Analogical reasoning is very frequent in Common Sense , Science , Philosophy and the Humanities , but sometimes it is accepted only as an auxiliary method. A refined approach is Case-based Reasoning . For more information on inferences by analogy, see Juthe, 2005 . Fallacious reasoning See Also: Logical fallacy Flawed reasoning in arguments is known as Fallacious Reasoning . Reasoning within arguments can be bad because it commits either a Formal Fallacy or an Informal Fallacy . Formal fallacies See Also: Formal fallacy Formal fallacies occur when there is a problem with the form, or structure, of the argument. The word 'formal' refers to this link to the ''form'' of the argument. An argument that contains a formal fallacy will always be invalid. Consider, for example, the following argument: :#If a drink is made with boiling water, it will be hot. :#This drink was not made with boiling water. :#This drink is not hot. The reasoning in this argument is bad, because the Antecedent (first part) of the Conditional (the 'if..., then...' statement) can be false without the Consequent (second half) of the conditional being true. In this example, the drink could have been made with boiling milk, or heated in the microwave, and so be hot in spite of the truth of statement 2. This particular formal fallacy is known as Denying The Antecedent . Informal fallacies See Also: Informal fallacy An informal fallacy is an error in reasoning that occurs due to a problem with the ''content'', rather than mere ''structure'', of the argument. Reasoning that commits an informal fallacy often occurs in an argument that is invalid, that is, contains a formal fallacy. One example of such reasoning is a Red Herring argument. An argument can be valid, that is, contain no formal reasoning fallacies, and yet still contain an informal fallacy. The clearest examples of this occur when an argument contains Circular Reasoning , also known as Begging The Question . PSYCHOLOGY Scientific research into reasoning is carried out within the fields of and Psychotherapists work to alter people's reasoning habits when they are unhelpful. COGNITIVE SCIENCE AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Cognitive Science sees reasoning by the analogy to a Data Processing , where relations between observed properties of reasoning are used in numerous models leading to evident logically correct conclusions in different circumstances. The Complexity and Efficacy of reasoning is considered the Critical indicator of cognitive Intelligence . Therefore it is the inevitable component of cognitive Decision-making . In Artificial Intelligence , philosophers and scientists study reasoning and machines, and consider such questions as whether a machine can properly be considered to reason or think, and, relatedly, what would count as a test for reasoning. (See, for example, the Turing Test .) Copeland, Jack . 1993. ''Artificial Intelligence:a philosophical introduction''. Oxford: Blackwell. LEGAL REASONING Legal reasoning is used when reflecting on the nature of existing laws or when reaching decisions about the relationship between laws and particular court cases. Thorne McCarty did pioneering early work in the mechanization of legal reasoning for taxation using Micro Planner .McCarty, L. Thorne. 1977. 'Reflections on TAXMAN: An Experiment on Artificial Intelligence and Legal Reasoning'. ''Harvard Law Review''. Vol. 90, No. 5. More recent work on the formalization and mechanization of legal reasoning can be found in the proceedings of the International Conferences on Artificial Intelligence and Law ( most recently at Stanford in June 2007 ). FOOTNOTES REFERENCES
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