I think reason is knowledge analysis, it does not pervade creativity.

Think, you analyse your total knowledge, an essence of this analysis rises above the mind, and you make a decision - reasoning.

Science is the method we use to formulate constructs using evidence and experiment. Belief isn't in the realm of science, if it was, we wouldn't be able to formulate constructs. A construct, like a base, is something we can ground ideas on, whereas belief is not solid ground, however fertile it may be. I don't know why religion and science compete- the opposite of science is art.

Well, I gather you've had your three cups of coffee, Tim!

Thanks for explicating what should be axiomatic on a philosophy forum. :cool:

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By reason I suppose I must mean logic, reason itself being the use of it, and the argument the incidental form it takes. — tim wood

Just yesterday I came across this:

Nihilism is the concept of reason separated from the concept of the good. — Stanley Rosen

Reason for the ancients was not the same as modern reason modeled on mathematics. It was closer to our other uses of the term, such as when we ask for reasons why. Rather than build on grounds, Aristotle for example, begins with what is said, either some popular opinion or what some highly regarded person said.

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Rhetoric and Dialectic (logic) are two different animals. — tim wood

They are, but the point Rosen is making is that knowledge requires both, and, in addition, poesis.

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It's not about reason and good, but about concepts of them - whatever that means. Reason itself a tool — tim wood

Well, you present a concept of reason. Since we do not have knowledge of the good we must rely on our concept of the good, our views, opinions, discussions, as you say explication, and so on.

with the same moral significance — tim wood

Tools can be put to both good and bad use. If reason is a tool then it can be put to good or bad use, hence moral significance.

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Is his reduceable without too much violence to a few sentences that you could provide, that would make the persuasiveness of his demonstrably clear? — tim wood

What I find interesting is that he sees the modern separation between the concepts of reason and good as being at the root of nihilism. The separation is not intended to be the result of nihilism but rather leads to it. The good does not mean some reified entity, but rather, as Plato and Aristotle stressed, what each of us desire. And so, reason and the pursuit of knowledge are not separate from desire, the desire to know, the desire for wisdom, that is, philosophy.

Reason for the ancients was not the same as modern reason modeled on mathematics. — Fooloso4

I think that Aristotle's four causes has to be mentioned in this context, namely, formal, efficient, material and final causes. So in answer to the question, why does [X] exist, accounts can be given on each of those grounds.

Without wanting to drag the thread into an argument about the merits or flaws of Aristotelian metaphysics, there are a couple of major themes that emerge even from cursory consideration of this scheme, a major one being the relationship between 'cause', 'reason' and 'ground'.

Reason may be the faculty which secures judgement, but, I would have thought, causation is at least implicit in the operation of reason. When we ask why something happens, or why some situation has come to be, we're asking, at least in part, what is the cause, or the causal factors, that give rise to it.

It's the connection between cause and reason that introduces a metaphysical dimension. Formal reason, as expressed in the rules of logic, is a concise and well-bounded subject and may be learned and taught without any reference to metaphysics. But in practice, when reason is applied to anything other than formal procedures, then many knotty problems of the real nature of causal relations are introduced.

This can be illustrated by an old saw, the response to the question 'why is the water boiling?' You can say, quite correctly, 'well, it's been put on the stove, and heated to 100 degrees celsius, which is its boiling point'. You can also say 'in preparation for making tea'. The first answer is given in terms of material and efficient causation, the second in terms of final causation - the reason why the water is on the stove. It was put there with a purpose in mind - a telos, in Aristotelian terms, which is extrinsic to the physical explanation of the phenomenon.

I think the tendency in modern logic is to try and restrict consideration of the nature of reason, as far as possible, to material and efficient causation, so as to sidestep and obviate many of the open-ended questions that consideration of final causes leads to ('Why are we here?' being a hackneyed example). They're ruled out of bounds on the basis of being beyond the scope of empirical investigation. Hence the movement towards the 'instrumentalisation of reason' in modern philosophy, for which see this encyclopedia entry.

Basing a metaphysics on substance pure and simple has A causing B as the principle of all metaphysics. But there are other ways of conceiving this as infinite process and finite substance consuming itself in the flux and roll of cyclical reality. Aristotle was concerned to establish the static as all of reality but there is no necessity in believing this or any other metaphysics. Philosophy is not about proof like in mathematics, but continuing life and thoughts in a rational process

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I think reason (which just is argument) and ground (premises) are the two ingredients (the others are reducible to those). Although reason does come into the question of which premises are the more plausible, obviously.

Aristotle would have popped himself if he was told that a tightened string has more mass than a relaxed one, but yet it's true. Aristotileans have never been good scientists and I would say have never been good philosophers either. There is something wrong with insisting reality being be linear. They are not open to reality being an evolving paradox and want to face life with everything "figured out". Spiritual traditions of the East probably would see this as unwise, taking into account kaons and relaxing thought itself so it can move right again

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I would hold cause as a kind of reasoning — tim wood

But surely, every form of reasoning must make use of the term 'because....' - and 'because' means means 'by cause of'. Your first sentence does so: my appeal to the Greek concept of reason is not relevant, because....

So no reasoned argument can be phrased without reference to cause. Any syllogism will contain 'because', any rational argument hinge on 'because' - thereby escaping the bounds within which you want to constrain reason.

I find presiding over all reason. The capacity to use tools to determine knowledge and winnow it from the chaff of unreason. — tim wood

I also take issue with your description of reason as 'a tool'. Using reason, we can make all kinds of tools - in fact the reason h. sapiens became such an adept tool- and machine- maker is because of the capacity to reason. But to present reason to one tool among many is to deprecate it. It's no more a tool than is language; it's an ability, to make, among other things, tools.

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The "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematica" in science is about the unreasonable effectiveness of science in general. That is, if reasonableness is truly reasonable, which it isn't because.The "next step up" can seem very unreasonable

Fair enough. The way I see it is that argument is the application of reason (logic), and in order to be a good argument must be valid (conclusions following from premises). I say grounds just are premises, because they are the starting assumptions to which valid reasoning is applied in a valid argument, I don't see belief as being an essential part of knowledge, or if it is, only in a psychological sense, only in the sense that we might be said to possess knowledge.

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In any case the substance of the OP is that reason is the engine, and mere belief as any sort of grounds ruinous to its functioning. — tim wood

We adopt grounds because they seem reasonable to us. This is where belief comes in. Can we count the "seeming reasonable" as an example of valid reasoning from premises to conclusion? I don't think so. If it were so, then it would be nothing but reason; which seems absurd; that's why I say the two ingredients are reason and grounds.

you're not appealing to the Greek concept of reason but instead to a modern sense of cause which you mistakenly "find" in Aristotle. — tim wood

I'm linking 'cause' to 'reason' in a manner suggested by the 'principle of sufficient reason'.

The principle of sufficient reason states that everything must have a reason or a cause. The modern formulation of the principle is usually attributed to early Enlightenment philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, although the idea was conceived of and utilized by various philosophers who preceded him, including Anaximander, Parmenides, Archimedes, Plato and Aristotle, Cicero, Avicenna, Thomas Aquinas, and Spinoza.

In any case the substance of the OP is that reason is the engine, and mere belief as any sort of grounds ruinous to its functioning. — tim wood

Which I suspect contains suppressed premisses, and/or a hidden agenda, namely, to seperate reason from belief, chiefly so as to uphold the purported division between 'reason and faith'.

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...beer is barley... — tim wood

There are gluten-fee beers. They do not contain barley.

Do you know how to ride a bike? How do reason, belief, ground, and argument fit here?

But more importantly, you left out one rather important bit: truth.

Can you know stuff that is not true?


Edit: and in case you are tempted by a True Scotsman, here is a Scottish gluten free beer.

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Valid is as to form, which cares not for content and is perfectly indifferent to it. But no syllogism no matter how valid can prove the moon is made of green cheese. Thus grounds for premises. Point? — tim wood

Knowledge must consist in valid reasoning from sound grounds if knowledge as JTB holds, and is the model under consideration. How do we know that grounds are sound? Perhaps we never really do, but we are said to possess knowledge if the grounds are sound, we have good reason for holding them, and the reasoning to our conclusions is valid. What more need be said?

Does geometry and arithmetic and logic lead to nihilism? — tim wood

It depends on what use you put them to.

Reason then a ground for the good. — tim wood

Why is reason a ground for the good? Reason can just as easily be used to bad as to good ends. Once you introduce ends then reason alone is not sufficient. What is the end or goal of reason? Reason?