Confidence in reason

[coberst]

Confidence in reason

 

A popular adage goes something like this “I cannot argue down a conviction that has not been argued up.” It is impossible for me to use reason to convince someone who is without confidence in reason that they should have confidence in reason.

 

An adult without confidence in reason must start the effort to study reason before they can gain a confidence in reason. Perhaps that is impossible also. Perhaps it is the case that an adult without a confidence in reason will never have confidence in reason.

 

I suspect that 95% of the adults in the US have no confidence in reason and if my logic is correct they never will have that confidence. If that does not depress 5% of the population then nothing will. Perhaps it will delight the other 95%.

 

Further thought leads me to modify that statement. The 95% without confidence in reason do in fact have some confidence in reason. They do recognize that as an instrument to gain a goal reason is necessary.

 

What can we say about the 95% and reason? I guess we can say that they often have confidence in reason but that confidence is restricted to a limited aspect of life.

 

Is a person capable of having confidence in reason when that person is almost completely ignorant of the nature of reasoning?

[HydrogenBond]

Many people reason, unconsciously, and may not be aware that is what they are doing. For example, if one is making soup, one knows if you put too much salt, it will taste too salty. They may not go through all the steps, following the rules of logic, but unconsciously they know the cause and affect.

 

One limitation of reason is the data set one is using. Say we are trying to rationally determine why the soup is too salty, but leave out salt as one of the variables. We may argue, with the best logic in the world, using the data we have, and conclude it must be the garlic.

 

Another common limitation of reasoning is starting at the conclusion, and then cherry picking the data, so our reasoning aligns with the conclusion. The final analysis looks vry reasonable and follows logically. Reason is suppose to start with a full unbaised data set. One then follows a logical progression to an unknown conclusion.

 

When these three scenarios are complete, they all sort of look the same with two irrational, even though all three superfiscially appears to follow all the protocol of logic. Selective data and backward reasoning is what gives reasoning a bad taste, to people with common sense.