The reasoning It is the ability of human beings to exercise reason and, therefore, thought. However, in particular this word is used in reference to a way in which that thought is exercised, a way of reaching certain conclusions. For instance:
Cars in England are built to drive on the left.
That car is English.
That car was built with the steering wheel to the left.
It happens that, although the mechanisms through which people think and draw conclusions are complex, some have been simplified to associate them directly with language and logic. Thus, many scientists worried about the validity of the propositions not in terms of an empirical correspondence with reality but through formal criteria that can show what will be true in all cases, without needing to be observed.
The particular case of reasoning is one that broadly deals with link two given knowledge to arrive at a third party almost as a common sense resolution. The reasoning is supposed to be ‘unleashed’ until reaching the final conclusion made by the speaker.
Types of reasoning
- Deduction. It has the particularity of being able to speak in scientific and proven terms: the two propositions that are taken as ‘given’ are the existence of a general law of a group, and the affirmation that a particular belongs to that group. The conclusion is that that individual will comply with that law, and it is valid to say that once the first two are insured, the third will necessarily be true.
- Induction. Here the question is not so absolute, it is not based on a general law but on particular cases: from the fact that the same thing happens to two who have something in common, it follows that that will happen to all those who have that. The truth can no longer be assured from this: the assessment of the formulation of the general law, once carried out, can be assessed as’ probable‘ of not finding any counterexample, and ‘false’ of finding any counterexample.
As said, reasoning follows a logical procedure and therefore it does not have to do with individual criteria. It is very common to find erroneous deductive reasoning even in prepared people, such as the usual one that alters the order of deduction: it has the general law that says that everyone in a group has a characteristic, and when seeing that an individual has that characteristic it immediately associates with that group.
Examples of reasoning
The following list is made up of examples of reasoning, then indicating whether it is inductive or deductive. The deductive will always be true by definition, while in the inductive it will be clarified whether they are probable or false.
- Cars in England are built to drive on the left.
That car is English.
That car was built left-hand drive. (Deductive) - My sister’s birthday falls on Monday.
My birthday falls on Monday.
All my parents’ children’s birthdays fall on Monday. (Inductive, probable) - All living things need to feed.
Plants are living beings.
Plants need food. (Deductive) - The sum of the squares of the legs is equal to the square of the hypotenuse.
The legs are 3 and 4 centimeters long.
The hypotenuse measures 5 centimeters. (Deductive) - The capital of Brazil begins with ‘B’.
The capital of Argentina begins with ‘B’.
All the capitals of South America begin with ‘B’. (Inductive, false) - Every Tuesday I wake up in a bad mood.
Today is Tuesday.
Today I wake up in a bad mood. (Deductive) - She ate the cake you made and she got sick.
I ate the cake you made and I got sick.
The cake made people sick. (Inductive, probable) - Every March it rains.
This month is March.
This month it will rain. (Deductive) - Romina goes to dance every weekend.
Yesterday was the weekend.
Romina went dancing. (Deductive) - The minister of labor is a man.
The minister of agriculture is a man.
All the ministers are men. (Inductive, probable) - Meat has protein.
Today we will eat meat.
I will enrich myself in protein. (Deductive) - The movie on TV is of Greek origin.
The one that happened yesterday was of Greek origin.
Only movies of Greek origin are showing. (Inductive, probable) - All his books were translated into Spanish.
It says here that this book has no translations.
It can’t be yours. (Deductive) - This car is imported from China.
Cars imported from China are very expensive.
This car is very expensive (Deductive) - My stomach hurts.
I ate food out of state.
Food caused my stomach ache (Inductive, probable)