Reasoning


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1 Definitions or descriptions of reasoning, the process of thought.
2 Human reasoning compared with the reasoning of animals.
3 Discursive reasoning contrasted with immediate intuition.
4 The role of sense, memory, and imagination in reasoning, perceptual inference, rational reminiscence, the collation of images.
5 The rules of reasoning, the theory of the syllogism.
6 The structure of a syllogism, its figures and moods.
7 The number of premises and the number of terms, the middle term in reasoning.
8 Affirmation, negation, and the distribution of the middle term, the quantity and the quality of the premises.
9 The kinds of syllogism, categorical, hypothetical, disjunctive, modal.
10 The connection of syllogisms, sorites, prosyllogisms and episyllogisms.
11 The truth and cogency of reasoning.
12 Formal and material truth, logical validity distinguished from factual truth.
13 Lack of cogency in reasoning, invalid syllogisms, formal fallacies.
14 Lack of truth in reasoning, sophistical arguments, material fallacies.
15 Necessity and contingency in reasoning, logical necessity, certainty and probability.
16 The types of reasoning, inference, or argument.
17 Immediate inference, its relation to mediated inference or reasoning.
18 The direction and uses of reasoning, the distinction between proof and inference, and between demonstration and discovery.
19 Inductive and deductive reasoning.
20 Direct and indirect argumentation, proof by reductio ad absurdum, argument from the impossible or ideal case.
21 Refutation, disproof.
22 Reasoning by analogy, arguments from similarity.
23 Reasoning in relation to knowledge, opinion, and action.
24 The fact and the reasoned fact, mere belief distinguished from belief on rational grounds.
25 Scientific reasoning, the theory of demonstration.
26 The indemonstrable as a basis for demonstration.
27 Definitions used as means in reasoning, definitions as the ends of reasoning.
28 A priori and a posteriori reasoning, from causes or from effects, from principles or from experience, analysis and synthesis.
29 The role of causes in demonstration and scientific reasoning.
30 Demonstration in relation to essence and existence, demonstrations propter quid and quid.
31 Dialectical reasoning, the opposition of rational arguments.
32 Rhetorical reasoning, the rational grounds of persuasion.
33 Practical reasoning.
34 The form of the practical syllogism.
35 Deduction and determination in legal thought.
36 Deliberation, the choice of alternative means, decision.
37 The character of reasoning in the various disciplines.
38 Proof in metaphysics and theology.
39 Demonstration in mathematics, analysis and synthesis, mathematical induction or recursive reasoning.
40 Inductive and deductive inference in the philosophy of nature and the natural sciences.
41 Induction and demonstration in the moral sciences.


All text from the Outlines is Copyright ©1990 Encyclopedia Britannica Inc.; this electronic edition is Copyright© 2005 by Michael R. Lissack and reproduced by permission.