Confidence in Reason

[coberst]

Confidence in Reason

Please be reasonable! Let us reason together. There was no reason for that. What do we mean by these common expressions?

Ignoring the fact that these are generally just common exclamations by most of us that are meaningful only in their emotional content; what is the source of our indication of reliance on ‘reason’?

Western philosophy emerged in the sixth century BC along the Ionian coast. A small group of scientist-philosophers began writing about their attempts to develop “rational” accounts regarding human experience. These early Pre-Socratic thinkers thought that they were dealing with fundamental elements of nature.

It is natural for humans to seek knowledge. In the “Metaphysics” Aristotle wrote “All men by nature desire to know”.

The attempt to seek knowledge presupposes that the world unfolds in a systematic pattern and that we can gain knowledge of that unfolding. We assume many things because our ‘gut’ tells us that: 1) the world makes systematic sense, and we can gain knowledge of it: 2) every particular thing is a kind of thing; 3) every entity has an “essence” or “nature,” that is, a collection of properties that makes it the kind of thing it is and that is the causal source of its natural behavior.

We may not want our friends to know this fact but we are all metaphysicians. We, in fact, assume that things have a nature thereby we are led by the metaphysical impulse to seek knowledge at various levels of reality.

Now back to ‘confidence in reason’. I guess the Greeks were the first to systematize our belief that reason can be an important factor in making life better; that reason can provide us with a means to convince others that this particular way is the better way of reaching the desired goal; a mutual confidence in reason becomes one of life’s most important goals.

Why a ‘mutual confidence in reason’ becomes one of life’s most important goals? Because of the disaster to all of us that is derived from an intellectual distrust of reason.

I think that one of the important duties we all have is to help others formulate a confidence in reason.

I think that we can find in our self many times that a confidence in reason is displaced by a belief that is not grounded in reason. Examples might be faith in charismatic leaders, faith in ‘authority’, faith in some social group, faith in our ‘gut’, faith in fate, faith in technology, faith in unanalyzed experience, faith in someone because s/he is a successful maker of money, etc.

I think that we place far too much confidence in irrational opinions? Do you agree?

[ughaibu]

Reasoning is important for human communication, as reason transcends personal belief, desire or ignorance. It provides a common intellectual language, mutually comprehensible despite cultural or linguistic difficulties. As such, by instituting their policy of approaching and generalising reality through reason, the Greeks achieved not only the greatest single advance in intellectual history but also in social history.

[coberst]

ughaibu

How do you think we, you and I, can help other people to gain confidence in reason?

[coberst]

Those who examine such matters conclude that our ‘natural’ thinking, our first order thinking, is spontaneous and nonreflective. It contains a jumble of prejudice, good and bad reasoning, and insight. They classify thinking as second level when there is conscious realization of what thinking can be. The second level thinking is analyzed, assessed, and reconstructed thinking.

Like tennis skills, thinking skills require knowledge and practice.

[Kriminal99]

I think faith in all the non reasoning based things you mentioned in the bottom of your post is just some people's way of trying to understand the world around them. All of those things might well for the most part satisfy a person's immediate need to understand their surroundings.

All men seek some degree of understanding of their surroundings for purposes of knowing what to expect from their surroundings in my opinion, but only some seek more than that. Having "faith" in many of the things you mentioned would allow people to know for the most part what to expect from their surroundings.

[hallenrm]

Can you dear Coberst reason Why should one believe (or not believe) in destiny?

I think there are natural limits to reasoning, and we must all accept that too!!

[coberst]

Hallenrm says--"Why should one believe (or not believe) in destiny?"

Good question. I have no idea what destiny means.