Reason
Related: enlightenment - seriousness
Techniques: induction, deduction and abduction
Contrast: counter enlightenment - folly - irrationalism
The sleep of reason produces monsters (1797-98) - Francisco Goya
from Los Caprichos
Reason
In philosophy, reason (from Latin ratio, by way of French raison) is the faculty by means of which or the process through which human beings perform thought, especially abstract thought. Many thinkers have pondered reason, and the various views on the nature of reason may not be compatible with one another.
Reason is sometimes narrowly defined as the faculty or process of drawing logical inferences. From Aristotle onwards, such reasoning has been classified as either deductive reasoning, meaning "from the general to the particular", or inductive reasoning, meaning "from the particular to the general". In the 19th century, Charles Peirce, an American philosopher, added a third classification, abductive reasoning, by which he meant "from the best available information to the best explanation", which has become an important component of the scientific method. In modern usage, "inductive reasoning" sometimes includes almost all non-deductive reasoning, including what Peirce would call "abductive". --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason [Feb 2005]
Rationalism
Rationalism, also known as the rationalist movement, is a philosophical doctrine that asserts that the truth should be determined by reason and factual analysis, rather than faith, dogma or religious teaching. Rationalism has some similarities in ideology and intent to secular humanism and atheism, in that it aims to provide a framework for social and philosophical discourse outside of religious or supernatural beliefs. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism [Feb 2005]
In philosophy, reason (from Latin ratio, by way of French raison) is the faculty by means of which or the process through which human beings perform thought, especially abstract thought. Many thinkers have pondered reason, and the various views on the nature of reason may not be compatible with one another.
Reason is sometimes narrowly defined as the faculty or process of drawing logical inferences. From Aristotle onwards, such reasoning has been classified as either deductive reasoning, meaning "from the general to the particular", or inductive reasoning, meaning "from the particular to the general". In the 19th century, Charles Peirce, an American philosopher, added a third classification, abductive reasoning, by which he meant "from the best available information to the best explanation", which has become an important component of the scientific method. In modern usage, "inductive reasoning" sometimes includes almost all non-deductive reasoning, including what Peirce would call "abductive". --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason [Feb 2005]
List of rationalists * Anaxagoras * Isaac Asimov * René Descartes * Benjamin Franklin * Sigmund Freud * Robert A. Heinlein * David Hume * Julian Huxley * Robert G. Ingersoll * Immanuel Kant * Gottfried Leibniz * John Locke * H. P. Lovecraft * Nicolas Malebranche * Thomas Paine * Plato * Karl Popper * Ayn Rand * Gene Roddenberry * Bertrand Russell * Barbara Smoker * Baruch Spinoza * Elizabeth Cady Stanton * Voltaire --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason [May 2005]
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