In deductive reasoning a valid argument will be examined for a conclusion. For example, all animals that have wings can fly. This is an animal with wings. Therefore this animal can fly. The argument is valid but, this argument may not be true. The circular nature of the world would be the strength of deductive argument which holds the conclusion where it contains in the arguments and the “truth value” of deductive argument is the only weakness in the arguments.
Inductive reasoning, arguments will be gathered together from particular observations then it reasons from particular arguments to form a conclusion. For example, in order to form inductive reasoning we have to collect the evidence by observing 100 animals with wings, and then we look on the data we have to check, whether all animals with wings can fly. For example, if I observed that 100 animals with wings can fly then I conclude that 100 animals with wings must be able to fly. I just made up a prediction from my conclusion that 100 animals with wings must be able to fly because now I only see 100 animals. But more data could prove that the 101 of the animals with wings cannot fly. This denies my conclusion that all animals with wings can fly.
The logical certainty depends on my interpretation and my knowledge in reasoning on data and without knowing further data, whether it is exists or not. The weakness of deductive and inductive arguments in logic thinking is that the argument may never be proven that all animals with wings can fly because we won’t be able to observe all animals with wings fly at the same time and without knowing further data we will never know an exact result even though we give all of our knowledge in reasoning it.
Beliefs are an example argument of “individual” if we look carefully at individual’s beliefs we could observe that people justify beliefs by using reasons. For example, “Is God really exists?” this is the controversy argument. People always find the evidences or the arguments which suit their belief and in the same time truth is being discovered. For example, Bible is the evidence of God. The Bible might record every words correct, but if we have not experienced what was done in the Bible, we will not entirely belief such things as a reason to believe in God. So, beliefs are the additional knowledge throughout the world and beliefs do not entirely give us an absolute reason. Beliefs could be both strength and weakness of reason. As we can see from the individuals that people often left out other persons’ beliefs to overcome their own beliefs, for example one person might say “Why do I have to believe in God? I have never seen him, so I don’t know whether he’s real or not.” and other person may have a controversy argument that “I do believe in God because the Bible shows me what he does.” this could be a weakness of reason. The strength could be that reason attempt to discover what is true, for example Darwin said that “Evolution is the process of cumulative change in the heritable characteristics of a population” he shows that he had discovered the true about evolution though his study by using reason.
Through perception, “Is everything we see is real?” The answer is No; we might see 4 - 5 legs or even more legs on an elephant in the picture. Our senses do not always give us a true which means perception is the weakness of reason because what we see might not always be true.
For emotions, reasons neglect emotions like anger, fear, frustration and amazement. For example, when you are angry, you will entirely ignore all reason and do whatever is right for you. Emotions have a great impact on our lives which should not be ignore by reason. Reasons miss out an important role in our life and reasons also created huge gap of weaknesses. Reasoning can be used to understand certain beliefs as well as eliminate superstitions which are not believable. When believing in superstition reasoning might also pose a problem in certain cases. One example from superstition is that sings while eating at dinner. In Thai culture, sings while eating at dinner will cause you to have an older wife than yourself. Though, it cannot be seen as plausible in science as it cannot be proven by any of scientific method. In addition, reason can be used as an advantage to explain a certain superstition. Sings while eating, could cause suffocation due to rice slip through your throat.
Language as a way of knowing is however not 100% reliable when translated. Is it important to know what the words actually mean? Or what the dictionary says it means. People would claim that without language knowing would be impossible, that only language could create reality. Without it, how can we communicate and thus obtain knowledge and though knowledge we reason things. We often acquire knowledge from books, actions and teachings. With that in mind, let us yourselves: What would we understand if there were no languages in the world? The answer is nothing. Language is not restricted to merely words, but it encompasses actions as well, and for example, language controlling emotions when we are able to derive sorrow from the phase “I’m sorry for your loss”. However, language is biased. Who is to say whether a person is a terrorist or freedom fighter, after all, the definitions of these two words are similar which they fight for themselves, but their connotations are different. It may be argued that language is only one of the four ways of knowing, however, I would like to emphasize that language is the basis of emotion, reason and perception. People may say that we can infer happiness from a smile and sadness from frown; however, as mentioned earlier, language controlled emotions.
In addition, emotions could have control over language, when we are angry, we would use certain different words as compared to when we are happy. This means that our emotions control the use of words, in contrast to the earlier view that we use words to express different emotions. Language is used to perceive emotions. For example, people are shown three pictures, 1) one of a man about to punch a punching bag, 2) one of the same man having just punched a punching bag, 3) and a different man who is about to punch a punching bag. They were asked which two of the three are the most similar. Thai people would choose the first two pictures which is the same man while other country would choose a punching bag that is about to be punched. This is an emphasis on the chronological, rather than the position of the punching bag. To be able to reason, we need to think, thus we need a medium to think, language provides it. For example, in mathematics, we use symbols to logic out the problem and deduce the result. These symbols are forms of language. However, the divides between colours may be different, for example yellow and orange, but this does not imply that people speaking different languages do not perceive the difference between a darker orange and a lighter orange. Through this, we can see that people are capable to perceive the "object" overcoming the biases that language may impose. Languages form strengths as a way of knowing by including emotions. Conversely, though perceptions, language are biased and we may preference one thing to another, such as colours.
It seems clear that reason has strengths and weaknesses as a way of knowing because knowledge is obtained from the nature, language, emotion and logic where all these aspects have different conclusion on each aspect. As a way of knowing, reason can partly help us understand way we know things better though reason where strengths and weaknesses have only just fulfilled a probability to improve our knowledge through reason.
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