Reason attempts to discover what is true make that this way of thinking is characterized by logic and analysis that will deliver us almost undoubtful results. I argue that reason is the only form of knowledge that justifies it's own existence. Logical thinking by e.g. inductive and deductive reasoning, reduce an absurdum and shows the flaw in using purely logical arguments. Reason than gives us an ability to assist people in deciding what is true and what is not. It gives us real truth about world, life, so I think that we would suffer more from losing reason than from losing anything else.
I think the idea that reason is the defining characteristic of humanity as opposed to animality is one of major advantages. What is more because of ability of logical thinking we are not animals, we can achieve more than is using other ways of knowing – reason does not depend upon the limits of sensory observation. All knowledge require some kind of rational basis. There are not any parts of human life or experience where reason has no real function. Reason let us express argument in symbolic terms. It makes things coherently collected. In least formal practice of logic this is often a “common sense” way of knowing. Arguably the greatest strength of reason is that it justifies and improves the use of other senses.
Reason is checked by rules of logic and internal consistency. This makes more sure our discriminating between valid and invalid arguments. Theories in sciences, math, etc. are created long years, supported gradually and creating enormous set of truths which whole “world” is working on. The society find because of it good and bad reasons, understand more or less persuasive reasoning. It also very important for finding position in live by individual knower. It is the next major pros if knowers remember that reasoning can be used by society towards them e.g. in public advertising campaigns aimed at persuading us to donate money for good causes (for example, humanitarian relief, children’s funds)? Our logical thinking can the best prevent us from being tricked.
André Gide’s view - “L'illogisme irrite. Trop de logique ennuie. La vie échappe à la logique, et tout ce que la seule logique construit reste artificiel et contraint. Donc est un mot que doit ignorer le poète, et qui n'existe que dans l'esprit.” [Lack of logic annoys. Too much logic is boring. Life escapes logic, and everything built on logic alone is artificial and limited. Therefore is a word that the poet must ignore, that exists only in the mind.]4. This statement suggest us that logic has also weaknesses in same areas of knowledge.. Unfortunately logical arguments may hide logical fallacies and rhetorical conceits. It is difficult to consider which logical deduction is true because the basis of this deduction could be wrong. We can see in history many examples of situations where big theories collapsed and probably there are plenty of them now, and they make society reasoning in a wrong way. That is all because reason works with abstractions that may be unrelated to the “real world we live in.” They are creation of people imagination (of course supported on some knowledge, even wisdom).
I consider as a disadvantage fact that something what may seem “logical” ,ay turn out to be merely social or cultural convection. E.g. what makes us to say “Hello” to others? It is difficult to say – it may seem like logic that we should show somebody veneration, affirm a friendship. In fact it normal social habit which we are getting use to when we are bringing up by parents. What is more “Hello” is a world – part of language, another way of knowledge. For example, you cannot use reason to process information if you cannot perceive it. Furthermore you cannot communicate your results computed with reason to others without language. Reason is only a tool, it is practically useless without the other ways of knowledge because we cannot share information and knowledge the way we do without perception and language.5 You wouldn't even want to share information if it weren't for emotion. We can treat it as a weakness of reason but this fact touches all ways of knowledge – they are supplements of each other. Reason is heavily related to language, language itself is not 100% reliable when it comes to translation.
Reason restrict emotions. Reason neglect emotions like desires, fears, hates without considering their powerful impact on our lives. Although it is said that reason is only thing which make us different from animas it is still considered by knowers if the debate fact of whether or not animals can reason is going on is real. “It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this..” (Bertrend Russell, 1950). Emotion are also very important – human are stronger than animal’s ones because we are daily facing strong impact of our surroundings. It is not true that only because of reason we are human – the meaning of this world has more deeper meaning.
Reason helps us mainly to prove that things are false and to look the extent of to what limited truths are given to us. Namely, since examples can be used to prove something false with reason, reason should become the voice of dissent when dealing with irrational paradigms, but by itself, reason gives us very little in the way of absolute knowledge. Take computers for example that run on reason, they can accomplish more that humans can using their reasoning. In spite of the fact computers also are not the big part of knowledge. Reason gives us really not many as we are considering the whole area of exploring the knowledge.
It is important fact to evaluate advantages and disadvantages of ways of knowing. They take up big part of our lives. They are our way of learning about world and gradually everything we can. Every of them is dependent on the another and tightly connected. Reason is one of the most important way of considering phenomena occurring around, truths running the world, it is very reliable way of knowing but we can think about it as if it was a basis for ideal knowledge (people sometimes state so because they connected reason with sciences and math – high - minded sciences). We have to be aware of disadvantages of reason, because it makes us critical during receiving information and stating something. Awareness of necessarily of connecting ways of knowledge causes that e are more open to world and willing to expand our knowledge.
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